On zee social networking for the channel

Leer Engles,

Some say that resellers and disties who are not adopting some form of social media strategy will be cast out as heretics and forced to live in Coventry.

While others say they could potentially be missing out getting their brand and marketing message out to the influencers of technology buying decisions, as readers of Channel Biz will know The-Evolution-of-the-UK-Channel.pdf

But this strategy will only work, if you take an innovative new approach into using social media outlets and don’t treat them like traditional online vehicles for advertising,according to the social marketing gurus.

So instead of serving millions of hateful and intrusive banners and skyscrapers at your users in the hope that 0.01% will click through to your site and potentially do something that will eventually turn into a sale; you apparently have to get them to “like” you instead!

Alternatively, you could also dress up in a gorilla suit and play the drums on You Tube, with a faint whiff of your corporate branding somewhere out of focus! But most agree, getting some sort of social media presence is essentially a good thing!

And by adopting a social media strategy, it will tell lots of social marketing surveillance operatives who are paid by businesses to snoop on our your users’ online activity, what sort of “engagement” they have with your company or if you are “trending” well.

But is a “like” an intention to buy or an affirmation of the clever marketing? And is the marketing innovative or just the same clever marketer’s using the most modern tools available at their disposal?

I used to smoke Silk Cut cigarettes for years and we all know what its marketing was all about and some would say that in my flares and shoulder length hair I was in my day, well trendy. Stuck in a bunker on a channel golf day, always a Hamlet to hand! No de Facebook then!

Yes the Chocolate-munching-drumplaying-Gorilla was good, yes it trended well, yes it got many “likes” but is this just another piece of (big) data that helps marketeers make money from lead nurturing programmes? Or will it help me sell more of my products and services?

For people like General Motors, the answer is nee (nay). They have recently pulled out of de Facebook advertising, but are keeping a presence with their own page.

But for others including “Sparky” Mark (Zuckerberg) and his chums at Facebook, ”liking” and the equivalent on other social media platforms is almost like the marketing equivalent of the Higgs Boson particle that will explain the mysterious relationship between endorsement and sales.

And to ensure that his users are monetisable in the run up to a massive IPO, El Sparkola is turning his audience into a potentially unwitting social product endorsement and advertising minions.

No more will an innocent “like” of a drum playing gorilla be seen as a mild distraction from a world of austerity and cutbacks, it will be seen as a strong endorsement of the brand and will be sent to all those deemed algorithmically relevant.

Naturally, we can all see why Sparks et al is doing this to keep business interest and so that it continues on post IPO where others such as Myspace and Friends Reunited failed but will the encroaching commercialisation ultimately cut off its nose to spite its Facebook followers?

And will the next generation of users skip Facebook completely and turn to more real time paridigms?
If you want to know more download the research and tell us your experience. And remember, without your Dutch uncles like me, there wouldn’t be a de Facebook at all!

Proost!