On Friday I got a press release headlined “Lincoln Launches MyDream.tv,” inviting me to check out a new social networking site sponsored by the troubled car maker where viewers can share their dreams with others and talk about ways to achieve them. It took less than 30 seconds of Googling to discover that the site was not new at all–it was actually started in November with a heavy promotional tie-in to Amazon.  Friday’s press release was not a launch annoucement, but a seeming last ditch effort to save a campaign that has clearly failed to produce the desired results.

The Lincoln example is instructive in several ways.  Inspired by the runaway success of consumer social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook and the usual fear of missing out on something hot, big companies and their advertising agencies have rushed to embrace social media as the secret elexir for creating new and loyal customers through connection.  And, a relative handful of corporate social networking sites have been successful in attracting a lot of visitors and keeping them coming back.  MyCoke.com, for example, is a combination game/chatting community launched in 2002 that continues to attract thousands of visitors a day.  Whether that translates into more loyalty for Coca Cola is less clear.  Other sites, like Carnival Connections, an online hangout where cruise junkies can plan and book trips and chat with friends, have produced a high and documentable ROI.

Most company attempts at social networking have come and gone without making much of a ripple.   One major obstacle is the fact that web users don’t really believe companies that have been screaming at them for decades through obnoxious, ear-splitting commercials when they suddenly say let’s all sit down and have a nice cup of tea and a cozy chat and I’ll listen to you for awhile.  You can’t build an interactive community without trust and, frankly, most big advertisers have long ago exhausted their share of that precious commodity on talking chihuahuas and bouncing beer bottles and boobs of all definitions.

Others fail because they are devised by big budget advertising firms that don’t understand the new rules of online community marketing where transparency and honestly are essential and even a hint of old-fashioned snake oil hucksterism is the kiss of death.  

Corporate community-building efforts fail most often for a more basic reason–the old silk purse out of a sow’s ear conunndrum.  No company has tried harder to reach out to web viewers than Lincoln’s parent company, Ford.  The company’s Ford Bold Moves campaign, run by JWT, was an incredibly ambitious effort to engage customers and potential customers in an honest dialogue about the future of the company.  It was candid and transparent–or at least as transparent and candid as a big company is ever going to be.  But, it hasn’t changed the marketplace’s perception of Ford at all, measured by increased sales which is the only metric that counts.

The major truth of corporate-sponsored social media campaigns is that no matter how good they are or how sensitive they are to the concerns of the “community,” they won’t improve the bottomline unless you have something to sell that people want.   As Apple keeps proving over and over, if you make products that consumers can’t live without, the buzz will naturally follow.