Why do social media marketing books find it necessary to prove traditional media is bad in order for social media to be good?
I’m reading a social media marketing book by an author I respect and several times during the early part of the book the author finds it necessary to criticize traditional media as being inferior to social media. Why is this necessary? Is traditional media really that bad?
I just don’t understand why social media consulting agencies find it necessary to trash traditional media in order to prove what they do is good. It reminds me of my old advertising sales career when I sold radio advertising for Clear Channel Communications. Advertising sales reps in all media were notorious for selling, not plans for results, but how their channel was superior to all the others.
A newspaper rep would walk into a potential client’s office and declare how superior newspaper was to television, because newspaper was the trustworthy medium and people could touch your ad. A television rep would then march into the client’s office and trash newspaper, because television was the visual, mass medium. Followed by a radio rep who would trash both television and newspaper because radio was the frequency medium that could target demographically. And so on and so on. Now social media consultants and authors talk about hypertargeting and engagement and yadda yadda yadda.
So, is traditional media bad? Of course it’s not. It’s just different. I continue to use traditional media for my clients, and use it effectively. Yes, it’s different than it was 20 years ago and should be used differently. But does that mean you shouldn’t use it? Why does there has to be this air of mutual exclusion with social media consultants?
Why not use the best of both worlds?
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