Has Social Media Changed the Rules of Professionalism?
January 29th, 2009
That’s the interesting question that was asked by Jim Lodico in the Marketing & PR Innovators group over on LinkedIn.
It got me thinking, which got me responding, which gave me today’s post:
The rules of professionalism haven’t changed any more than the Golden Rule has changed … truth is timeless.
What has changed, though, is that the social media tools that facilitate communication have made it easier for crappy marketers and lowest-common-denominator ideas to dominate the conversation, which in turn makes it harder for quality talent and ethical ideas to get noticed.
Here’s an example:
LinkedIn has a reputation for being a business networking site. Indeed, groups like Marketing & PR Innovators attempt to serve as focal points around which professionals gather.
Someone with relatively little online marketing experience joins an online marketing group on LinkedIn looking for information and guidance. Let’s say they want information on email marketing. They post a question, or maybe read through the existing discussions (if they can find any amidst all the junky threads).
The prevailing view of the posts they see tells them: Buying third-party opt-in lists is the way to go! Spamming has a bad reputation; it’s really nothing more than advertising, the same as direct mail.
(By the way, this is pretty much the way it went on one recent LinkedIn thread I saw.)
Maybe there are one or two dissenting voices, but any relative subtleties of the issue — the legal definition of spam vs. the perception of spam on the part of the email recipient, for example, or the idea that attempting short-term gain can have long-term negative consequences — are lost in the din.
So the prevailing view is taken as industry expertise … and the industry descends another step toward the seventh circle of marketing Hell.
I think it’s a real problem.
Takeaway for marketers: Are your contributions to the conversation raising or lowering the bar?
January 29th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Tough to expect a meaningful answer when the questions are often pointless and self-serving. My favorite inane post these days: “Anyone need a corporate jet?”