You get what you pay for…
That’s what the old guy said. Bob Frost – recently plucked from the blog-o-sphere (he lost his website, which was a damn shame, IMO). Old school too. Very old. His favorite class: Latin.
I met Bob just before I fell into (his words) the “evil pit”; aka “marketing communications.” That was a gazillion years ago at Cal State Fullerton. He taught classical literature and Latin to children of spoiled university brats – “sic semper tyrannis,” he says. I was one of those brats, I suppose.
Nowadays, we keep touch so that he can jabber in that dead language. He admits that the only purpose it serves nowadays is to help attorneys make their “sorcery” as impenetrable as possible - deus ex machina. And, he adds with a slice of sarcasm, “Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum viditur.” Trans: everything sounds more impressive when said in Latin. Consensio? LOL!
Here’s a new invention that will make Bob curl up in his grave (when he gets there): Accipio pro pensus: or in the custom of the vulgar dialect: “you get what you paid for.”
I was thinking about so-called social media marketing (SMM) “experts” alongside another oversold tagline search engine optimization (SEO) “experts.”
You may think I’m merely being cynical, and to be fair, I am a public relations practitioner (full disclosure). But the truth is, what the heck are people thinking? At every turn, ePeople are trying to eCreate a new eMarketing paradigm. eeeGod.
We didn’t start thinking about optimizing our sites for search engines until shortly after 1997 and the term itself didn’t take hold until around 2000. Social media stormed at us between 2003 and 2007, and with it, the businesses conundrum over what to do with swelling audiences on Twitter, Facebook, et cetera. Schools like San Francisco State University now offer a certificate in social media marketing. A year ago, somebody posted this article on Technorati expounding the virtues of other colleges offering much the same. All well and good.
I take exception when “experts” swarm around the terminology like smelt during spawning season. Reminds me of other tech epochs that triggered similar confabulation: when people blustered about the need for “desktop publishing experts” when what they really wanted was somebody well versed in graphic production and publishing. And remember the mad dash to grow “Webmasters”? My only surprise is that somebody didn’t try to formalize ‘TechnoGuru’ into a degreed profession.
This is probably what sent networking maven, Peter Shankman (www.shankman.com) over the edge with this gem:
Being an expert in Social Media is like being an expert at taking the bread out of the refrigerator. You might be the best bread-taker-outer in the world, but you know what? The goal is to make an amazing sandwich, and you can’t do that if all you’ve done in your life is taken the bread out of the fridge.
Words – no matter how clever or trendy – do not become the art that they were intended to serve.
I don’t have a problem with the task of working all things SEO and SMM. I don’t have a problem if somebody does a lot of that kind of work. But when we surrender to the ‘mystery’ of the tech, we lose perspective. They should be treated as functions in a total public relations and marketing communications strategy; forged with thoughtful research, planning, implementation and evaluation; weighed against all marketing functions for BOTH ROI’s – (relevance, originality, impact AND return on investment!). Capisce?
Now then. Caveat emptor: let the buyer beware! -HP
