Can we be done with the warm fuzzies, s’il vous plait?

I thought we were past this. This idea that social media is the goal as opposed to a channel to reach measurable goals.

I recently attended my second 140 Characters Conference, this time in Montréal. Here’s my observation of social media conferences:

1. Listen to “social media experts” talk about Twitter.
2. Tweet what the speakers are saying about Twitter.
3. Retweet what people have tweeted about what the speaker is saying about Twitter.
4. Display the feed of direct quotes from the speaker that people have tweeted and retweeted.
5. Don’t talk to anyone.

The social media posts coming out of conferences are like the air on a plane. Nothing new, no commentary or value added, just the same thing being recycled over and over again. We are too into ourselves and what we have to say. 

Fellow socialmediaites, we can do oh so much better. 

Talking to a room full of digital marketing and social media professionals about how great you feel when you build real relationships via social media and truly engage with your audience is passé. We get it. That’s why we’re there. 

Can we be done with the warm-fuzzies when it comes to marketing? Talking about the deep friendships we’ve made on Twitter is great. But it’s not marketing. 

Now that I sound like a fun-sucker, I must say that I was impressed by several speakers who touched on subjects like:

• Just because something can be social, doesn’t mean it has to be. Sometimes media should just be passive.
• The value to the consumer of a branded app should be the number one priority if you want the consumer to actually use it. (ex. https://www.sitorsquat.com/ by Charmin)
• It’s very easy to be bold online. As marketers, we have perfected that. What we need to work on now is balance: being more humble online and more bold offline. 
• Canadian media spend (and presumably American as well) is out of whack. Audiences spend the least time consuming print advertising yet that’s where the majority of ad spend is. Audiences spend the most time consuming media on mobile devices yet that’s where the minority of ad spend exists.

So let’s cut the warm fuzzies, non? Let’s talk social media as a marketing channel. 
 

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I’ve missed you.