A few months ago, I happily took up responsibility of handling social media & blogging for a useful web-startup. Maybe because I was doing it 'right' for some other projects and for myself. So sun was rising from east, people were alive and life was normal.
And then shit hit the fan.* I still remember the fine morning I sat down with a mug of coffee to schedule some tweets and write a post for the startup. If it was my account or one of my projects, it'd have been a 10-20 min job. Easy.
But for this one, I sat for an hour, gazing at screen, reading, brainstorming and even gasping. But nothing happened, next day - nothing, 5 days -nothing and even 2 months - nothing! I could not get to reach out as that brand.
Everything is clearer now. Now I know what happened. I was trying to market something I didn't even know. I realized that marketing isn't a department sitting in office shouting to people and gathering 'data'.
Marketing is a reflection of your inner intentions and sharing of vision. It's communication between to your co-creators - your users, your customers and you.
And I, sitting miles away from the headquarters of the web-startup, not at all connected to what they were thinking, planning could not do anything. I could just talk and know that much and make plans. No shit loads users, no trendsetting. Nada.
Marketing is not throwing off tweets, printing banners, making facebook pages, getting traffic, writing blog or advertising or any of that shit. Its communication - like the one happens between two players in a football team.
They talk, they decide, they agree, they adapt.
And one thing more - in a football tea, most of that happens without words because medium hardly matters. Basics are same. Tweets, Blogs, Updates, Emails, posters all are medium.
Don't bother about the medium much. Just focus on what you want to communicate. What do you want to tell your customer today? What do you want to ask your customer today? Is it easy for him to answer? Do you carry on the conversation or shut them off?
How do you approach marketing? Does your business have a marketing department? Are your other departments involved in marketing? Are you involved in marketing? Was I able to change your views on it?
* Credited to legendary Naomi Dunford
You are reading a post that I wrote a long time back—at least 14 years ago.
Take it with a bag of salt.
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