Social Media Marketing is Dead

Hip hop artist Nas rhymed in 2006 that Hip Hop was dead. He basically was reminiscing how an art form built with transparency and creativity was killed by a tidal wave of fakery, commercialism and mass production. Nas was on target and his rhyme could easily be applied to social media marketing in the here and now:

"Everybody sounds the same, commercialize the game
Reminiscing when it wasn't all business
If it got where it started
So we all gather here for the dearly departed."

Social media marketing for brands is now simply advertising. A one way shouting platform with brands saying, "Hey listen to me." Or startups saying, "Hey, download my app!" It's become no different than a TV ad, a radio commercial or the countless amount of 15-second video pre-rolls on YouTube where I can't find the "Skip This Ad" button fast enough. The need to escape non-engaging one-off messages telling me how great a product is from a brand point-of-view is doing little for my sanity. While advertising has its merits, the intersection of how humans ingest information and how content affects brain neuroscience and decision-making presently don't seem to align whatsoever.

Michael Proulx said it best in a recent Ad Age diatribe: "Let's call it what it is: Social media marketing is now advertising. It's largely a media planning and buying exercise -- emphasizing viewed impressions. Brands must pay if they really want their message to be seen. It's the opposite of connecting or listening -- it's once again broadcasting."

But no one says you have to follow any rules or "best practices" and play the game of traditional broadcaster. It is the 21st Century after all and everyone will be equipped in the next five years with the most personal computer of them all: the mobile phone. Best practices are for lazy marketers who listen too much to non-creative left brained operations-oriented careerists. Simply using algorithms isn't ever going to lead to the path of success in a world with more and more mysteries to solve on an hourly basis.

The best way to approach all these channels moving forward? Think like a street artist. In other words, push the boundaries on the "rules," since in this day and age, there really aren't any rules.

Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Invader, MadC, Poster Boy, Daku are just a few of my favorite street artists that come to mind when I think about how communications has been disrupted in the physical world. Who will be the artists to disrupt the digital matrix?

Street art is simple in the way it wants to communicate yet how it's performed isn't the simplest in the least. Artists using the streets as their gallery are often doing so from a preference to communicate directly with the public at large, free from perceived confines of the formal art world. Street artists sometimes present socially relevant content infused with esthetic value, to attract attention to a cause or as a form of "art provocation".

Now in 2015 we sit at these same crossroads in the world of social media communications. Brands want to communicate directly with their audience and are smartly realizing platforms are nice for awareness but their audience is their best distribution system. Social media networks and platforms all have their ways to buy and target an "ad" or a native "sponsored post." The targeting options from the user data are wonderful, I can reach a hyper-targeted audience of 10,000 people worldwide who use iOS and like cooking recipes and F1 racing. Soon I can add different variations of video or photo creative and will be able to serve something unique to an audience.

But the emotional storytelling formats are very limited in this new world at present. Mainly because developers are still trying to figure out what those products will look and feel like if they are developing anything like this at all. Sure, I can measure clicks and likes and vanity metrics for the existing Pay-Per-Click formats but the best form of storytelling has still yet to be invented and isn't offered by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or countless other platforms in their suite of self-service advertising tools.

Brands, like the conformists in a suburban high school, have simply settled on an algorithm without really trying to invent new ground. Why innovate something when things are working? It's easier to be in the "in crowd" than an outcast. Many are simply using the tools provided, without taking chances or risk. As a result, there is a hole here for someone to step in and disrupt the way social media works now and the way it could evolve in the future. How it will look will probably be more informal, more buried, more underground so as to escape advertising. We are a world of customers and users constantly striving to escape advertising. Thus the reason for brands to work toward creating experiences that go beyond advertising or even content. That go beyond the boredom we've been inundated with as of late because boring people driven too much by "use what works" data have the keys to the car again.

Because we live in a world constantly struggling to escape advertising, it will be the most creative brands that come up with the most unique solutions on what the future of advertising will look, feel and sound like. And none of it is going to look, feel or sound the way social networks operate in the here and now.

Geoffrey Colon is a Growth Marketer at Microsoft. He's writing his first business book, "Disruptive Marketing, Disciplined Results" for AMACOM Books due out in January 2016. Follow his left of center business thinking here on LinkedIn, Twitter or on his podcast, Disruptive FM.