SwitchedOnMedia and SMM

I was reading Pigs Don’t Fly and found this:

Using banner ads is not social media marketing.

They are simply a traditional, interruption media attempting to use a old practise that doesn’t work in this new space on the Interwebs.

What was that all about, I wondered? Well it seems that SwitchedOnMedia is promoting the use of Facebook Social Ads as a Social Media strategy (SwitchedOnMedia blog is hidden away).

Why use Facebook Advertising?

The breakthough market of Facebook is a flexible advertising channel. We can mine a rich database of potential customers for you, attract participants for market research or build brand awareness through fans who simply appreciate what you do.

As new Social Media channels evolve, we can ensure that you are keeping across trends and taking advantage of new green field marketing opportunities.

The problem is of course, is that Facebook Advertising is actually Heritage Media, in a Social Network. No Social Media in sight. If the consumer doesn’t create it or have control over the distribution it ain’t social media. And yes, that includes viral videos – the consumer doesn’t leave a footprint on those, they are locked down content. And using YouTube as yet another broadcast channel doesn’t mean you are using social media either, in my book. Here’s a post of mine: New/Interactive/Digital Media is NOT Social Media (corrected).

Try calling is “Social Network Marketing” – marketing into social networks as a generic term, and social advertising for ads that are targetted to profiles, with the ability to comment on the ad. So much clearer than confusing everyone with social media which is about getting the social network to co-create media.

By the way, what was the Facebook group called that signed up millions to complain about an ad? I can’t remember what the ad was, but expect to see more anti-marketing campaigns come from consumers being advertised to on their social networks.

Facebook just passed their 100 millionth active member. Not bad, considering they have a high barrier to entry ( you must sign up to see anything and even then you may not find a friend) and only moved outside the walled garden (students only) on September 2006. You try signing up 1/10th of the world’s internet population (1 billion out of 6 billion) over a two year period. And that was half the time MySpace (with their lower barrier to entry, and open network) took.