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Betty White hosted Saturday Night Live last Saturday. The 88 year old charmed the audience with cameos in many of the SNL favorites like Magruder.
As Mary McKnight recently posted in her Sacrilicious blog, Betty White thanked Facebook for getting her onto SNL. The headline read, "How Facebook Got an 88 yr old Betty White on SNL"
Did Facebook really get Betty onto SNL?, or did TMZ get Betty onto Facebook?
You see Ms. White's star started rising again because she became somewhat of a regular scoop on TMZ (on TV and TMZ.com). So I would tend to bet that FB culturally was more a reflection of the offline buzz created by TMZ than an organic event fueled only by Facebook.
So what? you might say.
It matters so that we as marketers know how to employ this beast called social media.
How to Change the World With Social Media
The social media is more of a continuation of a movement than the movement. Eventually becoming the movement (or at least a major part of the movement).
When you get out of the "geekeshpere" the social net tends to lose its ability to generate its own buzz without strong intervention and a strong personality or pre-existing brand. There is nothing organic about Ashton Kutcher's following on Twitter. Indeed his following is a natural extension of his brand.
Kutcher corralled his fans in and around the social media. In other words Kutcher already existed before social media as did Betty White.
Channeling P.T. Barnum
It is rumored that Barnum said that "there is a sucker born every minute". On the net the tools that sucker us in are sold as more than what they are. Websites were to replace newspapers. Blogs were to replace the need for SEO. Social Media was to replace all of the above.
In part the allure has been economics. The cheap and easy. But this is the grand deception. Marketing is not easy.
Of course where there is hype there is some truth. When this many people are in one place there has got to be an opportunity to make a buck. If as some say Facebook is the size of a country, many of its citizens are geriatrics. In other words if this is the social media where is the meaningful conversation?
However, much of the social net is populated by three citizens:
1. The socializer-This is the gal who gets it. She chats, communicates and shares.
2. The "ata boy"-This is the person who never knows what to say except that they agree. This is of course not a conversationalist. This guy ican take marching orders though. Facebooks like button was invented for this guy.
3. The DOA-Checks in every so often but for the most part does not spend much time "socializing".
This leaves a very small population that is conversing. The key to marketing in the social media is to join the conversation. However, as we see above little conversing is going on. However, that does not mean you cannot lead a movement and even the DOA's can follow.
It is more difficult to do unless you are KFC or Ashton Kutcher. The only alternative is to have a monster personality and to be Barnum. Gary Vaynerchuk has been heralded as the icon of socializing business. Zappos created a corporate culture around the social net.
The skeptic in me would ask about their first to market positioning as part reason for their success. But I would also say that they became Barnum. Gary V's personality and lust for publicity is far more interesting than anything else he does. Few are willing to pimp themselves out and to seek the edges of their promotion power as these guys.
And I will end as I began. First Mary McKnight. She is a Barnum. She is willing to push the edges to find her audience. She has broken the all time record for f words in one article. She has used her sexuality without apology to get her message across. Her website engages the male senses from the get go while affirming female empowerment.
Like yen and yang Mary also pisses a lotta people off. President Obama has a lot of haters. He also is President thank you very much. Mary gets this proposition. She is willing to polarize many to attract many. That is marketing. Call it segmentation if it helps.
Finally During Betty White's monologue she thanked her Facebook fans for getting her on SNL. She also went onto say what a waste of time FB is. Maybe , Maybe.
I would love to hear your unique perspective in the comments below.
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