Social Media Business Bulls**t

Coincidence? Last night I wrote an email to a nice woman roughly my baby-boomer age answering her "Should I put my business on Facebook?" question with a polite "probably not." This morning I see Michael Gray's post Web 2.0 Weenies and Bulls**t Social Media Economics. I think it's more synchronicity than coincidence. (And a side note: give Michael the credit for that plain-talking title, and me the blame for putting asterisks into it.)

My email exchange was a response to a column I wrote about social media for business. I went to this woman's website, and liked it; a kind of quirky cotton-related store, a slightly-old fashioned look and feel to it, but it also told a story of how she'd come to get into selling cotton goods, and the whole thing worked pretty well. Here's what I told her:

Having a Facebook page isn't hard to do. That alone, however, won't make much difference at all. You have to use that to make people know, like, and trust you. And that takes a lot of time and effort, and not just by the Web developers, but by the personality at the core, namely, from what I read on your website, you. You have the makings of it. You clearly understand how to tell a story about your business, and to put yourself into it. But is this what you want to do every day, for several hours a day?

Michael's post (the Weenies and Bulls**t link above) gets to the point quicker. And he's straighter about it.

Social media is filled with false gods and idols, who try to sell you their own "secret sauce" in get rich quick schemes, and hundreds are duped in by the lure of easy money. The truth is if you approach social media with a cookie cutter plan from one of these guru's it wont work for you. I can't tell you the secret of making money, I can only tell you what works for me, and chances are since you don't think and approach problems the way I do, they won't work for you. The best I can do, is give a you some basic pointers and tell you where the cliffs are so you don't walk off. After that you'll have to get off your butt, work at it and fail more than once, if you want to make some money.

Sad but true; Michael's very cynical view is also spot on. And you see it over and over again. The real booming business in Web 2.0 and social media is the boom in people writing, speaking, blogging about Web 2.0 and social media for business.

It's sort of like signing up for a toll-free telephone number and discovering, soon after, that it doesn't ring. Nobody calls without the whole time and effort involved in making them call. Having a Facebook page, a Twitter account, or a blog can't do anything more than give you a forum. You have to have something to say, and more than just once, to make that matter. It takes time and effort.

So I am in fact blogging, tweeting, and struggling with Facebook and LinkedIn, and enjoying it thoroughly, but I'm not arguing about whether there's a business payoff. I do it because I like doing it. That's enough reason for me.

My final point here is another quote from Michael's post. He does take a stance on it:

Social media should make you more productive, more efficient, and more profitable, by allowing you to extend your reach and message to the people who are in your target market and are interested in what you have to say. Social media should not be used to waste time and money on awareness and branding exercises, broadcasting messages that are unremarkable to the uninterested masses.

And then, seemingly talking directly to me, he adds:

if you want to use social media tools on your own time to communicate and connect, that's fine, just don't do it on your boss's dime, and call it work.

Harummph. That's what I meant.

Comments

[cylindar]

Using social media to do business is very iffy at best. When I socialize, I like to socialize for fun, not for profit. I also do not want to be sold to. The problem with social networks is that they quickly become agencies for profit seekers. There is nothing wrong with making money and or dropping a hint big or small but that is a sideline and it should be understood by anyone who wants to sell tupperware to their friends that sooner or later you won't find them at home for you. Why? Because they will feel used. You can sell people if you look at them as a whole and not just something to sell to. People should know you are a seller and that you have an interest in what you sell. If you are just selling without an interest in the item or service that you sell you are in immediate trouble in the social networks. Internet social networks are at best fleeting. People favor one social network one day and then go over to another on the next day. One of the biggest reasons for this is that as social networks become popular they begin to be used for profit, and then people take off for other networks where they will not be bothered as much.

[HassanOmar]

The sites are good tools to use to drive some traffic to your main business website. I agree however that it's not the most efficient use of your time.

[wietog]

The danger of social networking is something that should be called the "Amway Factor" - it starts out sincerely, or so you think, but suddenly you're being pulled into a marketing vortex and your stats are being used against you to profit someone else.

Make no mistake: Facebook is not an innocuous White Pages allowing for free posting and communication - it's a data mine extraordinaire.

Be careful what you put out there. It's either going to bite you in the a** or mark you as a sucker.

And yeah, most people could care less what you think. Stick to your true friends and family...

[dctackett]

I don't have a whole lot of experience with these apps. Based on what I know through friends who use them, they seem to not actually be business tools... people still have to find the "drop" that is you in the "ocean" that is the internet... they're mostly social flaunting tools, electronic soap boxes... "I've got a site and it shows pictures of me and displays quotes from me. Spend your time reading what I've written"... they seem to only be good as a place for people who already know you to get updates on things you want them to know and to be able to say things without having to say them to people's directly... how many people are going to read this post?... why am I even writing it?... who really cares?

