Danger in the overhype of blogs

Brian Tinkler responds to a post by Scoble:

I continue to get a kick out of marketing (or tech) people who read some book (apparently for the blog-friendly marketing folks, that book is the 5+ year old Cluetrain Manifesto) and think that the entire planet is changing its orbital axis…Blogs are great, but let’s not ruin what they can be by over-hyping them so much that the average business person sees them as junk.

I’ll post separately on a more expanded comment on ROI later, but it’s important to note the point. Brian is talking in the context of blogs substituting for building personal relationships in business. Others, like Steve, seem to equate blogging with marketing, as if the one is outright replacing the other. I think there is real danger here – blogging is without a doubt immensely powerful in business as it is in social networks, but the building overhype positioning blogs as the “new marketing” is setting blogs up for a painful reality reset.

Too much is going on about how those who question the ROI (or even ask to see some) of blogs “don’t get it.” “Go read the Cluetrain” isn’t a valid response to business people trying to understand why and how much they should invest in blogging. Real work needs to be done on defining that ROI, and on finding the proper place in the marketing mix for blogs. The Web reinvented aspects of the marketing mix, and for many (by no means all) industries revolutionized how they approached marketing altogether. But, with few exceptions, the traditional marketing mix remained valid. New tools, new metrics, new paradigms, but the fundamental mix did not change.

Yes, I agree we’re in the midst of a revolution in marketing. Markets are becoming conversations, and the real power is truly shifting to the ever more informed and discerning consumer. But blogs are not the be all end all. Nor is RSS. These are powerful, even revolutionary tools, but they have their place within the marketing mix. They do not supplant it.

The hype is building, and with it arrogance among the blogger purists, and my concern is this is creating a bubble of unmet expectations that will someday burst. We’re at 1996 for the blog/syndication world – wonderful new tools, business models, and ideas are flourishing, empowering people in a way no one ever really considered. Let’s just remember to keep our feet grounded, so 10 years from now people don’t snicker at all of us the way we snicker at many of the dotcomers.