This morning I noticed a few of my Facebook and Twitter friends linking to StopWritingOnMyWall.com, a site for the Social Media Addicts Association. The SMAA aims to break addicted social media dorks users of their habits and their decidedly low-rent site gives members plenty of ways to express support and spread the word -- from buying anti-social media t-shirts to uploading their own stories of social media addiction for the organization's YouTube channel to tweeting and updating their Facebook walls with pro-SMAA and anti-social messages.
After all, what better way to kick your social media addition than by Tweeting about it. Ummm... At crayon we talk about using new marketing to prove new marketing (in other words, we walk the talk) so is it possible to kick social media by using social media? Or more accurately, embrace social media by poking fun at social media?
Because of course it's all tongue-in-cheek. There is no SMAA and the effort isn't really an anti-social media campaign, but a social media marketing campaign aimed at the social media community it lampoons.
A subtle "powered by" link at the bottom of the page, a 300x250 Vaio ad in the right-hand rail and a not-so-subtle Sony tagline at the end of the video in the hero position should be enough to tip off even the most casual observer -- the SMAA is a European marketing campaign for the Sony Vaio.
Check out the SMAA viral video which is actually kinda funny (feed and email readers click through to the blog to watch the embedded video.)
So can Sony win the hearts and earn the dollars of members of the social media community by poking fun at them?
From what I can see, the program isn't exactly setting the web on fire but, as I write this, it's barely a day old. So we'll see. The humor has a certain geek appeal and the program certainly seems to be less dubious that that fake PSP blog from a couple of years back.
Chime in with your thoughts.
As a side note, the whole program seems to be a spiritual sister of the equally tongue-in-cheek Social Networking Rehab blog by Jeff Sass. Also, for what it's worth, I am blogging this from my Sony Vaio.
