SocialMediaBust

Q: Now that we're into 2011, have your perspective on social media changed? Do you still see investing in it for business purposes as a low yield thing?

Robert: Yes. I haven't seen any data to suggest otherwise. In the time we've cut back on our social media involvement, we've been able to allocate more time to business critical functions and to customer related activities that we've proven to work for us. Also, for me personally, I'm channeling my time and energy into writing off of social media. In 2010, I completed 3 revised editions for McGraw-Hill plus two books were published that were new or in a new format. There is a limit to what one can do with limited resources, and social media, at least the way the "pundits" tell us to use it, isn't worth it. It simply doesn't scale.

Q: What do you mean by "doesn't scale" in business terms.

Robert: Ok. If I write a book, or even articles for my websites (not blogs), those become permanently useful to me as a business. Eacy day, for as long as things don't change radically, people read them, or in the case of books, buy them. My initial efforts work, or scale no matter how many people are involved. If it's one person, or one million people, there is no additional work involved.

Social media doesn't work that way, because the platforms, including blogs, "treat" content within a chronological context. For example, your tweets, in effect, become invisible after a few hours or days. Blog posts, it turns out, seem to have a similar shelf life, although it's a bit different -- kind of halfway between a tweet or update and a web article.

If you want to use media, for whatever purpose, you want your investment of time and thought to keep working for you. Social media doesn't provide that. In essence, you need to be "there" every day. And for minimal results.

Q: So where are you going from here?

Robert: My PERSONAL interactive involvement on social media has come to an end AS A BUSINESS TACTIC. I may occasionally tweet something or involve myself in a LinkedIn conversation but that's for fun and interest and NOT for business promotion.

I'll continue to post on my blogs, because I enjoy it, and I can repurpose content easily.

However, that's not to say you won't "see" me anymore. We have moved to a "push" mentality, something all the supposed experts tells us we shouldn't do. Everything is automated. New blog posts are sent automatically to social media platforms. Article links and summaries from our huge online libraries are sent automatically. Our involvement on a human level is very limited.

Q: Do you still have an interest in the phenomenon of social media?

Robert: Yes. But not so much as a business tool. I'm interested in it as a mode of communication, and how it will affect society, a little like the stuff that Jaron Lanier has written about in You Are Not A Gadget, but a little more practically oriented. Less philisophical.

I dearly want to finish my book on social media which has kept me more involved in social media far longer than I would have liked. But, after all, if you are going to write a book about a "place", you kind of have to visit the place.

Q: Thank you. Perhaps next time we can talk about the challenges of writing a book on social media.

Q: You've been a harsh, sometimes abrasive critic of what you've called poor and misleading information about social media, customer service, and e-learning. It sounds like you don't believe anyone, particularly those that post on social media platforms. So, who DO you give credence to?

Robert: You're right. I do not find 99% of people who post and participate on social media credible, without them having a strong track record of posting insightful things, and NOT posting stupid things. On social media you have to follow someone for quite some time to determine their agendas, and its the agendas that often bias what they pass on to others. So, to be blunt, when I look for really solid information, I tend to discount Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and most blogs. Another factor, the signal to noise ratios, and repeated stuff is terrible on all of these.

Q: So, if you don't trust social media sources including blogs, what DO you trust? Where do you go to get stuff you feel you can trust?

Robert: Part of what I've been doing for 15 years on the internet is actually acting like an information curator (before its become fashionable to use the term), so I get to go to a lot of different places online. It's kind of interesting.

Some sites jump out at you and say: "I'm credible, professional and skilled so you can trust me/us", while other sites say "We pander to whatever people might want to read, and we just say the same things over and over". It's very hard for me to articulate how I separate one from the other, so maybe some examples.

Mashable.com is a hugely successful site from every perspective. Or almost every one. To me, it does not say: "We're pros and we make sure what is on our site is accurate." Uh-uh. Now, part of my feelings about mashable come from it appearing like its purpose is to post large volumes of stuff, and rightly or wrongly, it doesn't look like any of the material on their site is vetted through editors who check for originality, content quality, critical thinking and accuracy. It also appears to me like the site is written at a lowest common denominator. Articles are more like soundbytes than really researched material. Often the material there is a rehash of other sources.

