I sometimes wonder if there hasn’t been some sort of plague that ravaged the marketing community a few years back. Because it seems to me that the body of marketing knowledge built up over the last 60 years or so has all but vapourised.

Dave Fleet’s a keen observer of social media, an interesting blogger and a genial tweeter. But frankly it appals me that he has to waste his time counseling the marketing community on principles so basic your average kid with a lemonade stall could probably rhyme them off.

I’m not knocking Mr. Fleet, he obviously feels there is a need for some basic education (and I confess to being somewhat disingenuous in that I regularly come upon clients who are equally bereft of nouse). But for pity’s sake:

“What are we trying to do? Who are we trying to reach? How do we best reach those people to achieve those things?”

No wonder the average CMO has a lifespan of 24 months or less. It seems they’ve been press-ganging bike couriers and copier repairmen to fill the ranks of the marketing department given the dearth of understanding of basic principles.

“You know, you really should be on billboards.”

“Why?”

“Hey man, everyone’s on billboards – you simply gotta be there.”

Even the most naïve of marketing people would look askance at an agency or underling who made so baseless a recommendation. And yet that’s exactly the logic that seems to be employed when it comes to social media.

Marketing is simply the art of figuring out “Who do I want to do what, when and how will it further my business?” Social media are just that – media. Evaluate them the way you would any other (as in, think about the ‘who’, ‘what’, and ‘when’ questions), participate in them (as a user not a marketer, the same way you watch the telly) and demystify the arcana for yourself.

Oh, and the availability of metrics is not a reason to use a medium. Metrics are a tool not an objective. They don’t further your business, however good they look on a power point slide.