Facebook – Guilty for People’s Stupidity?
I read an interesting article today about the darker side of social media. It highlights some cases where people have used facebook to get fired and fuel feuds that end in assault. We’ve all seen the headlines.
The thing that amazes me here is how people are blaming Facebook. Don’t get me wrong, I hate Facebook as much as the next guy but come on people. It’s not Facebook’s fault you can’t communicate with your teenage kids. It’s not Facebook’s fault that you got fired. It’s not even Facebook’s fault that your cousin got that date and you didn’t.
It’s like blaming the weapon used in a crime instead of blaming the criminal. Facebook is just a form of communication and media consumption. What people do there and say there isn’t Facebook’s fault. Let’s stop vilifying websites for the actions of their users. A moron on Facebook is a moron no matter what medium they are using at the moment.
Am I wrong on this? I don’t think so but please feel free to voice your opinion anyway.
Social Media – Is it Dead? Really?
We're in the late majority section of this curve.
So the AntiPR Guy wrote a post a few weeks ago about social media being dead.
He brings up some really good points about Social media being to the point where it will not be growing any more. We’re past the top of the marketing bell curve. While I agree with this I don’t agree that it is dead by any means. To me this sounds a lot like the people who said that TV was done growing in popularity in the 60′s.
Social media is here to stay.
Social media has only helped communication evolve. AntiPR Guy says that the next generation will not have a blog or a podcast, they will simply text. I don’t see it. My son for example is definitely part of that generation. He’s 10 and he has just launched his own blog where he posts chapters from the books he is writing. As this next generation grows up I think much of their communication will be via texting but to say they won’t blog or podcast is just silly. Social Media isn’t dead. It’s evolving. Who can say what will be the next big thing in social media?
Now don’t get me wrong. Social media isn’t all it’s cracked up to be by many of today’s marketing analysts. It never has been. Sure it’s all the rage in marketing. “Does your new product have a Facebook fan page?” Social media is just the shiny new toy. It’s like when any new medium comes along, marketing types jump all over it because they don’t want to miss the gold rush if it just so happens that this is the thing that is going to replace the horribly unquantifiable advertising practices of the past. People are always looking for a magic bullet. They thought banner ads were it, and they thought spam was it, and they thought TV advertising was it.
Social media however is an effective tool when used right. It’s social. People are social, products are not social. But people like to socialize with other people who enjoy the sames things, including the same products. And when they feel that a certain brand connects with them, they share it with their “friends”. That’s when social media works for advertising, When it’s not really the social media doing the advertising it’s the users using social media to do what they would have done via a different medium in a different age.
What Social media really has going for it will still be here for quite a while. It’s the ability for something to spread very far, very fast. To go viral if you will in the true sense of the word, not the buzzword meaning but like Old Spice really did with their Old Spice Man earlier this year.
So here’s the way I see it in a nutshell. Social media is just another tool in available to advertiser and marketers. Potentially it’s a very powerful tool. And like I always tell my kids, “Use the right tool for the right job”. But just like any other tool, if you don’t know how to use it you’ll just look like an idiot. Kinda like when you see a guy trying to change his tire with a hammer.
Related articles
- Why Social Media is BS (hubspot.com)
- Disqus Is A Fantastic Website Social Media Tool (smarterotti.com)
- 10 Steps to More Scientific Social Media Marketing (hubspot.com)
Push Marketing is on Its Way Out, Welcome to Pull Marketing
Push marketing is where a company pushes it’s products to it’s consumers. Since the beginning of marketing, push marketing has been the vehicle that has dominated the marketing landscape. With push marketing, you don’t know who exactly who your customers are so you have to shotgun your advertising, TV, magazines, billboards.
With social networking sites, that is starting to change. The companies that understand will not be the only ones to survive but I dare say that they will be the ones that will thrive.
