This morning I was looking at my feeds and came across this post from Nedra Weinreich over at Spare Change. 

Jupiter Research has just launched a new Social Marketing research service that will “provide marketers and site owners with recommendations on how to profit from the use of consumer generated content, blogs, podcasts and other emerging media tools.” Apparently they didn’t get the memo that there is already a long-established field called social marketing that uses marketing to bring about health and social change.

Given my recent launch of Dollar Philanthropy, where really my intention is to promote and assist organizations who are at the front lines of “doing good” in their communities rather than make money for me, I was distressed to see that the well established term “social marketing” had seemingly been used to refer to something that it is not.

As Nedra so succinctly describes, this is more than just a semantic argument.  In fact, the potential confusion of the terms will likely serve to reduce the effectiveness of each practice. 

Let me be clear, I’m not saying that blogs and other interactive media are not effective tools in social marketing (the old, traditional definition).  Obviously, they can be quite effective and very affordable. However, social marketing uses a broader range of tools and methods than just the computer/ interactive ones to produce beneficial social change. 

Jupiter’s definition is simply focused on using consumer generated content with a “word of mouth” marketing tone to push a product or a service through social media channels.  It’s really not a bad thing.  It’s just different.  To them, a “social marketing” campaign is just tailored to convince a person to purchase or subscribe.  Pushing the “greater good” is not really an outcome with which they are concerned.  If it happens— great!  Just the campaign is not tailored to promote this sort of behavior.

Honestly, I feel a bit sorry for the folks a Jupiter Research.  I think it was just a few weeks ago that they were being blasted in the blogosphere for poor methodology on a corporate blogging study they had conducted.  After much fuss, eventually everyone came to an understanding, but it produced quite a buzz.  Read about the background here and here and here (just to name a few- click on the links in the posts to read more). 

Interestingly, Fard Johnmar’s post and podcast on the lessons learned in this exchange between JR and the blogosphere pointed out that “Clarity is King”.  Jupiter Research seems to have learned that lesson– afterall, they have put themselves out there and have actually defined what they are talking about. Additionally, the previous event proved that JR does listen to bloggers. However, once again, JR finds the blogosphere poised to nip at their heels again. I’m sure the folks at JR are feeling:

If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.

Gloom, Dispair, and Agony on Me. 

Buck Owens and Roy Clark, HeeHaw

It is my hope that no one is made the villain here and that both groups can cooperate to make the differences in the two practices and methodolgies clear.  I think that this would serve the “greater good”.  Additionally, the public discussion in the blogosphere could generate positive attention for both.

Technorati tags: , ,