Summary
Many marketing firms have failed to re-tool and upgrade their business model in the wake of social media’s rise and now fail to meet their clients’ goals. They apply old school one way broadcast marketing to social media often over-relying on technology and tools for a social web market they don’t understand.

When considering a commitment to social media marketing:
-Be weary of old marketing firms, try to spot those that have re-branded. They’ll waste your time and money.
-Marketing Companies that lean heavily on SEO should not be trusted. SEO is changing and it is not a fix all to improve web rank and increase business.
-The best way? Do it right. Create genuine content and provide infotainment-making genuine content popular is easier than faking it.
-Do your homework when shopping for marketing resources, especially in social media. Make sure that the business model matches the technology they’re using.
-Independent Studies show that tech firms are more successful in social media than marketing firms.
-Consider hiring a consultant, creating a plan, grabbing specialists for the individual parts.

Let me be clear, I’m not against marketing firms, I’m against traditional marketing firms. The firms that were extinct dinosaurs of yesteryear, that should have been out of business long ago yet they linger and remain, haunting us like the re-branded Loch-Ness Monster. They are now taking outdated approaches to the web and wasting money and eye sores for the entire world to see. If you wish to market on the web or in social media- be weary about hiring a marketing company.

We often find ourselves consulting with print media companies, participating in focus groups and providing feedback that goes against the very deceptive nature of traditional marketing and business thought. Marketing efforts in this day in age need to be more subtle and sincere, yet low and behold many firms and departments are discovering new tools to do the same old tricks.

Background & History

Marketing firms are less successful in social media marketing efforts because they are too immersed in the traditional business model that primarily consists of the business of bullshit. To the consumer, business language is bullshit. To the business listening to business language from another business; the language is also bullshit. At no point in the exchange is any of communication in the grown up game of Monopoly taken seriously or misread as sincere.

Marketing teams are the unfortunate middlemen charged with taking the corporate fecalith and simplifying it into a message that is shouted to the rest of us. Unfortunately for the consumer and all of humanity this has a reasonable success rate for a long time. Yet over the last 15 years or so, the natural immunity to BS has increased.

Most of us know to ignore traditional ad-space, turn the page, blur it, block it and focus on content and the task at hand.

A New Hope: Information Age & Social Media Saved Us

Thanks to a tanking economy, the Internet and information age, we live in a society of connected consumers that are resilient to traditional marketing methods. However, the business to business world is still slow to catch up and marketing firms are slow to change. They are still fighting the current and trying to use every tool new and old to take advantage of other businesses and consumers.

Adapting to social media and the web requires a complete business model make over for most businesses; a complete re-tooling and re-training and most firms cannot afford to do this. So what do they do? They do what they are good at. They fake it!

The Evil Marketing Empire Strikes Back

The old marketing companies just changed the names, picked up a new vocabulary and sling it about to generate revenue. These companies abuse words and rename a few titles and things in the same ridiculous way that most approach politically correct speech.

Deceptive Re-branding Examples
A marketing team is now often referred to as a team of “engagement specialists”-Wait- do they do weddings?
Many companies also over use buzz words such as buzz, communicate, youtube, engage, commit, viral, social media, etc. Sometimes they claim to be experts in unquantifiable, vast areas such as social media. This is like saying you are an expert in quantum physics. In areas where everything is theoretical, there are very few experts.

Tech Tools & Tech Fools

The problem with traditional and even “re-branded” Marketing companies, is that they take to technology like a 12 year old boy does to a slingshot. They are desperate to use new tools and prove themselves in the new marketplace and end up breaking something.

Misleading the masses about the power of SEO is a prime example.

S-E-No they didn’t! Yes. They did.
Traditional Marketing companies worship SEO and lead off strongly with SEO as a value propositon. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and the tools and techniques revolve around using descriptive words and “natural” language to increase page rank and visibility on the web as determined by robots and mathematical formulas. The Result of these efforts? They are by far less significant than the social layer of the web that now governs rank and visibility.

Even more problematic for the SEO minded is the fact that Google; the search leader and media giant, is dedicated to pursuing ranking systems based on natural language and genuine content; constantly eliminating the cheap tricks of traditional SEO keyword placement.

The firms and the clients that over use keyword placement are easy to spot. They use unnatural, slightly off word placement along with phrases and repetitive language in every aspect of their design to describe themselves and their products. Repeating words appear over and over as if binding a magical spell; advise, brand, communicate, interact. The goal here is to get you to repeat their chant so they can watch their rank increase. Meanwhile, the human population is completely confused by the experience and are not likely to use the product or services unless easily fooled.

Another favorite word twist that is interesting is when a company says they are “Creating Identity” when they really mean logo design. There is nothing wrong with logo design. Every business needs one but what they don’t need is the false sense of security that because they have a logo, they now have an identity. Let’s face it there’s more to creating an identity than a logo.

Flash Me

Going back to the slingshot example, you give a marketing firm a Flash guru and they’ll redefine annoying web elements. Every time you see those over animated websites that come off as more complex and blurry than the last Transformers movie, you are dealing with a company focused on the buzz of the word, concept and obsessed with the tool; not the client, audience, culture, interface or message.

Bottom Line:
Do your homework when shopping for marketing resources, especially in social media. Make sure that the business model matches the technology they’re using.