I talk to a fair number of people who want to pick my brain about their social media strategy.  These conversations are often cut short, after I ask them one question: “What do you want to accomplish?”

I seems like a fairly obvious question, but it’s one that stumps a lot of people.  The answer seems obvious as well – nobody ever asks why you’re advertising, or why you have a storefront.  Obviously it’s to “increase awareness” or “build profile.”

Social media is a venus flytrap for marketers.  From a distance, it’s perfect and beautiful – so many people are using it and it’s the ideal channel for promotion.  Once you’ve been enticed inside, it’s a much different view.  People don’t like messages, and advertising in social media channels is about as welcome as door-to-door salesmen, for the most part.  Social media is not the place to “build profile.”

Does that mean that blogging, micromedia and social networking can’t be powerful business tools?  Of course not – and many are using these tools brilliantly to build their business – but I’d wager that every single one of them could have answered that question instantly before they started.

So, what are the business goals you want to accomplish?  Do you want to network with like-minded people?  Provide better service than your competitors in a way that scales much more easily than a call centre?  Do you want to build a network that you can use in times of crisis?  Do you want to get product insights from your most vocal users?  Do you want to extend your reach as a personality or knowledge leader?  Do you want to understand your reputation better?

All of these things are possible, and some with very little expense, through social media, but they all require radically different approaches.  Those who have indeed built profile in social media did not start out with just that in mind – just as the most successful networker at an event doesn’t walk around with business card extended.

The reality is that you can’t even begin thinking about the route you’re going to take until you decide where you’re going.  Sure, road trips can be fun – but they’re not business.

Joe Thornley nails it with his post about credibility in social media coming from firms actually being active in the space.  In my day job, I work with a lot of agencies, both advertising and PR, and almost all of them claim to be experts in social media.  The reality is, however, that many of the agencies who tout themselves as experts do not invest adequately in training or in actually participating in the space.

I’ve talked before about the importance of marketing peopel to really dig into social media – exploring both the mainstream and the esoteric, and really understanding the culture.  Sadly, it’s easier to jump to conclusions about technologies based on a cursory knowledge of the space than it is to actually experience the culture and the people.

Traditional advertising has almost nothing in common with social media.  Old models do not apply as they once did, and in order for agencies to call themselves “experts,” they need to move beyond assuming and start participating.

I was in NYC last week, and got to spend a bit of time chatting about advertising with one of my favourite New Yorkers, Noah Brier.  Of course, we talked about the way media consumption is changing and what it means to the traditional view of advertising, and one of his comments really clicked with me.

I won’t attempt to paraphrase, but his point was that advertising has always been about media ownership.  That is to say, advertisers paid to own a small piece of the media that could be used to carry their message.  Buying an ad in the New York Times is the rough equivalent of owning a portion of a page – it’s yours to do with as you please.

This was valuable because the media was controlled by a small number of people and corporations.  Media was scarce, therefore it had value.  Now, thanks to the web, anyone with broadband and the inclination to do so can be a media owner.  Sure, a tumblog probably doesn’t have the reach of the Times, but it has the potential to, just as a YouTube video has the potential to exceed the viewership of a prime time network show.

When you’re selling media ownership in a world that’s giving it away for free, two things happen.  First, as supply approaches infinity, value approaches zero.  Second, the number of choices that any one person has keeps getting higher, and as a result, their individual tolerance for noise goes down.  People now have the luxury of consuming media on their own terms, and if they can’t get something the way they want it from one source, they can get it from another.

Of course, none of this on its own is completely groundbreaking, but one of the nice things about talking to smart people is that it often leads to small moments of clarity, as this did for me.   Hopefully it did the same for at least a couple of others.  If not, go read Noah’s blog… it’s always good for a dose of clarity.

Every day, it strikes me how painfully out of touch with reality the advertising world is. It’s bashed, bruised and bleeding, but still patting itself on the back with awards and telling themselves that everything is a-ok.

I could not agree more with this video from Ad Age columnist Bob Garfield.

Anyone who still thinks they’re in the business of making ads is fooling themselves, and cheating their clients by creating fun little 30-second spots that they can point out to each other when they’re at the bar.We’re all in the business of connecting brands with consumers. Spot on.