Antibodies living on the Internet

Image via Wikipedia

When at networking events, I introduce myself as working for a social media marketing agency. That comment is typically followed by a look of confusion.

I then explain that I help organizations and brands market using technologies that allow people to socialize, like blogs, social networking sites, virtual worlds and more. More often than I would like, that explanation receives a disdainful, “well we don’t market where people are trashing our brand.”

That typically leads me to reply that people are talking about, even shaping your brand, whether you like it or not and you have a choice: to be part of the conversation, making corrections, if appropriate, or just ignoring it and letting them talk about you.

But tonight’s networking event was different because I met Kevin Singel of Accenture with his brilliant analogy.

Kevin said that people act like antibodies—the white blood cells that are protectors of truth and righteousness. He said that these antibodies will trash brands if the brands lie or act in an inauthentic manner.

The Antibody’s job is to counteract corporate marketing speak.

In that same conversation, Bruce McCoy from The Economist also made me realize that as a social media marketing agency we’re a lot more economically vulnerable than a PR agency or an advertising agency. Both of those types of agencies can obtain any kind of client and it won’t affect their reputation. [An exception to this is a PR consultant friend of mine who had a client that was a porn company and that DID affect his reputation.]

As a social media agency, we can only have clients that value authenticity, transparency, engagement with their audience and “doing the right thing.” That narrows down our playing field, and that’s kind of scary in a down turn!