A new front has opened in the ongoing war between Good and Evil. Yesterday, the web was a buzz with the news that ESPN had released guidelines for social media participation by their employees. Not surprisingly, all of the pro Twitter/Facebook marketing crowd were quite upset by this and went on and on about how it would hurt ESPN. They all quite predictably argued that this was not how social media works, it was big brotherish, socialist, and many other descriptions along the same line.
As this happened late yesterday afternoon, I anticipate more similar comments today from the rest of the pro Twitter / Facebook crowd. One of the arguments commonly used for getting companies to embrace social media is that it allows direct communication with consumers and puts a face/name to the company. Another is the low cost to start as most of the applications are free to use. The marketers who make their living convincing companies to jump on the social media bandwagon have a list of reasons as to why this is the future of marketing. While I don’t necessarily disagree with this, most of their case studies are with smaller companies or individuals. But for a multi-media giant like ESPN, will establishing a corporate policy for social media real effect their business or brand?
The interesting thing is that without either written or video content, there is not much to comment about. As ESPN is a content creator and provider, is it really unreasonable for them to force their employees to follow certain guidelines regarding the distribution or re-distribution of content? There are many other huge companies who have already implemented these same restrictions on their employees but because they are not ESPN, it didn’t get reported.
As social media evolves these are issues that will have to be debated – what right do employees have to Twitter or Facebook using company generated content or information? How do you separate your personal persona from your professional one? How do you protect confidential information from being leaked? Basically, how do you protect your brand?
This is just the start of what should be a really interesting ride as these and new challenges pop up in the clash between social media, marketing, and the corporate world.
"Is It Live Or Is It Memorex?"
If you are of a certain age, you most likely remember the pitch, Is it live or is it Memorex? It was a series of commercials from the early 1980s for Memorex. It was a really clever way of pushing their VHS and audio tapes and while the products themselves were not that great, the phrase “is it live or is it Memorex” became part of American culture.
This popped into my mind yesterday in a conversation I had with a colleague regarding virtual versus face to face events. For some reason it seems that there is a lot of confusion regarding what is a virtual event. By virtual events, I am referring to webinars and virtual trade shows and conferences. Basically, it is any event that doesn’t take place in a physical location.
Because of the global economic crisis, far too many marketeers have jumped on the virtual bandwagon as the solution to all of their budget challenges. Virtual is just a tool, like e-mail, direct mail, and web landing pages. The skill is knowing when to go virtual and when not to. I would like to see more of a mix between the virtual would and traditional marketing. A few points:
Virtual events are going to continue to gain in popularity and as this happens, the confusion over what is virtual and what is not should clear up. But remember, going virtual is just another marketing tool and not the answer to all of your marketing challenges.