You Don't Control the Conversation Anymore!

One of the major dynamic shifts in marketing in the past several years has been the migration of our role as conversation starters - an active role - to conversation facilitators, a more observational and influential role.

10-15 years ago, we were all charged with integrating our marketing efforts by crafting and streamlining our messaging, ensuring that all of our channels were using the same language, creating "key messages" in bullet point form for the media, and mastering "official positioning" for everything from our product's benefits to our company's role in the community.

Not anymore.

These kinds of manufactured conversations simply don't have staying power and credibility in today's transparent world. The remarkable nature of the internet and social media have broken the conversation wide open, and put the audience in the drivers' seat. Today's consumers, companies, and readers aren't buying the canned corporate statement anymore. And frankly, they could care less about your "official" position on something. They're not going to ignore the unofficial stuff that's out there about you, and they're going to make up their own minds about what's really being said. Brian Solis has a great podcast that discusses this very thing.

So what can you do? Listen to the conversation and participate in it. Hear what people are saying about you, and respond. Craft your "official" positioning by making it your policy to:

- Allow your best assets - your team members, at all levels - to speak about what they know. Quit stifling their insights in favor of "approved" media spokespeople. It's more genuine this way.
- Respond to the dialogue that's happening around you and about you. And that means the criticism, too.
- Pay attention to how your idea of your brand is matching up with how others are talking about you. If they're vastly different, it's time to reevaluate.

Today, we're all charged with letting go a little bit and realizing that we're not the ones dictating the conversation anymore. The social media reality means that conversation and dialogue is now:

• Transparent
• Open to everyone
• Collective - the power of many
  
• Brutally honest
• Fast as lightning.
  

Our role as marketing people is to help create an oustanding, remarkable, and great product/service/idea. Then we participate in the conversation rather than merely trying to control it, and see what a difference it makes. Not convinced social media will affect the way you do business? Read this great post by Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research.

This kind of conversation can actually be great fun, super insightful, and inspirational. I can't tell you how many brilliant people I've met just by opening my brain and my business to these possibilities. Let go of the steering wheel a little bit, and reap the rewards.

How Not To Find a Great Marketing Person

Egads, have you ever read some of the job descriptions for marketing people? Some of them are downright cryptic. And for companies who are looking for "results oriented" people, I'm amazed at how jargon laden and crappy some of them are. Cases in point from just a little quality time with CareerBuilder:


From a big fat Fortune 500 company:

Collaborate with field and other cross-functional partners to identify potential revenue generating gaps or barriers in building infrastructure for any given alternate channel.

Is this jargon for "figure out what's working and what's not?"

From a big department store retailer:

Planning and execution of a multiple cutting edge business and strategic relationship marketing programs supporting the extension and development of online and direct-to-customer channels for XYZ company. Forming partnerships with internal business for expansion of value-added services and capabilities. Forming strategic partnerships with external partners to create new services, adding value to the XYZ customer experience.

Ready for buzzword bingo, anyone? Using the old trick of removing the buzzwords to reveal the essence of the sentence, we're left with little of substance. No wonder this company is struggling mightily.

From another retailer, this time in office supplies:

...this position is accountable for building, maintaining, and expanding the technical infrastructures and analytical skills pool required to consistently deliver timely insight to key decision makers as well as for building strategic relationships with merchandising, marketing, and sales to foster a fact based decision making culture.

As opposed to making decisions based on a bunch of BS? And I'm not exactly sure I'd like to go swimming in an analytical skills pool.

I could go on. (If you're a serious masochist, just head to career builder and type in "marketing". Start reading. Prepare the Advil.)

So how should people find great marketing talent?

You have to be willing to turn convention on it's head a little bit. The essence of great marketing is clear, compelling communication with the people that want to know you. You can't have this be an integral part of your strategy and then recruit people with this drivel.

Start paying attention to the aspects of your potential Marketeers that are the intangibles. I promise you'll find lots of people with adequate qualifications. But pay attention to a few other things:

• Are they personable? Funny? Gregarious? If not, their projects aren't likely to be, either.
• Can they hold an engaging conversation? This translates, trust me. Ever met a great marketing person with a wilting personality?
• Do they have interests outside of work, and do they participate in other activities and communities, either online or off? Great marketing is a good dose of insight and instinct, and only those who are involved in communities will know what it's like to talk to one.
• Is their resume or cover letter full of the same jargon that's in these job descriptions? Red flag.

It'll also help to take a hard look at the job description you're writing and whittle it down to the things you really want someone to do. You probably don't need much more than that. Skip the buzzwords. And when you're interviewing, toss aside the standard "Give me an example of a time you helped a customer with a difficult problem" and get to know the person sitting in front of you.

Smart marketing people are immune to these kinds of appeals, and will often skip right to the next company. Remember, you're selling them the appeal of working with you too, not just doing them a favor by giving them a job. Smart marketers are savvy and in demand, and unfortunately mediocre ones can be found in droves. Which are you searching for?

Are You A Marketing Wannabe?

There's an important point to be made about marketing that to me is plain as day, but apparently it bears repeating.

Not every marketing vehicle is appropriate for you just because it's cool, trendy, new, or because a company you admire is doing it.

Greg Anderson has an interesting article today on AdAge about just this topic. And he actually has a funny anectode about showing up on Facebook and having his teenage niece ask "what are you doing here?".

He says:

Ironically, bad marketing is also part of the reason that people like my niece are leaving one setting and moving on to the next new thing where we're not clumsily asking them if they want to be friends.

Bad marketing. We don't like that term, but the reality is that it's everywhere. And there are countless upon countless articles, blogs, websites and everything in between promising that they can teach you, too, how to be viral and social mediafied and make your business relevant to millions by just putting your stuff on Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn.

So Can I Use This Stuff Or Not?

The answer is yes. But you must proceed with caution and understand these networks or risk ticking off all the people you so desperately wish to reach. Remember these things:

1. Social media is a conversation. Good conversationalists listen, absorb, and participate, in that order.

2. People participating in these communities are there because, uh, it's a community. They welcome newcomers but most are quick to spot the fakes and the posers and promptly ignore them.

3. Consumers - and your audience - are not dumb. Unless you have something that's interesting, relevant, or useful to them, they just aren't going to care.

So How Do I Know What Tools to Use?

I'd actually turn the question around and ask whom you're looking to reach, what you're planning to say, and what makes you unique. Then - and ONLY then - can you start evaluating how to get the message across. And you may find that some "old school" tactics are just as viable as getting yourself in a kafuffle to try and figure out a Facebook page.

But if social media outlets are really something you want to explore, you need to get out there and experience it for a while to build some credibility in the community. Get a Twitter ID and start following people that interest you or are in your industry. Have conversations. Go set up a LinkedIn profile and spend some time answering questions that others are asking.

What you'll find is not only do you learn what people are talking about and how they're digesting new stuff, but you're earning trust and credibility which can be a hundred times more powerful than a cheesy, badly run banner ad campaign (IMHO of course).

So what lessons have you learned about blending your business and new marketing channels? Share your successes and challenges in the comments and we'll do a follow up.