Social Media is Dead

Posted: December 14, 2015 by Robert Craven

According to Mashable 2012 was “the year we exhaust social media.” Or should it have been 2013! or ’14? 

Well it hasn’t yet happened in 2015 so maybe in 2016?

 

Ok, ok, so I don’t think that social media is dead (“deceased, no more” as in Monty Python) but as Mashable say, many (but not all of us) are exhausted. Could “Exhaustion”  in social and digital become next year’s catch phrase?

People have finally realised that connecting or following, being followed, or liking is meaningless without some purpose and some result. (See the ancient Twitter is For Losers blog)

The light bulb moment happens for most when you employ people and they appear to be playing on social media (while you pay them). Or the when you realise that everyone in the pub is ‘talking’ to their smartphone but not to people in the room…

Now, I don’t deny the benefits of being open, pursuing random connections and so on. I love it. BUT we must not confuse activity (=wheel spin?) with business.

I am not the social media guru (see my ironically titled e-book I am not a Social Media Guru) but we have noticed that many of our clients have become fixated with activity and almost irrelevant vanity metrics when they need to get back to basics…

 

So reflecting about the state of play…

On the one hand, we have the social media zealots grabbing at the next new best universal antidote.

On the other hand, we have the incredibly lazy marketing habits of the old school agencies (see Why Marketing is a load of B******s!) simply spending more in a naive attempt to interrupt and buy people’s attention.

 

What we do know…

What I do know is that there is:

• just too much noise and it is turning off a lot of people
• just too much “me-too” follower behaviour (buyers and sellers)
• not enough common sense engagement and connection
• a brilliant system (fast, quick, vast, cheap) to reach out and find and explore and share with others.
• tons of opportunity if you can just navigate your way through it all
• not enough time to do it all so a need for clear guidelines, prioritisation and time management!

But all of the above is obvious!

 

Or is Social Media just a red herring?

To be honest, I am starting to feel that the problem is actually not so much about Social Media and is more about about THE MESSAGE. Your message. (The channel/platform debate may actually be a red herring.):

• What exactly are you saying that is interesting?
• Is it compelling?
• Is it worthy of attention?
• Is it clear and helping other to understand what you do?
• And how can you help?

All the talk is about how you communicate and what works . (Maybe that’s simpler than dealing with the basic “Why should people bother to buy from you?”question!)

But if the message is broken (and let’s be honest, most are) then you are simply wasting your time.