non-integrated social media

Paul Dunay of Buzz Marketing for Technology lobbed a mild offensive last week against the mindset of some marketers that one can "use" social media for a PR campaign:

Here’s the point: There is no overnight success when it comes to social media. Sure, we all are reading about some superb viral results out there, but they are the exception, not the rule. And to say you can systematically achieve those results for your clients (either internal or external) is not accurate.

He goes on to explain that it is equal folly to think that you have "integrated" social media into your campaign just by blogging it, or "slapping a podcast" on it (which makes podcasting sound a lot easier than it actually is, but whatever, sure) and that it will then be taken joyfully up by the masses, hoisted like the proverbial petard, and will subsequently, as a matter of course, "go viral."

As wiser heads than mine have so often pointed out, it's a paradigm shift, not just a new bit of code. Flipping the funnel, crowdsourcing, and all those other funny words we use to describe this new-ish way of communicating with each other -- it's not something you just add onto your existing MO, like sticking a third arm onto a Barbie Doll.

That's like when adults try to use a few dubious bits of teenage slang and then expect their kids will now want to "rap" with them, yo.

One doesn't "use" social media like blogs and podcasts and forums and communities, one gets involved.

It's not an add-on, it's a way of life. Like surfing. Or bowling.