Here's a snippet of a conversation we had at yesterday's Social Media Mastermind Roundtable meetup in Orange County. Just as we do every Saturday morning, the meet starts with no agenda but never fails to touch on new/interesting topics. Yesterday's lineup started with the viral nature of the Old Spice Man, and then meandered through discussions about social media trends, recaps of the Inman Conference in San Francisco, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, and other keen topics.
Below is a snip from the dialog we had yesterday when Rob Hahn (@RobHahn) posed a question -- a concern really -- about the state of social media marketing. The transcript below picks up at the point just after having voiced a concern about potential future consumer backlash to social media as just another source of "spam." You'll be picking it up below with Rob wondering outloud where we are on the proverbial "curve" of, what I took to mean as a product lifecycle curve, of sorts. (He didn't really say what type of curve, so I had to frame it for myself somehow. Turns out, I think the metaphor was on point.) Other names in the conversation: Eric Bryant (@TheRECoach); Eric Stegemann (@EricStegemann); Amanda Wernick (@FunomenalRealtr); Loren Nason (@LorenNason) and yours truly listed below as Mel (@MelAclaro)
Rob: ...I'm just wondering, where are we in that curve?... I feel like at least last year/two years ago it (social media) still felt like it was "fresh." If you were doing something through social media, you were getting pretty high conversion rates and engagement metrics. But, now, I don't know. Personally I'm not sure that I would ever respond to anything via any social network because I'm afraid it would just be spam...
Mel: And I think that's what it is. We're just going to keep evolving and come up with something new. To your question earlier about where we are on that curve, it's like a product lifecycle curve where it starts kinda negative, it dips down, and then it comes up and it plateaus. But each time, when it plateaus, then there's another innovation that happens at that plateau that then creates another innovation... another product lifecycle emerges. And I think that's where we're at. I think we're starting to plateau. But, if you go back about 20 years or so when you had Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel; the first spammers. (Reference to the "Green Card Usenet Spam".)
Eric B: I don't think it's even started yet...
Eric S: At which level, Rob? You mean in terms of adoption or in terms of people using it as a primary communication tool?
Rob: I guess what I'm wondering is at what point will consumers start to view social media marketing as the equivalent of email spam?
Eric S: I think it started that way because of of spam. I think people will always tune it out. And I think that's the difference where social media came in because from day 1 it was unacceptable to talk about your products... because people were used to email marketing... so they automatically tune it out and right from the beginning it was like, "we are not even going to allow this. We're not going to let this interfere with our enjoyment of this product."
Rob H: ...let me an example... there's this little nightclub in San Francisco. I go on to their home page, and right on their home page are all the little icons to "follow me on twitter,"... and I'm going, "why would I follow you?" So clearly from the business' standpoint, they're just using this as another marketing channel.
Eric B: ...I think if I enjoyed my time at that club, I would follow them on Twitter because then they could actively let me know what band is playing Friday and I wouldn't have to go search for that information...
Rob H: ...How is that different from eMail, though...?
Eric S: Because it's opt-in! There's a major difference... I opted in to receive the message from them (the business' Twitter account), I did not opt-in to get the one from Viagra (via e-mail), lets' say.
Amanda: But you know what, the difference is too, though, is that eMail is broadcast. It's "this is what we're doing..." and it's one-way. It's push marketing. With social media, it's interactive. You opt-in, you develop a relationship and if you don't like where it's going, you opt-out...
Loren: That's no different than eMail marketing. I can delete spam... I can unsubscribe...
Amanda: But notice the conversation on the email that's being sent out versus the conversation on Twitter or Facebook. It's interaction. It's "what do you think." It's taking a poll. It's, "hey, come on down, look what we're doing." It's referrals...
Loren: I can send you an email that says "hey how're you doin' what's goin' on..."
Amanda: You know what, you do that and if I know you maybe I'll respond. If I don't know you, I'm not going to respond.
Loren: So, if I'm selling MacTools. And I happen to find (from your "wall") that you like it... And I say, "Hey, Amanda, how're you doin'. What's goin' on?", on Twitter...And you don't (otherwise) follow me and I don't follow you. I just saw that you said the word "tools." And I say, "Hey this is MacTools, what's goin' on, how've you been?"
Amanda: I will respond to that...
Loren: But, if I sent you an email that said "Hey, Amanda, how're you doin'?"...
Amanda: Delete. Spam.
Eric B: Spam.
Loren: See, I think it's going to change eventually. And eventually you're going to say, "I'm not gonna respond to that."
Eric B: Until eMail can "retweet", eMail will not have the power. Because if I'm a nightclub and I tweet out that "Band x" is going to be here. And it comes to me. I will retweet it...There's a much higher chance that I would retweet it than forward (the email) to my list...
Rob: But, wait. What's the difference between a retweet and forwarding an email?
Eric B: I just said that... because how often do you forward to everyone in your book...? Think of the number. I've only forwarded to everyone in my address book only once or twice in my LIFE. But I retweet once or twice every HOUR.
