Face-palmed

And this is where things get interesting. The reason why Facebook doesn't put out ads, unlike that pesky Google+(yes a blue bar asking you to join is an ad, contrary to what those marketing geniuses believe) would be because they really have no need to. Pick up anything these days.. yes and that means ANYTHING.. chances are it would have a facebook logo on it, asking you to either like a page, or comment on it, and encouraging you to pretty much go berserk on THE social network of choice posting about what a great time you have had and so on. Most often the facebook logo is so big, it almost obscures the product logo, and the link assumes that you would of course sit down and type the whole thing. Now there have been significant scientific advances in the sector of viral marketing. I kid you not, there have been papers published on the average human being's propensity to type certain lengths of characters at a stretch. Unfortunately the human race as a whole did not do too well, bloggers and database programmers were, of course exempt from such inanity.

The whole point of viral marketing now, is to get as many people hooked in as little time as possible. That, of course, you might argue was the hook earlier as well, for ALL kinds of marketing. But that's not necessarily so, while television and print ads used to target groups of people, or sectors if you will.. viral marketing has a more.. proletarian approach. The idea is to make a product universal, where all categories of people would be able to purchase it, and enjoy it. The Nintendo Wii did superbly on that count, trading console power and the traditional crazy adolescent market, for good old fashioned exercise and some geriatrics. The hook these days, is where the marketing people would have it placed. And it appears to be placed right on the scruff of the neck of the facebook user. Anyone, young or old can put up something that everyone can view and share. While placement used to be one of the 4 Ps of marketing(where do they come up with this anyhow), it now seems to have changed to profit. Marketers want to spend as little money as possible ,with as excellent results as possible.

Well, here's a revolutionary idea. Make a product so good, everyone would want to be talking about it. Make a product so cool, everyone would post pictures up of it on Instagram. Failing all of which, make an ad so brilliant, it could rival gangnam style(nonsense) music videos in terms of absurdity and popularity. Concentrate on QUALITY, rather than the mass push of the ad. Yes, it is true that is seems almost retarded to depend on the fecundity of marketers these days, hence leading to the sort of snide comments about marketing being too important to be left to the marketers. Maybe it is, and we'd never know.

Either way, the point is that we'd really like to talk about the sort of things that interest us.. Like the next Justin Bieber concert or the goings on of our respective colleges and what not. We'd love to talk about what you're marketing, but get off our backs about collective euphoria and try to engage our attention with the sort of creative chutzpah that I assume you are paid for. There isn't any need to advertise facebook pages, because it kinda defeats the purpose of social media anyway. 

Product first. Advertise second.