Is it possible that social marketing has been around long enough to have a “death” of anything yet? The panel that I lead yesterday at digiday:SOCIAL LA, our title was, “The Death of Social Disruption.”  We meant it as an affirmation that engagement is now paramount, and our big opportunity in social marketing is to either nurture action, provoke action, or both.

Asked what the "death" really means, panelists Reggie Miller of ICED Media, Rich Ullman of Ripple6, Elaine Yim of Rent.com and Doug Akin of MrYouth defined the death of social disruption as the rise of respect (Reggie), nurturing (Elaine) and dialog (Doug).  Ullman doesn't mind disruption so much as long as it's meaningful and relevant.  "We don't always know what we don't know," he said, "so a little disruption to introduce a new concept or idea can be very welcome."  What he did desire, however, is the death of bad manners.  You just don’t want to be “that guy.”

So that means that using Twitter as a broadcast channel for product announcements does not a social strategy make.  And “cutting and pasting” your email newsletter into your Facebook page is not an effective way to grow reach or earn loyal fans.

Perhaps it’s true that the idea of marketing as interrupting anything is long dead.  Even the mother of all offline broadcast advertising, the Super Bowl Ad, is no longer about interruption.  Nearly every advertiser this year had some sort of digital connection point that linked the commercial to an online experience – and conversation.

We heard repeatedly today that social marketing starts with listening.  Brands that are world class have always listened well and given customer voice a seat at the table.  Eureka!  Listening has long been good business strategy.

And, yes, we are all in business.  We only earn revenue when our social marketing and community outreach helps build momentum for the ideas, issues, challenges and even problems that our products and services can solve.  Not every moment of every day of course, but at least some of the time.

If we don’t want to disrupt our community by talking about our products, how do we turn this listening into dialog, and dialog into business value and revenue?   The era of marketing storytelling is upon us – no longer a sideline, but a central element of content strategy.

The panel had some interesting ideas:
1. Tap into existing conversations.  Give up a bit of control to allow other (sometimes more credible) people or groups tell the story.  Doug talked about "infusing" an existing community by having a major brand celebrate a YouTube singing sensation as a spokesperson rather than a traditional celebrity.
2.  Be available.  Yim talked about the importance of nurturing what is for Rent.com a short term experience, not a long term relationship.  The website is keyed to help prospects find what they need quickly and removing obstacles to search and discovery of relevant listings.
3. Take a risk.  Miller discussed the "Be Stupid" campaign for Diesel Jeans, which is about celebrating innovation.  By encouraging communities to have an initial reaction of skepticism, they open a conversation about why doing what seems stupid at first can be game changing - and cool.
4. Go with the flow.  Ullman shared some examples of marketers who started out with one story, but allowed the story to morph and evolve as community members participated.  This provides great market and product input (as well as search keyword insights) and lets the community get creative with the marketer's intellectual property.  Typically in ways that none of us would have thought of.

So it seems the death of disruption opens up opportunity to guide rather than interrupt, the conversation.   The solution is in being available, open and helpful and letting the community raise their hands before we jump in.  Marketers no longer control the conversation, but we can actively participate.  I always encourage marketers to start with the question, "How can we help you?"  And to genuinely offer whatever help that you can.

If you’d like a one page handout of takeaways from our panel today, just email me at Stephanie[dot]miller@returnpath.net @StephanieSAM.