Well, unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere with a dial-up connection, you have no doubt heard that the new way of culture, society, public relations, marketing, and everything else now revolves around "social media."
I have seen so many people give such persuasive arguments about this latest Internet phenomenon, that I bought into it hook line and sinker. I got on facebook and posted in all sorts of groups, and I started this blog.
Now I have no regrets, I have been having lots of fun on facebook, and this blog has been a wonderful thing for me in terms of organizing thoughts and just generally blowing my own horn. But I have to tell you, as marketing tools, they are a total bust. I have yet to sell one single book, orchestra kid show, or speaking engagement, through "social media."
What continues to work for me, and quite magnificently in fact, is old-fashioned standard (antisocial?) media. For the orchestral kid shows, a one page full color flyer, mailed directly to potential customers, has proven to be by far the most effective means of selling those products. For my speaking engagements, it has always been 100% of a non-electronic "who ya know" concatenation. Book sales are at an all-time high these days, but this is 100% attributable to Amazon searches, reviews in print magazines, and my own television appearances.
I ask everyone who buys a book from me how they heard about it, and I have yet to hear anyone say "I heard about you on facebook."
I realize saying this is Internet heresy, and since social media has not worked for me, it’s quite possible that it is simply because I am "stupid." But since I have mastered stupidity science, I have no problem in admitting to that. Bear in mind, I really really really want to believe that social media will be the answer to all my marketing problems, but so far, bupkus.
There is no question that "social media" is an emerging powerful force. But at a certain level, in my opinion anyway, human interaction is not going to fundamentally change just because an electronic device makes it a little easier to talk to your best friend. My take on this is that people are still very likely to put trust in what they perceive as far off media icons. Your next door neighbor recommending a product to you will have one level of effect. That same product being recommended in a major magazine, news program, or by Oprah will have an entirely different effect on you. You may very well trust the major media outlet more, not less. Fact is, most of one's "friends" on facebook are really just acquaintances, and are you really going to trust their opinion over that of the team at Consumer Reports?
There is no question, that for some mainstream products, social media has great potential. If you can drop some mentos into your product and make it explode, you will probably get a few million views on youtube. But such things are very much the exception, not the rule. Creating a blog or a youtube video that millions of people will immediately want to share with all their friends, and that will also feed back directly and lead to an increase in sales . . . like cold fusion, there’s something to it, and it kind of sort of works here and there, but I have yet to be able to replicate this in my own laboratory.
© Justin Locke
