Well, one thing about the blogosphere, there’s no shortage of opinions. I have to admit I’m getting a little woozy from the back and forth on Web 2.0, the Wisdom of the Crowds, Open Source Marketing, etc., etc. Frankly a lot of it misses the point. But there is one kernel of truth which really resonates. It’s the idea that whatever we call it, this inflection point on the marketing continuum might actually put the humanity back into marketing and media.
In the golden era before the Web 1.0 crash, we waxed poetic about the disruptive influences of the Internet on business and marketing processes. Clients were fascinated with our claim that the Internet was the greatest invention since Gutenberg built the printing press. But let’s just remember what all that excitement was about. The invention of the mechanical printing press (regardless of whether you credit it to Gutenberg or the Chinese) was the beginning of the democratization of information. It was intended to shift the creation and distribution of knowledge from the control of a few scholars and clerics to the broader population. It was a noble aspiration that ultimately devolved into a profit-based oligarchy controlled by the media and publishing elite.
Now the explosion of consumer generated/open source media puts the individual user-participant-producer-advocate back in control. The question is, what makes “good” consumer generated media and what are the implications of this for marketers?
There are many attributes that distinguish good consumer generated media but perhaps most important is authenticity. Authenticity manifests itself in a variety of ways. First and foremost the content is real. Nothing smells faster in the blogosphere than fake, corporate-generated content. There’s an enormous difference between a blog by a Saab enthusiast and the one turned out by Detroit. In good consumer generated media the copy sounds like it was actually written by one person for another, as opposed to using the impersonal corporate “copy voice” created by the brand police. Good consumer generated media provides the opportunity to interact and shows a genuine interest in that interaction. Look at the difference in the level of engagement on the Diabetes Mine blog versus on the Diabetes section of the WebMD site. It’s clear that there’s a conversation going on at Diabetes Mine among participants who are passionately interested in the disease.
There’s no doubt the cow’s out of the barn. Mainstream marketers are latching onto consumer generated/open source marketing with alarming velocity. Major brands are trying everything from blogs to RSS advertising to sponsored podcasts. And they’re dutifully importing all the discipline they honed in broadcast, direct and public relations. But they’re missing the big idea while they’re writing their copy briefs. This isn’t about talking … it’s about listing. Actively. When you’re thinking about using consumer generated media in your next marketing program, the questions to ask yourself are:
¾ Who’s passionate about my brand/product/category?
¾ How do they relate to the rest of my target market?
¾ How can I engage in their conversation, rather than trying to create my own?
Remember these are conversations among individuals, as opposed to loudmouthed corporations getting on soapboxes and shouting at each other. Successful consumer generated/open source marketing means finding ways for your brand to gain permission to enter the conversation … or finding the places where it occurs naturally. It means “keeping it real” versus writing a slogan about it.
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