What would you rather the collective intelligence of a group of the top Social Media Marketer in Australia for free or pay a fee for one Social Media Marketer?
It seems that Australian Marketing blogging community is there in a number of circumstances to pick up the pieces when Australian companies get it wrong.
Lets look at the major cases this year;
Bigpond stuffed up on Twitter and then got the collective intelligence of Lid, Alister Cameron, Katie Harris, Mark Pollard, Stephen Collins, Laurel Papworth, Zac Martin, Brady Jacobsen, Gavin Heaton, Cameron Riley, Jye Smith
Outcome
They took all this knowledge and now have a system that is adequately employing a number of the tactics outlined in the bloggers posts.
Look at the other major drama this year NAB Spamming,
NAB Spamming got the collective intelligence Duncan Riley, Stewart Media , Gerry McCusker, Trevor Cook, Stephen Downes, Matt Granfield, Lee Hopkins, and me
Outcome
Unfortunately they did not do anything with this intelligence however they have been given another chance with their mess they made with NAB and fake commenter Frank.
If you are willing to get it wrong the first time, how could you not beat the information that will be shared from a number of smart minds for free. It begs the question why pay for something that you can get for free?
In my opinion, I think that we are in the early stages of developing the social media marketing industry within Australia and that when more companies adopt SM strategies then there will be a need for Social Media Marketers, however right now you could not argue that BigPond may have just accidently got a gold mine of knowledge off the best Social Media Marketers in Australia for FREE.
This article is clearly heavy on the linkage of love but it hopefully it is directing the right people to the room to help flesh this question out.
The nature of social media is that it’s social. Proponents of social media love to share…
I think that there is still a very big difference between harvesting the opinions of a group of passionate social media experts (who lets face it, don’t have access to the customer insights that the organisation has) and the development of a strong strategic foundation for talking to customers.
Additionally, social media can’t operate in a vacuum to the other digital and non digital initiatives that are out there touching the customer. It can’t be treated as a one off initiative that is left to die on the vine if the cooperation looses its stomach as a result of a bad experience.
Perhaps it is worth exploring a panel on the good the bad and the ugly and the impact this has on marketers appetite to engage in this form of activity. see the post on the better banking blog (http://bankingreview.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-bankers-are-wary-of-social-media.html) about this…
Also, perhaps another panel that looks at how to successfully integrate social media into an overall campaign strategy
I agree with Jenny. Ideas and suggestions are easy, and often freely given. But it is quite another process to take ownership/custodianship of a brand as it begins to acquaint itself with the social media landscape. This is the multidisciplinary role of “business designer” that I have written about previously. A social media project that is created in isolation from brand/marketing and business strategy is unlikely to yield the long term benefits that it should.
Bigpond may have received plenty of advice for free. But there is only value if the Bigpond team are able to transform this into actionable business intelligence. That is where the value of a specialised social media marketer (or agency) is gold.
Proverbial ‘nail on the head’ moment, Gavin!
Life is full of free advice, some of it given with love from those who know of what they speak, but the ability to harvest that advice is a world and a ton of brain cells away from being able to actually DO something productive with it.
Hi Julian,
I’d like to add my voice to the others that have stated the importance behind implementation.
If someone doesn’t have corporate experience I think it’s unfair to expect them to appreciate how the corporate environment works and the value placed on excellent implementation.
Being considered a ‘good operator’ by your peers is high praise.
Everyone will have an opinion. That’s a good thing. The greater the diversity of opinions the better. I recognised the opinions of Lid, Stephen Collins and Alister Cameron on my Telstra – Now We Are Talking blog http://www.nowwearetalking.com.au/blogs/the-scrum/listen–evolve-insights-from-launching-bigpond-twitter
I look forward to watching how the Australian social media landscape will develop as corporations engage with a creative and deep talent pool keen to offer their insights and professional services.
PS – You list Brady Jacobsen in your list of bloggers that gave advice. Brady works for BigPond. He’s the manager that implemented the service.
