I call bullsh%&t

True, it’s not an uncommon occurrence, but this time I’m going public.

It all started innocently enough: An email arrived from SocialMedian, a service that claims to offer news, filtered by your network. And there, under the heading Marketing, was a piece that someone had clipped called ‘Find your voice.’

Normally I’d dismiss such a trite, overused term as another turd in the sea of crap marketing advice, but this was different. The source, was ‘Seth’s blog.’

For those who may not be aware, the term ‘Seth,’ in marketing circles, means Seth Godin. No, really. He’s like Cher, but bald—famously bald, in fact. It’s his trademark, don’tcha know? He’s also an author/blogger/speaker and, in the eyes of many, an all-seeing oracle on things marketing and new media related.

I’ve read a couple of Seth’s books and heard him speak, but the truth is I’ve always been a little dubious of him and, for that matter, others of his ilk. And by that I mean folks who make their primary living telling other people what to do. Whether the subject matter is social media, real estate foreclosure or Dianetics, I just find it difficult to really get behind someone who’s preaching and not doing.

I clicked through to the post anyway. (Warning: The sheer genius of what you are about to read may cause rectal bleeding.)

Find Your voice

Marketing (in all its forms) is unlike everything else an organization does, because it’s always different. There’s no manual because everyone does it differently, and what successful marketers have in common is that they are successful.

The only way your organization is going to make an impact is to market in the way only you can. Not by following some expert’s rules or following the herd, but by doing it in the way that works. For you. Don’t worry about someone else’s invented standards for new media, invent your own. Avoid obvious mistakes, don’t follow obvious successes.

Find your voice, don’t copy someone else’s.

Wow. Still with me, or did you blackout somewhere around ‘what successful marketers have in common is that they are successful?’

Yup, you guessed it: Here’s where the calling bullsh%&t comes in. Because Seth’s blog doesn’t allow comments (which, BTW, sort of defeats the point of social/new media),  I left a quick riposte on SocialMedian, but then I thought about it some more…

This is a joke, right?

‘…market the only way you can’? WTF is that, some self-help bs he got from an EST seminar in 1978?

And I love ‘avoid obvious mistakes.’ Really Seth? Think that’s a good idea? ‘Cause I was just about to infect myself with the h1n1 virus right after I invested all my savings with what remains of the Madoff clan!

The height of irony—or is it hubris?—is the part where Seth cautions that your organization isn’t going to find marketing success ‘by following some expert’s rules…’ Weird, because from what I can tell Mr. Godin makes a nice chunk of change serving as just such an expert. Go figure.

Look, I appreciate that the guy is about as prolific as they come, writing, speaking and consulting like a Jack Russell terrier who got into his master’s meth stash. And it must be damn hard work coming up with new and interesting things to say as often as must be required by the machine that is Seth, Inc. But, with apologies to all you Godin sycophants out there (and it’s true I count many of you as friends), I have to say that with this little bit of profundity the guy has officially jumped the shark.

You know, it’s kind of like what your Mom used to say: If you don’t have anything even moderately worthwhile to say, don’t say anything at all. (I said ‘kind of’ like…)

That’s it for now. But stay tuned, I’ll call again.

Update: re-posted on Fatt Lipp by our good buddy John Fatteross