Are Social Networks Making People Narcissistic

Many people have asked this question in the recent past. I am not so sure if people have reached that level or if I would call it 'Narcissistic'.

While almost 40% of tweets being called 'pointless babble' and much lesser 'conversational' and even lesser 'pass along value', its disheartening to know that such innovations could get killed so easily as a FAD.

While I partly agree that self-promotion and attention seeking is one of the popular reasons for people to be on Twitter ande Facebook, but I also believe its making it easy for our busy generation 'X' and gen 'Y' to stay in touch, share updates and most importantly seek emotional support.

Email and Chats were also or could also be blamed for pointless babble many a times....but its it all about staying connected, staying updated. They werent and arent FADs either.

Although one would argue that its making people avoid personal touch/voice communication which makes the human bonding deeper. But I would counter argue with the fact that often times people dont get heard or dont remember all the interesting details of their day during voice conversations. Most importantly many a times its not easy to reach people during a business day or due to cost of a making a cell phone call. Internet is the medium to cheaply and easily mass communicate...and more importantly sharing the day to day interesting nuances that makes one's community feel more connected and closer to each other.

I support facebook and twitter......do you?

Relevance of marketing in economic downturn

As the country and companies overcome myriad challenges during the economic downturn. I would like to open this blog to all the sales and marketing professionals out there on 'Is Marketing Relevant in the Economic Downturn' or 'Can Marketing add the EVA to a company's bottomline when market doesnt want to buy'

I think, Yes, but with some qualifiers

a) The tranditional definition of marketing from building a brand needs to change as price conscious customers are leaning away from brand preferences (who knows which brand will survive.....). The sales and marketing need to collaborate more closely to have 'customer specific retention programs'

b) The marketing needs to build and support products and services that generate tremendous and unparallel value for the customer at a profit margin thats sufficient for sustenance in these tough times

c) Re-define the customers they want to win and retain. How long will the government funded customers be able to drive sales...should marketing be focused on customers who can pay today vs. tomorrow?

I am sure you have more thoughts, which I would like to listen and enrich this community.