So, while mashable is a success, it's not a "go to" place for me. That's not to say I never visit. I just don't find the site itself trustworthy as a source, and sadly, I often find errors in the articles, or article titles that have nothing to do with the content. That tells me what the site managers think is important. Volume. So it seems.

Q: So you are not a mashable fan in terms of credibility. Can you provide a comparison site?

Robert: Indeed. Take a look at Go-CEM (click to open a new window). I just came upon this site today, and I have no idea who they are. Take a look at the articles, and the contributors on the topic of customer experience management. Here's a few things that jump out.

Most articles are rather long. Let's face it. If you want to cover a topic properly, with some depth and originality, you simply cannot do it in 400-500 words, as is often the case on a site like Mashable and for about 95% of the sites on the Internet. To me, provided the material is plumped up with junk, it means credibility.

The writing level is rather advanced and sophisticated. It's clearly not aimed at the casual visitors. The material seems to be written for other professionals, and as such it has the feel of a professional journal rather than People magazine. Mashable, on the other hand is clearly written for the masses if you go by the writing and reading levels (which is why its so successful). No doubt Go-CEM received a fraction of the visitors that Mashable receives. Yet the site gives me the impression of quality thought and research.

Each article has the author, his or her affiliation, and degrees prominently displayed. Mashable, and many other sites do not do that. Go-CEM brands its writers as experts with qualifications. Does Mashable do the same thing? No, because mashable isn't about qualifications or indepth coverage. It's about volume, and popular success. Who writes the material for Mashable is largely irrelevant.

Oddly enough the layout and type face of GO-CEM is attrocious. The type is way too small, the screen is not optimized very well in terms of space usage, but while that is bothersome, it doesn't detract from credibility (it doesn't help either). Compare with Mashable. Mashable is a "withit" place.

Then there's the ads. There are no or few ads for third parties on GO-CEM. It's clear they don't make their money by selling ads. Mashable? Uh well, ads galore. There's nothing wrong with that and again they are monetizing a successful and busy site, but does it say: "We are serious professionals here"? Not like on GO-CEM.

Q: So, what you are saying is that you use some of these "indicators" to evaluate credibility?

Robert: Yes. They are very rough. I'd rather not have to use them since some of them are superficial and introduce bias into what I believe, and who I believe. However, in a world where anyone can be anyone or anything, I need to assess credibility. While I know that some of the things I mentioned are superficial, and there will be lots of exceptions, I've found I'm not usually disappointed when I use them to determine credibility. Your mileage may vary.

Q: You've made a lot of negative comments about the effectiveness of social media for business purposes. Do you have bottom line advice for small businesses about what they should be doing with respect to using social media?

Robert: Yes, I can sum it up in one sentence. Don't depend on or expect ANY returns on your use of social media in terms of business results or any measurable, and RELEVANT outcome. In fact, to add a second sentence, don't bother with it, and spend your time on other business development activities.

Q: That flies in the face of almost every other expert's suggestions. How can you justify that position?

Robert: Actually, there are a few legitimate experts and commentators on social media who hold similar opinions, but you are right that it's a tiny minority. The odd part is that I can justify the position in so many ways that it's frustrating for me to see how resistant people are to thinking critically about what they are told.

Q: Can you be more specific?

Robert: Sure. let's start with the "research" about social media and its effectiveness for....well, anything business related.

I've looked at hundreds of studies, and reports of studies and have not been able to find results that are convincingly in support of the notion that businesses will, on average, profit from the use of social media. What you do find is lots of studies that cite irrelevant numbers, or data which has nothing to do with customer buying behavior. They are based on what people SAY they MIGHT do, not on what they actually do. The results often sound good, or point to the importance of a strong social media presence, but it's misleading.

Q: Can you give us an example of misleading findings?