[cssorber]

Quoting: "...Having a Facebook page, a Twitter account, or a blog can't do anything more than give you a forum. You have to have something to say, and more than just once, to make that matter. .."
So many (with so little to say) tweet for the sake of tweeting in an unending flow of verbal diarrhea. I have dozens of followers and I rarely say anything at all. What are they all waiting for? Maybe one day I'll think of something profound and tweet it. Stay tuned for the collective "ahhhhhh."

[Agent420]

Web 2.0 is a farce. It does not exist. When I hit the Internet (singular, there is no other Internet), I see just what I have always seen. If, by Web 2.0, you mean these social time wasters. The sheep look up.

[Steve Magruder]

Your analysis is bit simplistic in my view. There have been clear advantages coming from Web 2.0, such as enhanced political organization and discussion, as well as information dissemination (e.g., Wikipedia). A total dismissal is not warranted.

[fleaba]

Feel the same about Naymz and linkedin.

[gradLady]

Wow, you mean that web 2.0 and social networking isn't good for marketing, it's good for :::gasp::: social networking? Imagine that.

[VoteforPedro]

Quoting: it's good for :::gasp::: social networking? Imagine that.
---

Only if you want fake friends who wouldn't cross the street to pizza on your head if it was on fire.

[VoteforPedro]

Quoting you: it's good for :::gasp::: social networking? Imagine that.
---

Yes it is, but only if you want fake friends who wouldn't cross the street to pizza on your head if it was on fire.

[dctackett]

to "pizza" on your head?

[freshpavement]

Thank you for this great post! I'm a "traditional" trade journal publisher and have been wrestling with this for about 2 years. At our industry conferences all the biggest magazine publishers have been admonishing small guys like me to get on the social media bandwagon before we go the way of the covered wagon. They are the same guys that have driven their established brands into bankruptcy by borrowing and spending so much on this BS right before their ad revenue evaporated. It's BS because it rarely adds value for the reader and the advertisers have certainly not asked for it.
Those big magazine publishers?
Most of 'em are out looking for jobs right now.

[Citizen54]

Yep, the borrowing and spending in the name of never-ending growth has probably put the nail in the coffin for many big publishers.

As an editor/writer, it's pretty sad to see the publishing business in such bad straits.

Btw, Freshpavement, are you hiring???

[acearle]

I had to laugh when I read this. For grins and giggles, I started building a Twitter network. I followed the gurus, and lo and behold I have something on the order of 1,000 followers and 5 or 6 million secondary followers. It was a solution looking for a problem, and....ermmm....I haven't found the problem yet. I ask questions via Twitter that are fed automatically to my Facebook account. When I don't receive and answer to the question (which happens 100% of the time), I trudge back to my old Web 1.0 standby, Google, and do some good old fashioned research. Every once in a while, I'll pick up the phone. I don't leave messages anymore, people are too busy Tweeting and building Facebook networks to actually return calls these days. If I get really desperate, I return to the stone age and actually try to visit people to try and talk with them in between emails and tweets.

With all this Web 2.0 stuff, its a wonder sometimes that *anything* gets done.

[Steve Magruder]

Funny that. You just posted to a Web 2.0 application. Hmmm.

[David Guarneri]

Well said. The amount of time the tech industry media spends on "Web 2.0" and its related technologies is highly disproportionate to the type of work that IT people encounter on a day to day basis. It reflects a disconnect from the information IT workers need and what writers like to cover. IT workers are spread across all fields and sectors, and much of what they do involves the infrastructure of our economy and political system. The perform work on things such as inventory systems, interdepartmental systems in local and state governments, migrations from legacy systems to newer technologies, ERP's, personell systems, and banking systems. Pretty much any time you need to keep track of items or people, maximize resource allocation, improve process flow, and increase productivity. This including systems that keep track of jail inmates, court data, traffic tolls, tax information, personnel information, sales information, vehicle fleet information, product distribution information, and so on. Buzzwords like "Web 2.0" and companies that are based too close to Hollywood to be taken seriously are likely distant thoughts in the minds of the managers and workers that are involved in these activities that the public greatly depends on. Think about that the next time you drink a glass of milk or are trying to bail your nephew out of jail. Facebook had nothing to do with it.

[Republicrats]

So true especially now that twitter has gone from a "what are you doing now" thing to a follow me follow you post, blog, reach an audience through another portal type of clusterf*&ck. When McCain gets on twitter, you know its over....

I read a study wehre kids were actiually putting down the screens and talking to each other, what? thats carzy!