The social media revolution is over

The social media revolution is over and it’s time for all of us to take a collective deep breath – in through the nose and out through the mouth. Now, before you accuse me of being a complete moron for proclaiming the end of social media, let me clarify what I mean.

I believe social media – as a practice – is in its infancy. We are emerging from a time that saw the development of an amazing number of tools anyone can use to engage on what came to be known as social media. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, blogging platforms, Twitter, YouTube, UStream, Utterli, and the list goes on . Some, like the ones I’ve mentioned here, have been wildly successful. Others have slipped below the surface and  been assigned to the Web 2.0 category of Trivial Pursuit. The ones that made it, and the ones that didn’t, were part of the revolution. Their advent came at a time when we were all comfortable with the Internt. And isn’t that the way it always goes. Just when we get use to the status quo someone else gets bored with it and decides to stir the pot.

We went from needing a website to participate to needing only access to the web. You don’t even need a computer. All that’s required is a visit to your local library. The revolution that is social media made it possible for us to communicate with, potentially, the entire world. It took the concept of global communications promised by the Internet and made it not only possible, but real. Whether text, audio, or video, each of us now has the power to send our message anywhere and everywhere.

And that, my friends, is a revolution if ever there was one. People took something that existed in one form and through a lot of hard work and struggle created something new from it. The old didn’t go away, but it is not what it once was. So where does that leave us today? The same place we were on September 3, 1783 when the treaty ending the American Revolution was signed. The revolution was over, but the evolution was about to begin. And this country has been evolving ever since.

The tools are the revolution, but he evolution are the tools grow up around those tools to make them more powerful. Twitter is wonderful, but the real power of Twitter is in the hundreds of applications we leverage to make it better. Blogs are nice, but RSS feeds, Diggs and del.icio.us are just a few of the technologies that have helped blogs realize the potential of their communication power.

We have the tool to communicate to our markets in ways we never dreamed possible. Now it is up to each of us to figure out how to use those tools to accomplish the goals we’ve set. The original thinking that social media tactics should reserved for communications and not for marketing is already evolving and will continue to do so. 

What we have today is so because people were willing to push boundries of what the Internet could do (revolution) - people a hell of a lot smarter than me. But each of us is capable of taking the gifts they’ve given and evolving them to derive greater and greater benefit than even the revolutionaries might have imagined.

The revolution is dead. Long live the evolution.

Terry Moran called for illegal Tweeting

President Obama called Kanye West a jackass. I saw it on Twitter so it must be true. And Politico reported on it here. Considering what he did to Taylor Swift on Sunday night, I agree with the president: Kanye West is a jackass.  But that’s not why we’re here today.

What Terry Moran of ABC News did is inexcusable. He, or one of his staff with access to his Twitter account, sent an off the record comment across the web at light speed as casually as one might lean in to the person next to them and whisper “Psst. The president just called Kanye West a jackass.”  To call this an ethical lapse is an understatement.

This is not the same as the many “open mic” incidents that have occurred over the years with politicians, celebrities and pundits unknowingly giving us a glimpse into their true feelings. Off the record comments are commonplace and credibility is the lifeblood of any journalist. Moran broke a trust with the president and his credibility deserves to suffer for it.

There are still too many people who fail to understand the power of the internet. Who can’t grasp the simple concept that once you’ve sent a message it is A) no longer yours and B) cannot be retrieved. You can usually tell these people by the photos of last weekend’s party posted they posted on Facebook.

If we are going to be trusted to use the tools Web 2.0 has placed at our fingertips, our mindsets and how we think about ourselves in the grand scheme must evolve. With so many people having access to vast amounts of information, it’s human nature to take the occasional “scoop” and run with it before thinking about the consequences. Recent history is replete with examples of news organizations that ran with stories that were ultimately proven to be false. Granted, Moran’s tweet is not false, but it was off the record and it’s not like he revealed it to his mother during a friendly chat. No, he was talking to his 1,066,522 followers. Talk about the power of distribution.

You’ve heard of the Chaos Theory - aka Butterfly Effect? The Internet takes the theory and multiplies the effect by a factor of infinity. There’s a lot of power in those characters, all 140 of them, and Moran, or one of his colleagues, misused it.

Social media and revenue: fast friends or oil and water

If you don’t already, you need to subscribe to the rss feed at {grow}. Mark Schaefer, the proprietor, has been known to throw a bomb or two into the sanctified town of Social Media. Mark is one of those rare birds who believes that every company activity should lead to one thing…Revenue. That includes social media.

GASP!

I should add that I appreciate Mark’s instance on delivering to a hard ROI, but he might be asking for something that social media is not prepared to deliver at this stage.  Or are we, social media’s practitioners, not ready to be held accountable for money made? Whichever the case, it can’t last forever. After all, the day is coming when senior management will require social media initiatives to do just that and we need to be prepared.

The biggest obstacle to making marketing hay out of social media tactics is the culture that has evolved around it. The idea, misplaced or not, that a company cannot promote their products and services, the first commandment in the SM-sphere. Thou shalt not use Twitter to promote the “New and improved X”. Nor shall thou blog about the rave reviews customers are giving your services. Social Media is the purest form of communicating – no spin allowed – and marketing messages shall not go so far as to cast a shadow across its door.

 Forgive me for thowing my own bomb here, but that way of thinking is a bog ol’ bunch of hooey.

 Mark asks some great questions [emphasis added by moi]:

How is social media marketing any different from holding a company open house for community leaders or hosting a dinner to get to know some potential customers? Are those things about building trust and relationships? Yes, of course! But we also have no problem admitting that the ultimate goal is to burnish our image with these influencers to improve our chance of business success. Why are we so intent on carving out a special little place in the sun — where results don’t matter — for the social web?

Told you they were great questions.

Who wrote the rules that SM is different, that it can’t be used to openly market products to prospective customers? I’ve heard and read others who liken social media to a cocktail party or a round of golf: leading the event with talk about business is bad form. What the same people fail to mention, however, is that at every party and golf outing the conversation inevitably  turns to business. Believe me when I tell you, all parties know why they are in attendance.

Social media is a powerful way to build credibility, showcase thought leaders within your company, and prove subject matter expertise. But the real power is that is gives you direct access to your market. No more gatekeepers filtering your message. So why not include “traditional marketing” messages in your social media initiative.

I’m not talking about hitting people over the head with daily blog posts and podcasts. But what’s the problem with providing objective information about the industries you serve along with examples of how your products and services have helped others overcome the issues raised.

Try this and this for example. The first is a podcast about lot trace in food and beverage manufacturing. It’s product neutral. The only mention of the product I serve is in the introduction and close of the recording. The second is a customer video in which the COO talks about the wonderful lot trace functionality they have in FourthShift Edition.

And for good measure, here is a recording of Can O’ Worms, a streaming webcast we did about food safety. Like the podcast, it is product agnostic.

The three combined have been downloaded and viewed 2800 times. As Mark points out – views mean nothing if you can’t measure the number of sales qualified leads those views have produced. That, my fellow social media community members, is the crux of the matter. Luckily I can tie two actual deals to the customer video – not leads, deals.

There are ways to marry taditional social media (if there is such a thing in something so new) with marketing and the sooner you are able to expand your SM strategy to do so, the better off you will be.

You can’t afford to maintain the “purity” of social media, you must begin quantifying your successes. If you don’t the C-suite will surely pull the plug on your social media initiative.