Overhyped Social Media For Business
Written by Robert Bacal | 
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| The Never Ending Social Media Interview - Business and Social Media |
More from Sam in Ireland:
Q: Do you feel that the potential value of social media to the modern
business has been over-hyped?
A: Yes. In fact that's one of the main themes of the book I'm working on. Others have defined something called the "hype cycle" where something gets a lot of buzz, causing others to jump on the bandwagon which creates more buzz until things get to a point where people realize that they really don't like the thing all that much. Or, they find they do, and then it all becomes stable.
We're in that buzz phase. Twitter is a prime example. It's so limited in functionality and practical use, but the buzz has caused millions to get accounts. Then they leave just about as quickly. Somewhere about 80% of accounts are dormant. Eventually people will notice that it's not quite a "big thing".
Given the claims, there is remarkably few success stories relative to the number of business who have tried and are failing badly. This is remarkably similiar to the hype (which is short for hyberbole, which means exageration) that happened in the late 1990's around the Internet and e-commerce in general. This time, though companies are finding out quickly that social media isn't a goldmine, but it has some characteristics of a minefield.
The hype contributes to pulling businesses in to social media and much of the resources they use will be wasted, and have a negative return on investment. We won't necessarily hear much about those failures, but there is a distinct cost to overhype this time.
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Scoundrel
MicroThoughts
You can tell your "social media expert" is a scoundrel or utterly ignorant if they use the phrase "They just don't get social media". The truth is that the expert doesn't get social media, or how human beings work and is unable to come up with anything better to refute arguments or disagreements about social media.
Mashable no-no
In response to a Mashable article about how Starbucks supposedly used social media to bring one million people into their stores in a day:
This is just terrible "journalism". First, the giveaways brought the people in. Second, we have no idea how many people came for the freebies hearing on it from Twitter or not. Third, They could have pulled people into their stores with this promotion in any of a number of ways. This is not a social media success, anymore than having sandwich board guys outside of each store would constitute a success for loitering.
Learn From Competition?
Some believe you should monitor and emulate your competition on social media. Here's a thought:
If you look at your competitors, will you end up looking like your competitors? The ongoing issue in any marketing or even in developing a network is how to standout FROM the competition, and not to BE like the competition.
Social Media Frauds
You know someone isn't worth following if they retweet compliments given to them by others. They are either frauds who are better at self-promotion than they are in their alleged area of expertise, or they are so insecure that they have to -- just have to, make sure that everyone knows how wonderful other people think they are. Hint: Run away. These folks are like empty drums. Bang on the outside and you get a cool sound. Empty inside -- nothing to offer.
Immersion
You cannot fully understand social media solely by being immersed in it. In fact, one reason why there is so much bad information about social media is that most of it comes from immersed people. The full picture is only available to people who can DISTANCE themselves emotionally and intellectually and see social media from the outside -- as most human beings view it.
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