I am beginning to feel a little nervous about Social Media. I am beginning to get a little skeptical of all the Social Media initiatives around me.
But then I also read that a little anxiety and nervousness can be a good thing. A little increase in the heartbeat before you meet that someone special or before that important presentation is helpful. It just means that you care about what you are doing and want to be successful.

I read this on David Spinks‘ blog

There’s a problem, and deep down, we’re all aware of it…but to do something about it would make many feel hypocritical and so they push it aside whenever it’s brought up.

The Social Media Growth if allowed unchecked will be the next bubble to burst. There, I said it. The cat is out of the bag.

An important lesson from the dot-com bust (should be a lesson from common sense actually!!) was that companies that don’t make money cannot survive. Advertising, no matter how clever, cannot save you. Consider online pet-supply store Pets.com. Its talking sock puppet mascot became so popular that it appeared in a multimillion-dollar Super Bowl commercial and as a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. But Pets.com was never able to give pet owners a compelling reason to buy supplies online. After they ordered kitty litter, a customer had to wait a few days to actually get it. And let’s face it, when you need kitty litter, you need kitty litter. The company lost money on most of the items it sold. Amazon.com-backed Pets.com raised $82.5 million in an IPO in February 2000 before collapsing nine months later.

Companies chased eyeballs, saying “don’t worry, revenues will follow”. People had business plans that had no mention of revenue. Web agencies popped up all over the place: building websites without a goal. You only needed “Web Programmer” or “Java” written on your resume to charge $200/hr for your services.

Fast forward to 2007. Similar story but same result. They said,

Buy the biggest house you can. Don’t worry about the downpayment. Don’t worry about the principal. Flip the house. Cash out. Live the “American Dream”.

We are still feeling the effects of the last one.

Fast forward again to the “Now” Network and we again see signs of the Social Bubble

• A search for “Social Media Consultant” on LinkedIn yields 46,069 results. “Social Media Expert” gives 12,426 results, “Social Media Evangelist” yields 1749 results and “Social Media Guru” gives 1477 results. For an industry that is 2-3 years old, that is a really large number. [Lesson: better to choose "guru" than "expert" ]
• At most of the digital conferences, the theme is “social”.
• VC money being poured into social networks, microblogs, real time search engines and other cool SM startups that have no clear revenue models. “We will eventually get there”. There is so much free in the industry that advertising alone couldn’t possibly sustain it.
• Each company and their mother is jumping into Social Media, rushing to build a Facebook fan page or Twitter following. According to Bertrand Russell, “Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity towards those that are not regarded as members of the herd.” It is the fear of being “left out” or not being part of the herd that is driving a lot of companies into Social Media. The prime ingredient for a bubble is the desire to do something because everyone else is doing it.

Adam Sarner, an analyst with market research firm Gartner, projected that close to 40% of social networking initiatives at Fortune 1000 companies with Web sites will will be classified as failures.

I Love Social Media: Don’t get me wrong. I do believe Social Media has gone mainstream. I do believe that the SM tools when used in the right manner can increase both personal and business productivity, improve customer engagement levels, make innovation faster & cheaper and build new relationships.

2010 is supposedly the year when Social Media will be tested. Investors will start demanding some visibility into returns and cash flows.

To keep the Social Media Wave going, it is our responsibility as Social Media Leaders/Experts/Consultants/Evangelists/Gurus/Advocates (whatever fancy term you want to use) to ask the right questions:

• QUESTION 1: HOW IS IT GOING TO BENEFIT THY COMPANY?
• Engagement, loyalty, brand building are all good things. But they are all warm and fuzzy words that others in the firm may not understand. Start thinking and talking in a language that your CFO/CEO understands. Will customer engagement and brand loyalty result in increased sales or lower costs? List down all the potential benefits and see if/how they can translate into $$$. Any marketing initiative can only be sustained if it has the support of the folks who control the dollars.

  And PLEASE, stop chasing followers. Don’t fall into the trap of “How to build 10,000 followers in 10 days”. Success in Social Media is not measured by the number of followers you have. This is not a competition on “My brand has more followers than your brand”. Social Media is for the long haul. It takes time to build the relationships and start seeing ROI. If it hurts to hear that, don’t do it.

