What Kills a Social Media Campaign

I have an article in iMedia Connection's InFocus section today called "What Kills a Social Media Campaign"

It takes a look at the good, the dreadful and the redeeming social media marketing efforts of several Fortune 500 companies.

At best, they wasted a lot of money on ill-conceived campaigns involving blogs, video-sharing sites like YouTube, social networks like MySpace and other new media where users (horrors!) can actually create content.

At worst, their futile attempts at old-style message control (masquerading as new media) did permanent damage to their brands in the very markets that will determine their future fortunes.

An interesting article.

Toyota's digital campaign for the launch of their new hatchback model - the Auris can be added to this. Though i believe Toyota did a good job, in terms of not "forcing" bloggers to write about the product.

So are Blogs and user forums the only way for audience participation? In B2B scenario, there are many more things which can be done besides these.

Microsoft, Cisco, Shell, to name a few have interacted with Bloggers in a positive way by associating the brand with an Issue/idea and passing the power of commenting/discussing to the audience and bloggers.