Rob: I'm not saying there's no difference. What I'm saying though is it strikes me as, we are at a certain point in the effectiveness of the marketing tool... I guess what I'm saying is that the reason why I differ is that if you look at some of the larger corporations that are starting to get involved with social media...You know, and I'm like, look, Dell does not care about me. You know, if I'm following them on Twitter. I'm not going to have a relationship with Michael Dell. It's not going to happen. What they're trying to broadcast out... deals and news and, "hey, we just released a new Dell notebook and if you click on this link now, it's 10%..." I could see the VP of Marketing sitting in a room going, "...so how are you going to measure the effectiveness of this...oh, I know! We're going to set up this custom link, we're going to track the campaign..." And I'm going...at some point the consumer is going to go, "this is starting to feel like email (spam)." So, then we're going to come up with something new at that point.
Rob: "Innovators." (Room chuckles)
Mel: And there was a lot of controversy in that; it created the dip (in the lifecycle curve), but then within the next 5 years after that, the internet took off commercially. And it just had this huge growth rate... And then eventually, it plateau'd and then Web 1.0 came in and that created another growth cycle, right? But that was an innovation based on "online brochures...". Then, eventually, it plateau'd again and then Web 2.0 took off then (a new product lifecycle) started taking off again. And I think that's where we are with Web 2.0. It's plateau-ing now. But, remember, last week, we talked about mobile texting. So, I don't think we've even hit the ground yet on what innovations that will introduce. And meanwhile you've talked before (pointing to Eric B) about "Augmented Reality" (as another innovation that could potentially contribute to the growth of a new product lifecycle growth curve.)
And I think, right now, where people are... I think they're struggling to say, "well, I've got 5,000 followers on Twitter, I've got 1,000 on Facebook, but, how do I actually make money off of this?" Those are the questions that I think people are struggling with right now. And there's a juxtaposition there I think with eMail. And part of the whole eMail, social media juxtaposition isn't just about the platforms of the tools themselves. Part of it is the messaging itself. And it's why I think a lot of the guys like CopyBlogger and these guys are getting a lot of traffic. Because I think what they're saying that is resonating with folks is that, while the platforms are one thing, the finesse of the message is another. "Here's how you create a headline...; Here's how you should structure a landing page..." and where the calls to action are and how they're presented (are increasingly important considerations).
And so that's where I think a lot of social medians are struggling right now. And even a lot of longtime bloggers....
Eric S: ...Geoffrey Moore's, Crossing the Chasm... and then "Inside the Tornado" is also good, too... the concepts are essential. We're right now in the fact that social media for business purposes is where we're crossing the chasm. The early adopters have all picked it up. And now it's actually time to generate the cash out of it.
(Fast Forward)
Rob: (when I first started using email)... I remember looking at it and thinking, "you know, this is really cool." And there was a point where when I got an email there was no notion of spam. Spam did not exist. So it was really fresh... (Now, with) social media... I feel like what's happening now is that we're just decreasing the cost of companies to market to me. And I don't want to be marketed to that much, I really don't... at some point, as a consumer, I'm going to get a point to where I'm saying, "I really don't want to be spammed. I don't want to be marketed to." And yet, because of things like social media are now really blending my private sphere and the public sphere, I feel like the backlash is going to be something like what we've never seen as marketers and it's going to make our lives incredibly miserable.
Loren: Well then everybody's just going to go offline...
Eric B: Yeah, but by then we'll be long gone... (room laughs). The life span of social media will be incredibly long. But just like anything else, it'll "bell curve" and work out. But eMail, it's sixteen years old and it's still pretty strong. It'll fade... but social media might have 30 years of life in it, but it'll be for two more generations to figure out what's next...
Rob: I just feel like the cycle is getting shorter and shorter...
Mel: But, that's just Moore's Law playing out...I know you said earlier that it scares you as a consumer. But, I'd like to just challenge the idea about us not wanting to be marketed to. Because, actually, I think if we were to look at it objectively, I think people would say we do want to be marketed to. Because that's one of the channels through which we find out about new products that come on the market that could potentially improve our living conditions... That's actually how I learn about new products that come on the market. The difference though is that, while I absolutely agree that I don't want to be spammed to, I think the next evolution of all of this is, like what Facebook is doing: they're gathering more information, we're providing a lot more information and, yeah, I think there are going to be some privacy issue backlashes...Congress, I do believe within the next 5 years, will get involved and there will be some regulations around privacy, but it's eventually going to settle out. And we'll come up with a new "norm." And part of that norm will leverage all the information I've provided. It will still result in marketing to me--only the difference will be that because of all the information I've provided, the marketing information I receive will be more relevant to the kinds of products that are closer to my interests.
Eric S: THAT'S the key.! ...And now it's getting much better as time goes on. And the thing is that I'm finding that the people I'm connecting with on Twitter ARE brands. They're the people I'm more interested in connecting with. I find myself clicking and connecting with the night club that might be in my area because I want to know when the $2 off drink special for that evening... I can't tell you how excited I was when I checked in on FourSquare at the bar we were at in San Francisco and found I could get half price! I flipped out...! ...And the difference with email is that, at any point, I can control who's going to send me a message... Yes, finally we're seeing email filters. But I still can't turn that (spam) off... With social media, I can. I can click that button that's labeled "spam," "unfollow," "block", whatever I want to do and I don't have to hear from that person ever again.
You're Turn
There was a lot more dialog during the morning. But, I stopped the transcription there for a moment because then we moved on to another topic.
But, what do you think? IS social media marketing becoming more like spam? Is there a danger there for consumer backlash?
