Forrester - Just Plain Bad Advice

I have to admit being often perplexed at what Forrester (a company that does "research" on a number of topics including social media) posts on its blogs and websites. To my eyes, they seem to be unable to take a neutral and critical reflection on social media and business. On a number of occasions, I have seen articles that just don't seem consistent with the data they collect.

In Seven Things Your Organization Must Do Because Of Social Media Forrester staff blogger suggests seven things organizations need to do as a result of social media. The article starts by talking about brand management and cites a couple of highly publicized, but rare occurrences where companies messed up badly and ended up getting skewered in social media. There's no acknowledgment that these are indeed rare instances, and of course, the author extrapolates from rare occurrences to things all businesses must do. Social media advocates do this almost consistently.

Apart from the fact that the "seven things" are glib, facile and could apply to anything, and thus are useless, some of them are simply wrong, and seem to be based on a lack of critical thinking. Here's my response written on their blog.

I have to say I'm so disappointed in Forrester's role in pushing social media and going way beyond the data in making pronouncements. Seriously, there's poor logic and bad data that regularly appears via Forrester, and I don't understand it.

FIrst, the comparison between the early web and early social media is absolutely faulty. Indeed the web is/was about what could it do for us, and not what would it do to us. Social media, on the other hand is indeed something that will do things TO business.

Social media is an albatross, not a boon, because it's completely uncontrollable and unmanageable. It is impossible for companies to protect their reputations and brands because of the way platforms like Twitter and Facebook work. The people who see user complaints and criticisms are simply not likely to see the responses from the target company. Take a look at HP as an example. Search for hp customer service on Twitter.

Customer service won't get better, it is getting worse due to social media and for one clear reason. Companies have to cover more customer service channels and they view CS as overhead. Budgets getting spread thinner and thinner. Technologies that do not result in replacing things only add cost.

Finally, sorry, but your 8 things are generic and could apply to almost anything. And, btw I might add that social media goes back to the era of commodore 64's and Apples. It's nothing new. All that is new is hypesters writing silly articles about jumped up things businesses need to do. Bunk.

Here's a reality. As with websites the huge majority of companies will garner zero benefit, or negative benefit. There will be exceptions, of course, and the successes will be taken as "proof" that social media works for most businesses. It doesn't. It won't.

Part II: The author of the original post replied to my comments, and since their "social comment" system isn't working I thought I'd reply here:

(darn, their entire site went down. I love social media!) I'll try to come back to this when their site is working again.

Best Practices In Social Media? Fergetabatit

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MicroThoughts

Most regular people don't have the time or inclination to read post after post, article after article telling us how to use social media to accomplish business goals. As a result most don't realize how poor and conflicting the advice is. For example, did you know that the key top business success in social media is content (how old fashioned)? No, wait. The next post on the same site says the key is relationship building one by one, while old Guy whatshisname says "No, no, it's all about the follower numbers, forget quality or relationships -- automate."

Is this significant? All the contradictions? You tell us. Who do you listen to? Is there any point to talking about best practices? Worse, could it be that they're all making things up?

Sex and social media

You probably don't believe that sitting at a computer "having sex" with someone sitting at his/her computer is as good as face-to-face...er...engagement. So why would you believe that customer service that involves one person at one computer and another at another computer is as good as two people actually engaging in person? Both mediated sex and mediated communication are not the same as the non-virtual ones.

Media:

Mediated communication refers to any communication between two people that has, as the carrier of the message, a technology (ie. computer, social media platform software). The more technologies and pieces that mediate communication between two people, the more distortion will occur as a result. Also the more complex the mediating technologies, the more chance of distortion.

SocialMediaBust