I’ve been reading a great deal about social media marketing and building of one’s personal network. There’s abundant advice and gurus ready to speak about how social media and “engagement” is about relationship building.
I say that, for the most part, that phrase or concept, as applied to what actually takes place across the vast majority of social media platforms, is bullshirt. From my POV, all the talk about relationship and relationship building has begun to debase the meaning of the word, just like “friending” or “friends” – as used by MySpace or Facebook – began to eviscerate the essence of friendship from the word or idea of “friend”. The adoption and abuse of the words by social media mavens removes the “I SEE YOU” or “I KNOW YOU” – deeply, not superficially – quality of what it really means to be a friend or to be in a relationship with someone. “Trivial Pursuit” would be a better phrase for most of what passes for “relationship building”, as that phrase – relationship building – is employed by social marketing gurus. Given where the proponents of the idea that marketing=relationship think they can take the definition of relationship or “relationship buildint” (to enhance their position as a thought leaders?) – I must conclude that the sending of a “buy from me now” marketing email isn’t that far removed from relationship. “Surely, YOU DO really MATTER to me, that is as much as having another name of my mailing list matters to me.”
So how would I have social media mavens think of or define relationship, so as not to debase the word and transform it into marketing=friend/relationship?
When YOU- Mr./Ms. social media maven or social network connection – lay awake at night, due to an awareness of and concerns about the state of my well-being THEN you might have license FROM ME to begin to ascribe to our connection in the world the word “relationship”.
I say that what those who are concerned about the effects and importance of social media really want to build isn’t a relationship. What you really want to build or advance, via social media and engagement, is awareness -> respect -> trust -> reputation.
“Building relationships” is NOT what the so-called social media revolution is about. Such “social media relating” is far too attenuated – far too removed from real human connection – to have any depth of meaning. The REAL honest to goodness outcome of what may be taking place in the evolving social media world is more akin to a) better communication (“Yes, we listen”, but not really like you BFF might); b) trust building (“Yes, we told you to expect X, we didn’t deliver, we did get it wrong and here’s the proof that we’re making it right”); and, therefore c) reputation building (The public speaks, not YOU, and the masses say “You can be counted on for X”. The classic “What you say about your company is advertising. What consumers say about your company is your brand.)
You want to call what takes place across software platforms “relationship building”? Knock yourself out, but from where I stand (sit, actually) you do NOT have what I would call a relationship with me until such time as a) we have broken bread together; b) hung out in close proximity for some period of time (just the 2 or 3 of us); c) talked at some length and openly and without agenda or pretense and “personally” (Who are you, really?); and likely a good deal more.
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