In his May 7 (2012) AdAge column Al Ries puts social media in perspective: “If you don’t have the right strategy, good tactics won’t help you very much. And social, like all media, is a tactic. What concerns me is that too many marketers have elevated tactics – especially those of social media – to the level of strategy.” Just look at the mess Pepsi got itself into. Or the dearth of good brand strategy cases from the last few years. And I’m talking about creating brands, not creating “buzz.” AdAge’s editor Rance Crain quotes Keith Reinhard on the topic:”There is a huge difference between creating a brand and creating buzz. A buzz is what you create about a brand, and that’s quite different than creating the brand itself.”
Social media changes everything? In the world of brand-building, it changes nothing.