• QUESTION 2: HOW IS IT GOING TO BENEFIT THY CUSTOMERS?
  Social Media is not a channel for self promotion. It is frustrating to see so many corporate Facebook pages, blogs, Twitter feeds ONLY talk about the firm. They are in a broadcast mode. They are not engaged with the customer. They are not listening to the customer. They are not solving customer problems. They are not building loyalty.
  You need to think how you can make the customer experience better or simplify their life or add more value.

So, Social Media has become a part of our daily lives. We discussed in a previous post how 80% of online Americans use some form of social media and how marketers increasingly plan on using it. So, what changed? What is leading to the widespread adoption of social media? I identified 3 trends:

• iPhone: With a iPhone in every hand, it is easier than ever for people to read, create or participate in any kind of social content. You don’t have to wait to get back to your PC to let your friends know about the cool dinner place you just went to or respond to comments on your blog. iPhone and a range of Android powered phones that are coming into the market now have completely revolutionized the internet experience.
  It has given instant gratification a new meaning. The other day I was at the US Open Finals and was using to iPhone to share the experience with my friends: updating match photos, responding to people’s comments on my status on Facebook, sending out tweets.
• Twitter: The average number of tweets sent out everyday is 1.9 million. Twitter is sometimes called the SMS of the Internet. Big companies like Dell, Starbucks, Bank of America and Comcast have been using Twitter to promote their products and answer customers’ questions. But you know when a trend has gone mainstream when small businesses and entrepreneurs are using it as part of their strategy to build customer loyalty and grow their revenues. The Wall Street Journal carried an article last week titled “Entrepreneurs Tweet Their Way Through Crises“. The NYT carried another article on increasing success with small businesses back in July.
  You know when a trend has gone mainstream when the country’s president uses it for fundraising and staying connected with the voters during the presidential campaign.
  You know when a trend has gone mainstream when people are using it for news on crises and emergencies. During the Mumbai terror attacks, tweets were being posted at the rate of 70 tweets every 5 seconds.
• Early Adopters: As of Jan 2009, 54% of Facebook users were under 24 years old. The median age of a Twitter user is 31. Every new platform or tool requires a set of people who are willing to buy into the trend, experiment with it and provide constructive criticism. The work of William Struass and Neil Howe offers some insights: raised with laptops and cell phones, this generation is comfortable with evolving technology.
  A 2004 Pew Internet & American Life survey found 84 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds owned a computer, cell phone or Personal Digital Assistant. Cell phones help maintain an often close bond between young people and parents.
  Other findings in the Junco and Mastrodicasa survey included that 76% of students used instant messaging, 92% of those reported multitasking while IMing, and 40% of students used television to get most of their news and 34% the Internet.

iPhone made social media available on the go; tools like twitter, facebook, blogger and youtube made it easy for everyone to create and share content online and the Millennials provided the critical mass needed to take it past the tipping point.

Do you see any other trends shaping growth in social media?

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/guptanitinonline

0 people like this post.

Like 

A lot has been written and said about monetizing social networks. Investors are worried that sites like Facebook that has over 250 million users worldwide and is a market leader, don’t have a clear business model.

0 people like this post.

Like 

As marketing people, we love social media. And why not? Its comparatively inexpensive, has a broad reach and a variety of platforms available to establish thought leadership, demand generation and customer loyalty.

But one thing that companies need to understand before jumping onto the social media bandwagon is that social media is different from other online or traditional media. Social media is a sacred space. You get it right and you build long lasting customer loyalty. But if you get wrong, it is very hard to undo what you just did.

I recently came across this article on the Harvard blog about Hiring Smarter with Social Media (http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/07/hire_smarter_with_social_media.html). While some of the ideas are good, I was astounded to read the following:

You can strike a balance by asking prospects to friend you for a limited time (24 or 48 hours) on any social network where they’re personally identifiable, so you can see how they present themselves online and make sure there aren’t any examples of bad judgement or online comments that could come back to haunt you (for example, griping about one of your clients).

Oh my god! A company who listens to this advice is not only limiting the pool of potential applicants but also exposing them to lawsuits related to discrimination. The info I share with my “friends” via Facebook or other such sites includes personal information that you would NEVER ask in an interview such as marital status, religious beliefs/affiliations, political views, etc.

0 people like this post.

Like