In this post on socialmediatoday, the author raises a potentially controversial argument that “marketers cause unhappiness”. They go onto further state, that social media may “Open the door for ‘Happiness Marketing’”. These are the reasons the author feels that social media is the cure for unhappy marketing:

-Social media allows you to treat your customers as individual people whose problems and complaints merit at least a vaguely human response, if not a resolution.

-It allows you to speak honestly and imperfectly to people, instead of treating them like lab rats whose responses to your stimuli have been predicted, tracked, and already reported on the balance sheet.

-It allows you to hear their delight in your product and service more clearly, and it allows them to share that delight with their family and friends in a (mostly) non-Big Brother-y way.

-It allows you to tell the story of your company without it becoming “the Hollywood adaptation” where the soul has been sucked out in pursuit of demographically-targeted, homogenized perfection.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you agree with the first point that marketers cause unhappiness?