Rainblog

If you’re selling anything - or even if you’re not - you’ve probably been subjected to dozens of offers from people who want to help you “harness the power of social networking” to market your product. The phrase is particularly common, of course, in the sleazy world of get-rich-quick schemes and spam, but the more reputable sectors of the economy are also asking themselves the same basic question: how can I use all this Twitter and Facebook and YouTube stuff that the kids seem to be into these days to sell more of my shit?

The answer - one answer - showed up recently in the form of a viral ad campaign by the makers of Old Spice deodorant, which featured their shirtless spokesman responding to messages from Twitter users from the comfort of his own bathroom (or someone’s bathroom, anyway). The witty and surreal videos were produced in close-to-real-time and showed a deft touch and a good understanding of their medium and their audience. They may not have sold many actual cans of Old Spice, but it’s a safe bet that large numbers of people who would never otherwise have thought about Old Spice have suddenly had it dragged into the forefront of their consciousness, in a positive way. (For the record, I haven’t thought about Old Spice in years, not since a friend unwisely used it to try to mask the odor of some rotten eggs. This traumatic incident created an association in my mind that has led me to try to suppress all thoughts of the brand ever since. But I digress).

The most striking thing about that campaign, however, was the amount of effort that went into it. The advertisers made eighty-seven videos in an eleven-hour period (that’s seven and a half minutes per video, for those of you keeping score at home). To make it work, they had to be able to plan and realize their improvised responses at high speed and they had to hit exactly the right note to appeal to their audience. If they hadn’t thoroughly understood the medium they were working with and hit on a novel formula for using it, the whole project would have fizzled and died. It may have looked like a bravura piece of high-speed improvisation, but it wouldn’t have worked at all without some solid planning and preparation. It must have been, in short, a hell of a lot of work.

But the people who want to help you “harness the power of social networking” are coming from a different direction. The implicit promise that they seem to be making is that social networking is some magical new force multiplier: that you can just sprinkle some Twitter and some Facebook on your product under their guidance and your sales will magically skyrocket. What they’re selling is a hands-off, no-involvement-required magic bullet. Just put your product ads on YouTube, goes the pitch, and the kids will beat a path to your door.

Ain’t gonna happen. At best, blindly leaping onto the social networking bandwagon will yield little or nothing. At worst, listening to the advice of the snake-oil salesmen will lead you into the brand-killing swamp of spam. The Web 2.0 generation is fickle and hard to please and they have vanishingly-low irritation and attention thresholds and an almost supernatural sensitivity to anything that smells even faintly of spam. Get it wrong and it won’t be your message that goes viral overnight.

If you want to use online social services like Twitter and Facebook to sell whatever you’re selling, take a look at the Old Spice campaign and think about what made it work. It wasn’t just a charismatic actor and self-deprecating humor that made the viewers feel they were in on the joke. Equally important was the swift response time and the fact that the advertisers engaged the audience directly, even personally. You can’t get that with a hands-off approach. You only get it by hard work. Despite what the self-styled ‘social networking marketing experts’ may tell you, there’s no substitute. There are no shortcuts.