Advertising ain’t what it used to be.

Sales people are paying for the sins of estate agents, spivs and double glazing reps.

PR has suffered bad PR at the hands of, ahem, PRs. Spin is a dirty word don’t you know?

And marketing is doing it tough – the boss wants more for less, and you’d better make it all accountable and transparent…

What are you going to do about it?

Happily in DigitalMud land it’s not all doom and gloom. We have an answer to the conundrum above. And it’s a simple answer:

Be yourself. In social media that is.

Customers don’t want you to be nameless, faceless organisations that will only talk to them if your people can read from a script. That’s not being authentic, and social media values authenticity above all else.

“93 percent of Americans believe a company should have a presence in social media, while an overwhelming 85 percent believe a company should not only be present, but also interact with its consumers via social media.”

So reported the Boston Globe about a study conducted in the US in 2008, and which showed the appetite of consumers for interaction with companies in online social spaces.

Great, so jump on Twitter and start selling your heart out. NO! Do that and you will be ensuring disaster.

The important statistic from the survey above is that only 25% of consumers want companies to market to them in online social spaces, so leave your best sales patter at home as no-one wants to hear it.

In fact, the Cone survey quoted above suggests 56% of American consumers feel both a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment.

So, what’s a business to do? Listen first – find out where your customers are and what they’re saying. Then get involved, but remember to be authentic to who you and what your brand is. If you are a firm of accountants, you probably shouldn’t trying talk street or slang with your community.

When you are part of the conversation, be helpful, be remarkable, be quick, but above all be human and stop trying to sell.