In these days of Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, Flickr, and Mobile Phones, social media marketing is all the rage. I love reading about clever ideas companies and groups use to promote themselves through social media. Radiohead recently held a remixing contest for one of its songs “Nude” (Wired). The contest elicited 2,300 entries or so, and helped propel Nude into the Billboard Hot 100 for Radiohead (the first song in 12 years to make it there).
The reason, however, that this type of social media is so effective is that Radiohead is already so well known (Steve Colbert did something similar with his Green Screen Challenge). As more and more people engage in social media marketing, the PR effect will wear off and we will be looking for better and better filters to keep it away from our daily lives just like we rely on the fast forward on our DVRs to keep away TV ads.