Regards,
Mike Hickinbotham
Telstra blogger – http://www.nowwearetalking.com.au/blogs/the-scrum
A bunch of us *did* give free advice to the Telstra team. And to NAB. All through our blogs.
Telstra, interestingly enough, followed up in action and by meeting several of us for an after work drink.
Yes we gave some advice for nothing. And I was specifically asked by one of the senior Telstra folks why I was doing it. I told the truth – I like giving the advice and thus building my reputation, but I also hold out the hope that I end up with some work either from that brand or person or from someone they’ve referred to me.
It’s at the point the enthusiastic individuals in Telstra (or NAB, or wherever) want to communicate their ideas to their leadership, or develop corporate strategy that I come in.
So sure, some free stuff. But it’s about building value for later work.
Ideas are for free. It’s not like that many of them are genuinely original anyway.
The devil is always in the detail, so no matter how many blog posts I read about digital photography, I am still always going to have to take a whole heap of photos before I start to get any good.
For brands looking to get things right quickly (read: pretty much all of them) the best case scenario is probably that they would educate themselves as much as possible by reading around the subject and seeking free (or low-cost) advice/consultation from the right people, and then that they would employ the right people to implement those ideas in the most error-free ways.
Giving away ideas is one of the best ways to encourage people to trust you and to encourage them to invest their time and money in a meaningful long-term relationship with you.
Are Ad:Tech cannibalizing Australian social media commentators to promote their conference?
Is the TwitterAgency – voluntary collaborative intelligence on how to market on Twitter by social network marketers – cutting their own throats?
I wrote a post last year Raping the Web 2.0 community about corporates calling in consultants and asking them for an hour for free to “brief” – then walking away and writing a report on the collective intelligence gathered. Nothing new here, unfortunately. Though I think that unsolicited opinions is a different kettle of fishies.
Freenomics is eventually gonna do us ALL out of a job. :P
Hindsight is 20/20 and we are all too quick to jump in and say what we think they should’ve / could’ve / would’ve done if advised properly.
The fact is all the ‘collective intelligence’ in both examples you mentioned simply pointed to the pretty obvious getting the rules of engagement right blah blah so how much value are we really adding to the conversation?
The underlying issue, in my opinion, is more related to the fact that even when marketers have a good grasp of how social media works, does the rest of the company have the same (or any) understanding?
How do you educate people outside of the marketing department if, as Jenny pointed, social media is operating in isolation instead of as part of a solid customer communication platform for the entire company?
Somehow, I highly doubt the decision to pull the pin on the website actually came from NAB’s marketing department… What do you think?
Corporations aren’t social beings. Do we really expoect them to act with social prowess – whether online or not?
Respect, credibility, reputation, popularity are the currencies of social media: individuals seek to earn this currency, not corporations. This is why many small businesses do social media well – because they are run by individuals who aren’t constrained.
Corporations crave profits, shareholder approval and more profits. Individuality in corporations is sacrificed for process (ban facebook, ban expression of opinion about the organisation, ban anything that compromises the corporation).
Come on! These guys are easy targets. They simply cannot be social in their current form – hiring a head of social media markeing is not going to solve the problem – changing the culture of the organisation to be more open and trasparent (individual by individual is). Good luck on that one!
Great post.
Unfortunately I think a lot of corps are getting the wrong advice. In the case of the NAB their PR Agency should have stopped them.
Social media is inherently personal. Corps, in my experience, tend to behave like pubescent boys on their first date. A lot of fumbling. What they don’t get is that it is an opportunity to communicate one on one with their customers. Not corporate to one.
Personally I think they should look to examples like Matt Cutts of Google et al. Senior people representing the corp. Rather than trying to have a corporate entity pose as a person.
Marketing bloggers are good at three things:
1. Applauding great work
2. Emphasising bad work
3. Theorising what made it good or what made it bad
As for getting paid or not, the pay-off may not be money, but we don’t do it for nothing.