Social Networking and Advertising: "Two Peas in a Pod" or "Like Oil and Water"?

In a recent conference, two social media experts, John Battelle, who runs the blog ad network Federated Media and Nick Denton, head of Gawker Media, shared their conflicting opinions on social networking and advertising. Battelle thinks social media is the place for engaging advertising while Denton thinks that consumers are attracted to social media for its lack of advertising.

Battelle used the example of his partnership with Dell on Facebook's graffiti wall application. He touted a lot of typical "engagement" stats that we throw around at work all the time. Bottom line, lots of people engaged in the contest. Heck, if I had known about it maybe I would have too. The question is what did it do for sales? I had a Dell once - it was arguably the worst computer I ever had. No amount of brand engagement will ever get me to buy one again.

I tend to think the generation of heavy social media users is comprised of people that are above being marketed to (I know I have said that before). I mean look at the backlash from the release of Facebook Ads. Advertising doesn't really have a place here. Or at least not advertising in the traditional sense (but I suppose there is nothing traditional about social media advertising in the first place). These users are pretty savvy and are going to see right through an attempt to market to them, whether they find the products relevant or not. I see the point that advertising that is from a brand they know I like based on my information that it would be less annoying. But the bottom line is that I don't want to see ANY ads. There is a place for that, and at least for me it is not when I am on a social networking site. If the message comes from the company (i.e. was paid advertising) I think it is falling on the deaf ears of my generation.

In my opinion, the only way to get social media to work for a brand is to 1) actually have a good product 2) find a few brand evangelists and then 3) let them talk about it for you. The first point is critical, and often overlooked by marketing professionals. People don't talk about mediocre things. They talk about things that are really great and things that are really bad. This is seen as a big risk for most marketers, because once the viral marketing begins there is no stopping it - positive or negative. If social networking really is brand building wave of the future I think companies need to focus on making better products and less on their advertising campaigns, because in this medium the only way to be successful will be to leave the brand building up to their customers.