Yesterday I passed a house in a newer neighborhood where someone understands pull marketing. In front of their newly prepared landscaping was a big piece of plywood with a sign painted in bright orange “Need Sprinklers”. Using pull marketing to make the sprinkler providers/contracters come to them. I would wager that they are also using social networking sites to find things get found online.
My wife and I decided that we need a new family doctor that is closer to home. Immediately my wife turned to Facebook. In less than a day we not only had a lot of referrals to choose from, we had a competition going on. It’s basically down to 2 family practices and we’re letting our Facebook friends fight out which one is the better choice. If one of those practices were to join the conversation they would no doubt win my vote.
I’ve seen the same thing on Twitter, someone looking for a cloud based PBX system for personal use, someone looking for a flexible enterprise CMS, someone looking for the best WordPress plugin for this or that.
Only once have I seen a company that is capitalizing on the new mentality. Someone complained about the speed of an internet service she uses on twitter and within an hour she had a response back from a support person at said company saying that he was addressing her issue. It wasn’t a big enough issue for her to talk to tech support but it was enough of an issue to tell her friends. And now we all know about this cool new service with awesome customer service.
That’s what pull marketing is all about.
This company is monitoring the networks for mentions of their brand and products and when something pops up that could do damage, or when an opportunity arises they jump on it, turning negative press into positive press. Right there, that is enough reason for me to check these guys out. I probably never would have paid enough attention to them but now I have and now I know that they would be a perfect thing for us to use. In fact, they could solve one of our biggest problems in online reputation management for a specific client.
Effective marketing? Yes. Expensive advertising? No. Am I already sold? Yes. And have they ever talked to me? No.
Tell me what marketing or sales department wouldn’t like to experience that.
Old Technologies
I predict that by 2020 we won’t have printed phone books. Or newspapers for that matter but this post isn’t about newspapers. It’s about phone books.
We had a new phone book delivered to the house yesterday. My 10-year-old son who loves books and has read over 1000 pages in a single weekend picked it up and gaped at it huge size. “What’s this? he asked with eyes big as saucers. I know he has seen them before. I think so anyway. Pretty sure…
Then I started thinking about it, when is the last time I picked up a phone book with the intention of finding a phone number? I honestly can’t remember but I’m sure it was years ago. And then I got to thinking about how digital technology is killing many aspects of the print industry. Newspaper, magazines, and phone books… the list goes on. Phone book companies for the most part have done a good job transitioning to the digital age. I can’t wait until you only see phone books in museums and movies.
Having once managed the Internet department for Phone Directories Company, I know a little more about phone books than most people. And it’s interesting to watch a company whose medium is passing try to figure out how to convert their old model to a new model. Some make it, some don’t.
And of course this just ties in with SEO. It’s just not enough to call up your phone book company and buy a $3000 listing and expect to see some traffic to your business from it. Now you have to optimize, localize, fine tune, design, redesign, maintain, and regularly update your digital presence. And it’s funny, you find a company who used to spend anywhere from $5000-$15000 every year for their half page ad and they can’t justify spending the same for someone to manage their digital presence. Then at the same time, they still pump that budget into the old dying medium knowing that it’s dying and not expecting but somehow hoping that they’ll continue to see an ROI like they would have 10 years ago. It just doesn’t happen.
There are a few that get it. They’re exploring new media and trying new things. These will be the companies that grow and dominate the local markets over the next 10 years. I went to a social networking event called a swarm last week organized by a little Hawaiian BBQ place that I never would have heard of. If you’re on foursquare you probably know what a swarm is. We tried for it but fell short of the required 50 attendees to get our badge. But it was a great experience for me as an internet professional. It was an even better experience for Pounders Hawaiin Grill. The place was packed. I don’t think they could have handled the 50 people we were hoping for.
Now how much did they spend on this marketing? Nothing. Except for the time of one employee to get on Foursquare and do a little networking. Now it might be a little more complicated than a traditional phone book ad. But not much. And then let’s talk about the ROI. How could the phone book ever compete?