OPEN

I absolutely promise to get picture of Adriana’s “Brands are for cattle” T-shirt she’s promising to wear for the Marketing Society conference today.

We’re both on a panel there today to debate the following question: “Can social networks be harnessed by brands?” a question designed as a provocation to the panelists, first and foremost. I can’t imagine anyone’s going to offer a straightforward “how to” and will all most likely happily deconstruct and dismiss the idea of controlling people in social media.

Harnesses, to continue Adriana’s theme, are for domestic animals and maybe consenting adults, but not social networks.

The question does also reflect the language of marketing from the era of channel media and it’s useful for that fact, if only by setting us up to knock it down.

You can control channels, control the message, dominate the medium. In networks your best hope is to be prominent, and you only get to be prominent by earning attention and respect (you do that by being respectful and useful, in case you haven’t been reading this blog for a while).

Looking forward to the discussion. Will let you know how it goes.