Robert: Lots of reports from "reputable" firms suggest that customers "prefer" to interact with companies (for customer support) via social media. Sounds pretty convincing until you realize that the surveys didn't ask the right questions. The reality is that customers are so turned off of LOUSY phone and email support that they HOPE things will be better if they try through social media. That's because social media hasn't been subject to the terrible misuse for customer service as has phone and email. So, the comparision people make is between really really bad phone/email, and potentially much better (for the moment) social media.

It's actually so obvious and simple. Customers want their issues addressed conveniently and quickly and they simply don't care very much about the medium used. They've given up on phone/email support, and eventually they will give up on social media for the same reasons. The quality of customer support is not determined by the medium, but by how easily customers can get their issues addressed.

Simplistic research surveys don't ask questions that will get at this reality.

Q: Is the research misleading in other ways?

Robert: Yes. In many ways, small businesses WILL be mislead by the reporting about social media and the "research" because everyone is repeating things without asking: "Hmmm. Could this be wrong?" There are so many flaws, it took me a number of pages to explain them in lay terms in "Giving The Business To Social Media Research" which is available, for the moment, only in e-format (Kindle). I think the sale price is $3.49 and I recommend it to any business wanting to understand social media better and to separate the junk thinking from the real world. Heck, it's less than a price of a fancy coffee, and we aren't making but pennies on it, but I believe it's essential reading.

Q: Have you got more reasons to advise small business folks to stay away?

Robert: I do. There are a number of others. First, social media will pull small business owners and managers "off-focus", where the focus no longer is bottom line thinking, but becomes an issue of how many people can we tweet to, or how many followers we can  garner. Those numbers are almost entirely irrelevant to business success, but they are seductive. People end up spending way to much time with social media, unintentionally. It's a seductive medium. Five hundred MILLION Facebook members sounds like a market one just HAS to access, until you realize that about 400,999,950 of them have no interest in your business, are not there to learn about your business, and are profoundly not "there" for shopping or even information about companies. THINK! You don't go to biker gatherings if you sell tuxedos.

Related to loss of business focus but slightly different is the time issue and opportunity cost. When you do "A", it means that you are NOT doing "B", and when A is insignificant and not related to business success, and B IS, you damage the business.

Businesses, particularly small businesses that are not as resiliant as multi-nationals, succeed by doing the right, relevant things at the correct times, and NOT being pulled into spending time on the trendy, buzz worthy, or faddish techniques.

It's that simple.

Q: We are seeing more mention of the importance of "influence" on social media as social media metric, as compared with just looking at the number of friends or followers. What's your opinion on influence as a metric?

Robert: Theoretically, if you COULD measure real influence, you'd have something. But you can't. The people talking about social media influence should really know better, because the concepts are simple. Influence, the ability to affect user behavior has TWO distinct components.

The first is whether behavior ON social media can be affected by the influencer. That is what all the metrics measure. For example, if someone receives a lot of retweets on twitter, that means the person is more of an influencer than someone who receives less. That can be measured, as can how many times someone is mentioned. This has absolutely zero to do with the really important "influence" businesses want to create. None of us make money from how people behave on social media, not directly except for the people who run the social media platforms.

This is whether behavior in "real life" is being influenced. So, if I can influence you to visit my store, or buy something from me, or buy a book I recommend, or somehow act differently in the non-virtual world, then and only then do I have something useful for business. That is real influence, and you can't measure it directly in the general case. You can only measure "it", given enough resources, using survey/self report data which is almost always of poor quality for reasons I've set out elsewhere. Conversion data is an indicator companies can look at but simply doesn't get at the larger issue of influence.

This is SO basic, I can't figure out why even the most enamoured, in terms of social media, can't or won't talk about this.

Q: So, why do you think this is "dangerous"? Isnt that extreme?

A: No, because anything that provides false information also misleads, whether it's about one's own business or the businesses of others. That's because business people should be keying their decisions based on valid information, not on ideas that are illogical or false. For example, if you are well retweeted on twitter, that may encourage you to continue to spend inordinate amounts of time tweeting, when in fact you have zero influence on behavior that affects the health of your business. These days, nobody can afford to squander time. I've long said that time is a resource far more valuable than money, particularly for small businesses, and false notions about the positive values of social media can result in huge losses due to lost opportunity.