Social media, as we all know by now, has become a foundational element of any modern business's overall PR and Marketing strategy. The interesting thing about it is, like so many trends online and off, what started out as a purely "social" trend as in, "lets meet and be friends", is becoming increasingly commercialized, the extent that many "traditional" businesses (i.e. those that paid no attention to the web, or web trends, as a marketing vehicle) are having to hire "experts" to come in and essentially do for their businesses what teenagers do out of sheer boredom, or simply for fun.
This particular phenomenon is growing at such a break neck pace, it's getting a little ridiculous. Just 2 days ago I heard a piece on Marketplace (NPR) about major corporate players incorporating Twitter SEO strategies into their overall plan. It was kind of funny listening to the conversation, because they were actually discussing the fine line between sending out tweets that sounded like "impersonal advertisements" vs. genuine messeges with a social value for their twitter followers. Yet, we are talking about a multi-billion dollar corpoaration, spending millions of dollars now per year, on a platform that allows exactly 140 characters per messege...Not much room to draw "fine lines" there if you ask me. In that scenario, how would a tweet originating from that source not come off as commercial, no matter how hip, casual, cool, or laid back they disguise the messege to be?
Anyway, I digress. My focus is on San Diego SEO and Marketing developments, so let me get back to that. I was perusing the headlines today, and noticed that a local San Diego marketing and PR company called Bold PR recently hired Anne Carr to head up their new Social Media Division. Congrats to Anne, she brings an impressive bio and background with lots of diverse, relevant experience.
What I found interesting is that the company's press release expounded on how Bolt was an "early innovator" of Social Media for growing San Diego businesses, and how Bolt's new division promises to "educate local San Diego businesses..." on the power of social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. This is all fine and good, and my intent is not to find fault with Bolt here, but this scenario is one that is playing out not just in the local San Diego market, but accross the entire corporate landscape these days. Just watch the headlines - the "Power of Twitter.." is all the buzz these days.
In other words, in my mind, the question begs to be asked: How far can we take the commercialization of social networking? I have seen and heard plenty of Twitterers and bloggers voicing frustration with what has become a constant stream of impersonal advertisements - essentially noise or spam if you will - on Twitter nowdays, and I personally am experiencing it too. Twitter started as viral, social - not commercial - phenomonon that grew virtually overnight, because of an intrinsic appeal. It struck a cord with people, I believe, because it offered a powerful way to stay connected with like minded individuals, without geographic boundaries (a global quality of the Web itself, of course...)
One example that comes to mind is this: Do we send our children to the playground, on a mission to find leads to sell a car or legal services to? If we did, what would the dynamic of their relationships be? The sad part of this is, I landed by chance on a blog post talking about "top 100 ways to make money offline.."or something to that effect, and one of the items listed was: "get your schoolaged child to help you sell your services..." Might be effective, but...really?
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