Social media is pretty amazing, isn’t it? It is a reflection of all that is good and bad in society. Concentrated social media efforts have helped raise funds and create awareness for numerous causes around the world. Social media has made it easier for us to communicate with each other; to share the special moments in our lives with our friends and family. Social media has also helped us make better buying decisions in regard to what, where, and from whom to buy.
Social media has also made us pretty damn stupid, too.
The amount of business advice floating around the social space is like a noisy traffic jam – each post honking desperately for your attention. Social media has spawned a new generation of “experts” who say the darndest things sometimes. Becoming a social media “expert” isn’t very hard either. If you have 8-10 hours a day to spend online and/or nominal experience in any marketing/PR/sales position (to include internships or having a friend who works in either marketing/PR/sales) and/or a large twitter following and/or a respectable Klout score, then you’re pretty much qualified to advise on traditional business practices.
The disturbing thing is that many people will actually believe these people to be experts in business, regardless of whether or not said “expert” has ever held an executive position in any business (nobody bothers to check their bios anyway). Despite the redundancy or, in many cases, the absurdity of what they write. Despite the lack of any credible research or data to support their theories. Perception becomes reality! And this perception has a way of spreading to the social masses through twitter RTs and facebook shares, like a deadly plague, until it is accepted as truth.
“Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.” ~Friedrich von Schiller
This past week, I came across a guest post on Gini Dietrich’s very respectable Spin Sucks marketing/PR blog that brings to light the stupidity being shared on the social space, Miracle Max Presents 11 Things That Aren’t Quite Dead. I’m not even gonna get into who Miracle Max is (if you don’t already know) but the post goes on to challenge the claims made by numerous social media marketing bloggers that many traditional business strategies are, indeed, dead.
Marketing is Dead! E-Mail is Dead! Direct Mail is Dead! Public Relations is Dead! You’ve all seen the posts at one time or the other, yes?
What’s really dead is our intelligence and common sense. RIP.
The fact that we’d even need such a post to dispel these ridiculous claims is a poor reflection of our own sensibilities. Do we really believe everything we read online? Moreover, the fact that the post offers up no research or statistical data to back its own claims (besides, of course, the opinion of Miracle Max) is another poor reflection. Do we really believe everything we read online?
Or are we too easily influenced by the source of the information? The blog or the blogger? “Well, if such-and-such blogger wrote it then it must be true! Right? Hello?”
Let’s do our homework first before we proclaim social media hyperbole as truth, yes?
The facts are (if anybody would bother to dig up actual unbiased statistics) that many of these traditional practices are still going strong, while others are in a transitional state, while still others are on the rebound after a dip. But why bother with facts when these types of posts make such great blog fodder?
You wanna know what’s alive and/or dead in business? Do yourself a favor and stop reading so many social media marketing blogs (there ARE a few good ones out there) and go out into the business community where you live and work and “engage” with real people running real businesses. Attend your local Chamber of Commerce’s business events and get to know people who hold executive marketing and PR positions. Volunteer with a local charity and interface with the executive directors and board members. Get to know how “real” people (people who leave their homes to drive/commute to an actual brick and mortar business/organization to interact with other “real” people) are doing business.
Only then, can you intelligently discern what’s happening in the “real” business world (where being profitable is the ultimate goal) and what these so-called “experts” think is happening in their tiny, little social media business world (where eyeballs and book sales are the ultimate goal).
Until then, Long Live Stupidity!
[Digital images by Norvz Austria aka xetobyte]
21 comments
This is nothing against you at all as you know I devour anything you write (and of course, pictures of Buddy,) but I am so over anything published that touches on social media. There are no experts. There are no guaranteed hard and fast rules to success. There’s just a lot of noise and people who can scream above the masses in a larger context due to either their platform or the resources they have to proclaim their expertise.
The bottom line? Don’t be stupid. Be yourself and not who you think you need to be to be successful (in other words, like everyone else.) And for god’s sake, quit writing about social media (not you, of course.) Then again, I’m a peon and have never made a cent off my blog, so I don’t have much room to talk, but I’m over it. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to escape.
