This morning I found a link on Facebook that linked to Corporate Social Media Is Not Social — It’s Sales Media by Tom Foremski and came away with a comment that I will share here, though I am pretty sure didn’t respond directly to the post so much as just wrote what the post inspired me to. (Via Marketing Conversation)

I have reread the story and yes, the ultimate theme is “So let’s be honest about corporate use of social media — it’s really all sales media — let’s not dress it up as anything else.” That said, I can’t help but interpret the tone as scolding.

You can check out my comment here:

Although I think the tone and theme of this post will be popular, I believe it is also naive. I have found that if your message is targeted and generous, people are grateful to be identified, recognized, and then engaged with where they’re already spending their time.

Someone who inelegantly brings up Avon or Tupperware at a cocktail or dinner party does make the whole thing untoward; however, clubs, gold courses, the ball park, and any number of places have long been the sites of the initial conversation that have lead to quite a bit of very important business and quite a number of sales.

The biggest deals happen on the links.

Anyway, cheap people sans couth are a dime-a-dozen, but even these people are indeed rewarded — sometimes handsomely monetarily — for their aggressiveness, dedication, and shamelessness even though they dismantle their reputation and burn their bridges along the way.

Also, peddling crap is always unforgivable — please keep those Cutco knives the hell away from me!

Here’s the original post over at Silicon Valley Insider:

When it comes to corporate use of social media I have problems with the use of the word “social” because it’s not accurate. It’s not social.

When most people use Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace, they use it for its social qualities. Yet when corporations, and many professionals use social media, they are using it for commercial purposes, they are using it for sales.

This is an important distinction because it affects how businesses should use social media.

I was moderating a panel earlier today on how businesses can use PR to leverage social media, and Louis Gray said something that was very wise. He said that people create their Facebook pages in a specific way because that’s the way they like it, they are comfortable there. If you come along and engage with them you need to approach them as if you were a guest in their home.

That means businesses have to be cautious about how they sell on social media sites.

All that relationship building and engagement is not because a business wants to get to know Jane or John better, as a friend or relative would, it wants to sell more of its product or service. That’s a far different agenda from most people’s engagement in social media.

Like at parties, people will avoid that person that is selling something. Friends that invite their friends to tupperware parties, or similar, are tolerated for a while, but not for long. Similarly, companies that use social media as sales media must understand there is a time and place for it, or they risk alienating people.

Sir Martin Sorrell, the head of WPP, the world’s largest marketing and communications group, has similar concerns about the commercial use of social media. The Financial Times recently reported:

Sir Martin warned on Tuesday that social media sites are ”less commercial phenomena, they are more personal phenomena,” more similar to ”writing letters to our mothers” than watching television.

”Invading these [social] media with commercial messages might not be the right thing.”

So let’s be honest about corporate use of social media — it’s really all sales media — let’s not dress it up as anything else.

What do you think?  How appropriate was my response?  Was the article a bit of pandering?  I am a huge fan of open, transparent, and honest engagement with the express aim of brand- and relationship-building.

How inauthentic would it be for a bunch of folks from a PR, marketing, or corporate to enter a social network and not talk about clients and campaigns and the office?

Please let me know what you think in the comments.