This excellent post by Amber Naslund inspired me today: On social media and culture shift.¹

There's no denying that the 'media' is changing, driven (it seems to me) both by technology and attitude shifts, and as a result we have the new, and rather scary 'social media' landscape. Accordingly, marketing, and much of what is held up to be traditional marketing practice, must change.

I suppose this belief makes me a somewhat unusual marketer. I've always been a bit disillusioned by certain aspects of traditional marketing, and I seem to spend more and more time now telling people that most of what they've learned about marketing from text books is dead.

This may not appeal to potential clients who are looking for the same old, same old when it comes to marketing. But when it comes to keeping my head down and doing stuff that people ask for, while knowing in my gut it ain't gonna work, ("the client is always right, and besides, this is what we were taught on that CIM diploma 10 years ago..") I just can't do it any more.

So it's thrilling to hear it put so well by people who really do know what they're talking about: things need to be done differently, right across the company. Social media is not an add-on. As Amber says in her post, "for most companies, adopting social media means changing their mindset about how they do business".

Luckily, there are organisations out there, small businesses in particular, with less 'company culture' baggage, that are open and interested in doing things differently, prepared to experiment and unafraid of change.

¹ http://altitudebranding.com/2009/07/on-social-media-and-culture-shift

Eggbox Marketing - www.eggboxmarketing.co.uk