Nice post

Wow! I can remember those ‘speed-dating’ days of ‘SWAP’ meetings etc. For anyone in the audience that is ‘Gen-H’ or younger, ‘SWAP’ was ‘Salesman with a Purpose’. For a young, blinded by the light, would-be Real Estate Agent, it was all a bit ‘born-again’ for me…the only thing missing was the group-hugs…

We’ve been having a conversation over on Paul Hassing’s blog (http://mybrc.myobnet.com/2009/10/08/spitting-chips/), that your topic ties-in well with.

I think the excellent video that you’ve included sets the stage beautifully and leads into the underlying dynamics of not only Social Media, but business practice itself.

The interesting thing from my perspective is how businesses seem to be trying to measure and control social media, so that they can ‘maximize’ its potential (meaning their ROI).

We’ve been discussing the power of Micro-Loans in Third World Countries and why we don’t have them here…my short answer was (and Matt might have an insight on this as an experienced professional), Insurance.

Anyway, it seems to me that Social Media, through saturation by ‘non-Carnegie’ marketers, will avail a similar dynamic to the Micro-Loans…that is that out of the hype, human nature in the form of ‘good-will’ may organically float to the surface? It seems to be already happening on Twitter.

It will come back to what is meaningful and trustworthy and that meaning and trust will have to be earned…the days of audio-visual coercion through advertising may indeed be numbered? It may be that advertising will focus almost entirely on brand-recognition and leave the convincing to the product/service and users.

Have any multi-bazillion dollar empires been able to replicate any of the viral-media legends? e.g. United Breaks Guitars – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo ).

I reckon folks like your good self and Matt are on the right track re: Social Media…keep it real, keep it personal and back it up with a great product/service that folks can choose to use as the need arises.

Cheers

Stephen G