Abby,
You’re so right. I have tried hard to avoid social media blogs and twitter chats for the past month and have seen quite a decline in my blood pressure. I find myself most passionate, however, when I write about the stupidity I find on social media. I need to focus on other things like peanut butter and why I never became a banker…
Or I’ll just keep reading your blog – maybe I’ll learn a thing or two 🙂
Totally agree with your rant. That said, you totally discount all forms of journalism. Wouldn’t it be better to advise that people be skeptical until the prove it to themselves via just accepting everything at face value.
You kinda threw the baby out with the bath water.
Please don’t insult journalists by comparing them to social media bloggers 🙂
I do see your point – thanks for the comment…
Just so’s you know, rants are dead.
I thought rants were the new 50 shades of black?
Piss off, Brown.
Maybe that’ll be my next blog post: “Rants are Dead! Long Live Rants!”
In general, I’m wary of anyone who calls themselves an “expert” in social media. Expertise doesn’t just happen when you proclaim it and start writing “rants” about such and such tool or service dying. That’s stupidity at its’ finest. Expert status only happens when other people begin to take note and start coming to you on a topic. And, I might add that topic will be a lot smaller than “social media.” Nobody, and I mean nobody, can know everything there is to know about SM.
Jessica,
Surely there are experts out there who write intelligent articles based on research and data. Unfortunately, many of them get drowned out by those people who focus primarily on attracting eyeballs to their site. And because social media practices are highly ideological, they can make up just about anything.
Always nice to see you here…
“The facts are (if anybody would bother to dig up actual unbiased
statistics) that many of these traditional practices are still going
strong, while others are in a transitional state, while still others are
on the rebound after a dip.”
So,you rant about the lack of stats and our believing just based on who says so and then you offer this nugget with no facts or stats. Was it too difficult to find the unbiased stats or are we to just believe you because you say so?
That’s what google is for – look it up. My argument wasn’t to verify whether or not any of these practices were alive or dead – just that if you’re gonna make a case for either, include a little data.
It kind of bums me out, Dan, that you chose a Spin Sucks guest blogger to pick on. If you want to pick on Spin Sucks, I’d prefer you do it with something I wrote instead.
I really liked that particular post. It was well-written, funny, and had just the right amount of snark to go along with the topic. I think the blogger would agree with you (as it was her point) that all these “dead” topics are ridiculous. I also think she’d agree people should spend time living out in the real world and having face-to-face conversations with people. But telling people to stop reading social media blogs (I assume you’re putting Spin Sucks in that category?) is bad advice. The right advice is to have a good balance of offline and on so you can make your own intelligent decisions.
Gini,
First of all, I like and respect you and I respect what you do. Secondly, I understand you’re in the social media business and you have to defend it – I get that. Thirdly, I’ve been far more critical of Margie in the past – my ire (for lack of a better term) really wasn’t directed at her. Fourthly, I never said to stop reading social media blogs but to stop reading “so many” (I did say in my post that there ARE some good ones).
That all said, I do believe that when it comes to “business”, most of what you’ll find from social media bloggers is ideology and even folly. A good balance for me would be spending a majority of your time around “real” business people and keeping your social media reading only to those writers that actually have a solid corporate background (which would probably eliminate a good percentage of bloggers).
I have no problem with you disagreeing with me on this but that’s my story, has always been my story, and I’m sticking to it 🙂
Dan, you are asking people think critically. Now that is REALLY dead!!!
My bad, yes?
I thought you were dead? Glad to see you are alive and kickin….and always ranting!
So, you could have written this post two years ago and it would have sounded the same as one of your prior rants. When are you going to do something to add to the equation instead of whining and crying about it, Dan?
I’m adding to the equation, I’m getting people to realize the redundancy of what they read online and to seek answers elsewhere – or did you not read the post to the end?
No tears here…
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