The Social Media Advertising Council

Ok so I’m finally posting about the self-labeled Social Media Advertising Council. They define themselves as “a group of advertising, communications, brand management and social media executives coming together to create a common vocabulary, standard buying units, and uniform measurement methods for social media.”

Well, in the first place, the name itself is sort of funny, since Social Media Marketing is the opposite of the way people traditionally see advertising. If you advertise on Social Media sites, you’ll usually be ignored.

People don’t like advertising in their social networks. They are open to building relationships with companies who are open to starting good conversations, not slamming a product in their face. Thus the title of the council remains strange to me.

It really should be the Social Media Marketing Council if there’s going to be a council at all.

That said, perhaps they’re talking about a new form of advertising leveraging people’s tastes and targeting them accordingly, kind of like Google’s personalized search, and creating conversations around that with tools, ideas and etc.

Hmm. I can already see the fires springing up at the that thought. Remember Beacon?

It remains to be seen how effective this council will be. The idea is solid – Social Media Marketing, indeed Social Media period, is still very new and unfamiliar to people. There’s lots of definitions that, while similar, vary in scope, and a move to standardize the language, best practice and measurements of efficacy is definitely a good idea. However, Social Media will never be able to be measured fully because of its inherently soft nature.

However:

That paragraph worries me because it doesn’t say much, and the rest of their copy is along similar lines, but then again, its the average fluff you’ll find from an organization who hasn’t quite defined itself yet. Perhaps as things get rolling, the language will become more specific and less lala-landish. I can hope.

Oh, and maybe I’m missing something but, while there are a few big names on the members and leaders list, most of them aren’t recognizable and they’re certainly not people I consider Authorities in SMM. I’m not sure if there are enough of the truly influential players in the Social Media sphere to make this council or its edicts spread to the wider Social Media community.

For now, I’ll watch and wait to see what happens.