I’m often guilty of abandoning it ALL in pursuit of shiny and new, the innovative. But there’s lots to be said about the foundations of things.

I learn all the time, and YOU are how I learn.

Chris, you ask how does social media turn marketing upside down?

It starts by having marketing executives pulled by their neck ties and fancy handbags into the conversation. Once you start listening and participating it completely transforms everything, from how you think about marketing, things you say to the way you view people.

It’s all about relationships, not the sale, and social media is forcing that reset.

Social media is ripping that control away. I think Cluetrain manifesto is a great ideal. Something to strive for… It is far from becoming a reality. in the interim, we can change one by one.

I’d like to share a quote I’ve been using lately when I talk about PR. It’s the dictionary definition of public relations (via Dictionary.com):

1. the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc.

2. the art, technique, or profession of promoting such goodwill.

Novel concept, huh? How did we stray so far away from this?

The list of projects, products or sites that made it this way is long and impressive. craigslist, Twitter, gmail, linux, ruby, php, and any number of other open-source languages and projects.

And they’re not all non-profit exercises. Blip.tv, which is now entering its serious let’s-try-to-make-some-money phase, had virtually no promotional or sales effort when it started, and has little more now. Rather, their marketing strategy was and is simply to help their users and be responsive to problems and ideas. To this day, you will still get support email from “mike”. That’s Mike Hudack, the CEO.

The thing all these projects have in common is being first concerned with helping people. Being truly interested in making something good and useful is different than trying to persuade people that what you’ve made is good and useful. Ultimately, to someone like me, “marketing” is always about spin, about persuading, convincing, yes, even deceiving. It’s all about selling not satisfying. It’s never about your users, it’s about the people that aren’t your users yet.

So, for sure, I’d agree that actually wanting to help people and build something you can be proud of is key.

First off, thanks very much for calling in to the show. I’m also really glad you’ll be on the show in October and perhaps we can continue some of this conversation then.

I think with all of our desire not to schill we forget that we all work for companies that in some way or another have to sell something or that business/company goes away. So some of the conversation about, “I don’t want to market,” or “I hate selling” is really irrelevant. Okay, so you may be in HR versus selling the widgets that your company develops, but if those widgets don’t get sold, you’re out of a job.

My point here is that it’s high time we gave more credit to salespeople/marketers if we understand that at the end of the day, nobody buys things they don’t want to. I get a bit fed up with the notion that “evil salespeople coerce you to buy something Madison Avenue is pitching.” If you buy something, you’ve made the decision to buy. I think I’ve been tricked to purchase something a few times in my life, but more often than not, someone exposes me to something in a way that makes me want it. Buying it is my call.

Does that make sense? Let’s remember that commerce involves communication and the consumer is typically pretty smart. Especially these days. So as a marketer (or in my case as VP of Business Development) my focus is always on fostering relationships first, with the tacit understanding that OF COURSE I want to sell you something. That’s how I pay bills and feed my kids! But OF COURSE I understand that you (person I’m talking to) won’t buy from me unless I demonstrate value for my product/service and you trust me. Period.

We in the new media world have to stop thinking in the “us versus them” mentality, re: buying and selling. Commerce has always inspired a refining of communication through the ages, and keeps us on our toes. And just because someone is trying to sell you something doesn’t make them evil. We’re all trying to sell ideas as well as stuff. So let’s get over the knee-jerk reaction of saying, “no pitching!” and move on to quickly identify how we can best foster lasting relationships that last beyond any particular potential sale.