A challenge for Social Media Experts
While in the pub last night, I was discussing blogging - and bulging Drafts folders - with Melinda and Dan W. Now, if you think my blog is particularly cynical and angry, you ain’t seen nothing. The stuff that gets published is pretty tame compared to the stuff that sits unpublished. One of those things is a megarant on social media - just a pure rip the fucking heart out and watch the patient die rant. But I don’t want to publish it. I need to actually unrantify it, clean it up, fill it with links, moderate it down so that it’s not just the ravings of a cranky guy who sits in the corner and shouts at his computer, but something that might actually convince you that something is wrong with the world, but that we might be able to fix it if we try and think a bit clearer about it.
Until that post sees the light of day, I’ve got a little idea. It is a simple test that can be given to anyone who claims expertise, knowledge or offers consultancy in social media. It is simply this: have you ever told a client that they need not bother with social media, or that social media is irrelevant to their business or stated goals?
It seems like an important test of the honesty of anyone claiming professional status that they can identify which situations do not require their involvement. There are undoubtedly businesses that do not need to even bother with social media. There are plenty of businesses who are using social media to distract from actually solving the real problems - problems like the product or service sucking, sleazy business tactics, poor customer service, broken management and so on. A public U.S. corporation I know but won’t name was fully signed on with the Cluetrain Manifesto when that first left the depot. They are losing customers due to poor customer service and pricing, firing the competent and keeping the incompetent (especially in management), shutting down operations in areas where they are successful and all the other piss-poor management crap. No amount of social media fixes the problem of having salesmen who know absolutely nothing about the product, or poor management decisions like, oh, stomping on growing departments that are making money because of personal ego issues.
I can think of plenty of groups who would have precisely no benefit from social media. Funeral directors don’t need Twitter. ‘Become a fan of the Civil Aviation Authority on Facebook’ should make you say ‘WTF?’. My relationship with my toothpaste - a long-standing mutual indifference (I can’t actually recall what brand of toothpaste I use) - would be in no way advanced by the manufacturer getting into social media. ‘WebCameron’ rightly made most people cringe. BBC News would be vastly improved if “Have Your Say” were either removed or put through a few spin cycles of the Stupidfilter - there really is no Reithian value in giving soapboxes to looneys. I wouldn’t mind it if South Eastern Trains were to get onto Twitter, but I’d much rather they would reduce fares and figure out how to communicate details about delays between stations so that one can actually travel without wanting to go postal.
So, does this strike anyone as a good test of social media expertise?
