6.10.2008

Vanity Fair stumbles into Social Media relevance.

Every once in a while, an dead-tree outlet does something that's either a beautiful accident, or a rare moment of brilliance. Vanity Fair seems to have one going on at this exact moment.

"Five weeks ago, when I started working as as editorial assistant here at VF.com, my boss casually mentioned that he was giving me until August 5 to attract 10,000 fans to the Vanity Fair Facebook page. It was an onerous and epic assignment, and I responded to it the way any sensible person would: I brightly answered “Yes, sir,” and then did nothing, hoping he would forget about it."

The actual idea is absurd, legislating a quota for something that is 1) opt in, and 2) offers no reward, is more or less a recipe for failure. The difference is that the larger picture, giving a new employee an impossible assignment, and having it incorporate social media in an integral manner, taps into the point of something like Facebook.

This isn't about Vanity Fair anymore. It's about Bill Bradley, it's about overbearing bosses who don't get it, it's about the way new media is being glued to anything with a faint pulse in hopes that it will be revitalized. Vanity Fair now has a story on Facebook, or more accurately, Bill Bradley has a story on Facebook that draws attention to Vanity Fair.

I'm assuming this is a well planned and low budget attempt to go viral, but given my job and my interests, I see campaigns where there are none all the time.

Still, it's a good lesson for anyone trying to figure this Facebook thing out; the point isn't to put your brand into a social network. The point is to attach your brand to a person, via a story, that creates associations. Social networks are about people. People are about things. But this order needs to be maintained to generate interest without coming across as a colonist.

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