I have some serious topics on deck to share with you, including my thoughts on the state of “earned media,” but today we have to take a little detour.
Because the press release I received this morning for the “Made for Social Media” attraction fragrance is just so good bad, in a good way, that I have to share it.
As a friend said in a private email, sometimes the jokes just write themselves.
But I’m not going to tell a bunch of jokes about the product, which apparently contains “a combination of human pheromones that have been clinically proven to increase feelings of arousal, excitement, social warmth and friendliness in both men and women.” You can do that all on your own with no help from me.
I’m not even going to wonder about why I received the release, having never written about fragrances or pheremones, on any of my blogs.
Those two topics are such low-hanging fruit they are reseeding themselves as I type this post. And I do write about social media, so I guess I’m fair game on that score.
Nor am I going to name the company, an aggregator of online forums, or delve too deeply into the value proposition of the scent, the subtext of which seems to be that social media types are so desperate, we need special help to attract a mate (and yes, I know that sentence will probably resurface the troll that drops in to insult me about once or twice a year. So be it.)
In the release, the company claims this endeavor will launch an entirely new business model for productizing through its online channels. And here’s where I go “What?”
They are going to sell a fragrance — a product that generally buyers like to smell before they fork over their cash — through forums, user bases that are notoriously defensive about any form of commerce occurring “on the boards?” Really? It seems like a commercial mis-match in the making.
Maybe they are just hopping on the social media bandwagon, figuring that all you need to do is slap a little “social media” on the front of the product and the news will just go viral (option 2).
Not to get too meta on you, but maybe they DID read my blog and know that I tend to comment on absurd things. Maybe their goal is to make us laugh? And they just couldn’t get the release finished in time for April 1? Option 3.
Whether they are serious and just misguided (options 1 and 3) or opportunistic (option 2), it seems like a real long shot to me.
And that’s what I want YOU to think about when you are percolating your really awesome breakthrough social media idea that is so groundbreaking it just has to go viral RIGHT AWAY.
Just because you call it social, doesn’t mean the community will agree.
Use social media to engage your audience in an authentic conversation about mutually interesting topics. Not just as a label to capitalize on a popular trend. It’s a bit like greenwashing, and just as offensive.