Social Networking Week in Review and Marketing Myopia Once Again

September 24, 2009

rush2001

Fortune 500 Series: FedEx delivers success through social media …
By Jennifer Leggio

Blogger, Jennifer Leggio showcases The FedEx Citizenship blog that provides insights from their employees into FedEx global citizenship programs and the The FedEx Cares Week blog is an internal blog that chronicles the annual global philanthropy event by having team members share their stories about the community service projects. …

Hill and Knowlton’s New Blogging Code of Conduct

Hill and Knowlton publish their blogging “Code of Conduct.” This is a nice model for other organizations to use.

The Top Six Reasons Companies are Still Scared of Social Media

This article showcases the reasons why companies are afraid of social media. Whereas they are typical reasons that make sense, the article is good at aggregating the most common reasons. The hurdles for companies are getting lowered by organizations like SAS who take on the risk, trusting and encouraging their employees to blog and prove that it is still better to be “out there” than to hide behind corporate walls.

My Take

I spoke with a couple of social media experts this week and found that, once again, myopia is still alive, well and living in peoples’ minds still. By this I mean that many see social networking as their ticket to great success. They think that because there are so are confused how to make social networking work that there is a huge market out there and that they can just put a shingle out that states they are social media experts overnight. Recently someone shared they had a construction worker friend who is now teaching LinkedIn.

I’ve been teaching people social networking for more than a decade and up until last year many still didn’t understand the basics of business networking. Now there are five times the number of experts on the subject than there were even three months ago. What a strange time this is! It will be interesting to see how all this shakes out in the next couple of years. I remember when I use to hold networking events and there was an over abundance of bankers; then came the plethora of coaches. Now everyone is a social networking and new media expert. Hmmmmm.


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  • http://www.linkedin.com/in/irisaf Iris Florea

    Melissa,
    For new people to become "experts" in social networking there are two driving force that act together: the desperation to make some easy money and being oblivious to values and common sense. Somebody with a street smart mentallity sees an opportunity to sprint ahead and make some money, they just get under some protective umbrella, and start a line of business.
    I have met with these types of people pretty often, and the louder they bark, the more accepted are by their immediate society. They don't bring any value, but they are there, and that is far more common then not. It is not only with social media, you will find them in engieering offices as well. They steal ideas and bark loud, and are accepted.
    I was wondering as well how is this possible? But it is. And the answer probably lies in social psychology.
    Your thoughts?

  • http://www.networldingblog.com Networlding

    Your insights are real and they happen more than anyone would like but there are people out there and all you need do is follow them, listen to them and even hire them when you are able to so that you learn what the leaders are doing.

    I spend my days doing just that. This year I have spent over $20,000 hiring the top leaders in social media who are authentic, caring and brilliant. Not everyone has that kind of money to spend, especially the small business owner, but one line I use for entrepreneurs that still holds true after two decades is, " Don't spend money on anything unless you absolutely have to . . .but do spend it on those things you have to."

    I spend my money on great coaching from experts. They are out there and they are worth it.