Much of American history, if you look at it, was molded by one single mineral -gold. It was gold that caused President Andrew Jackson to force the Cherokee out of Georgia. It was gold that pushed people to California, and it was the presence of the valued mineral that encouraged the US to go to war with Mexico so that California could become a state. In every gold rush in American history, or nearly every one, there were two things that could be counted on. First, people were hoping to find gold so that all of their life’s ills could be cured. Second, the desire for gold made the value of other human lives, particularly Native American lives, far less a priority than it may have been in other circumstances.
Each time there was a gold rush, hope for America sprang large. Each time there was a gold rush, Americans continued to act in ways that were abhorrent, and in this way forever tainted the history of their optimistic country.
This same irrational behavior – this same reckless pursuit of the silver bullet, has overtaken the world of social media, and it could be ultimately the bullet that mortally wounds businesses around the world.
If your foundation is shaky, your house will fall down
Last year, the big news was Quora. Businesses needed to jump on to Quora. It would enable you to become an expert in your business and your customers and potential customers would LOVE that. Later last year Google Plus came along, and oh goodness – the power of the Google search engine, the ability to combine social media with your YouTube channel, Google Documents, and everything else Google – this is what would make your business succeed.
This year, so far, maps are being circulated that show all of the hot points in Pinterest. It’s all you are hearing about, practically, and in fact, the online world is so saturated with talk of how Pinterest is the next big thing for businesses that I have refrained from even mentioning it here.
The problem is that people aren’t learning how arduous the process of digging for gold really is. They think, perhaps, that you can jump in, bend down, cup your hands, and your hands will be filled with gold. People don’t understand that you have to stand in that water day after day. You have to get your hands dirty. You have to try different spots and different techniques, and meanwhile, the person who is running the story where you purchase your food is already ten times wealthier than you.
It doesn’t matter that Pinterest can drive tons of traffic to your site if your site is crap. It doesn’t matter that Pinterest may be great for SEO if you don’t know what that is or why it’s important. It doesn’t matter how much traffic you are getting to your site if that traffic isn’t buying from you. It’s all of the same problems that we encounter on Twitter, and in blogs, and on Facebook, and everywhere else.
If you don’t know how to run your company or if you do not know how to market your company, Pinterest, Google Plus, Quora, Twitter, Facebook, or the man on the moon won’t be able to do a gosh. darned. thing. for you.
Back to the ring of power
I fear that blog traffic, retweets, and shares have sullied the minds of some people who write in the world of social media. They sense they have power. When they tell you to use a site or go here, they can drive enough traffic that their one action can cause the site to go down. News about new platforms like Pinterest are easy pickings. You put the word in your title, people click it, they link to it in their own Pinterest posts, and you soon have a snowballing, mad orgy of blog love. “Only the lame companies are refraining from getting a Pinterest account now,” these voices seem to say.
And yet, where is the talk about how this new site will ACTUALLY work for companies? Do you think a picture of a tiny piece of tubing manufactured in the medical manufacturing sector will get repinned? What about the company that makes the machine that makes one part of one car? Will a blog post from that company spread through Pinterest, or Google Plus, or Facebook like wildfire? What if you are a commodity brand, even if you are in the consumer market?
We are being stupid. We are being irresponsible. We are acting like gold diggers.
For the record
I like Pinterest. I think it’s fun. I think it’s interesting. I think it’s a neat way to pass on information that maybe wouldn’t quite fit on Facebook or that would be hard to pass around on Twitter. But all of the chatter that Pinterest is the newest silver bullet for companies struggling through the recession? No. I don’t get that. Even though there are at least 200 posts out there that would aim to prove me wrong.
What do you think? Will this pattern of gold digging behavior result in negative ramifications, or will we simply carry on, moving to the next savior of the business world, whatever that may be?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27117418@N07/2559014732/ via Creative Commons
Everyone wants to lay claim to the next big thing. When they can’t, they hitch their wagon to the gravy train in hopes that they can ride the tails. When that fails, they pooh-pooh it and move on to the next big thing.
It’s the circle of social media life. Unfortunately, many of the social media circles are closed and highly guarded.
@Chris_Eh_Young I would love to create a cartoon for the song “Social Media Circle of Life.” I think that would be fabulous 🙂
@margieclayman Indeed it would. We start by discovering a new social media site. Then we nurture it, grow it. After that we overuse it to the point of unsustainability. Since it’s then no use to us, we pooh-pooh it and try to kill it while someone else is just happening on it and discovering it for the first time. We move onto the next shiny thing. This closes the circle of social media life. Now go draw it up.
HAHAHAH Chris the circle of social media life? What the H is that?
What I do not hear much is people discussing what are the client’s business objectives first and then how does a platform support that with well thought our goals. I guess that would take some business experience first. (Can you tell been hanging with Chris too long now, his sarcasm is wearing off on me, that and Olivier Blanchard’s.
What I know is when I meet with someone face to face or on skype video and have a REAL discussion, then we get down to business. My biggest lesson was to have prospects pay for an analysis first-that get’s rid of folks who want my expertise for FREE. You want to pick my brain, pay for an hour of my time.
Now, with that said there are some who have found innovative ways to use Pinterest, more power to them. We need people who are willing to see the opportunities in new tools and platforms.
Bigger question is how can we a professionals serve as a guiding light to help prospects see their opportunities in this space?
@prosperitygal Brain picking is a great point. Analysis, in an ideal world, would fall into the services that companies charge for. I think way a lot of people give that part away for free and then try to make up for it in other ways. People get hip to that pretty quick.
Yes, there are *some* companies that could make really good use of Pinterest. They’d need to have the kinds of products that could be presented in an interesting way, and content that people would want to repin to spread the word. And of course, there would need to be ways to incorporate that Pinterest platform with everything else, and ways to measure if it was working at all.
@prosperitygal Oh man. If i’m rubbing off on you, you’re in trouble. I wrote a post on the “can I pick your brain” question for Carol Roth’s blog. http://www.carolroth.com/blog/the-coffee-consultant/
I’m not a huge fan of it either.
Agree with you, Margie. This is tactics before strategy drivel at best. Opportunistic wagon jumping at worst. I’ve looked at Pinterest and will probably use it to collect pictures for a bathroom renovation idea, but won’t use it ever for my business. There just aren’t good pictures of kids getting psychotherapy. Funny thing, that. The sad thing is that when I see a marketer lead with “Social media new thing du jour is the answer to your prayers” posts I immediately dismiss them as someone I can’t trust. In the long run it will hurt the reputations of those who jump on every new band wagon as they cry wolf and demonstrate that they lead with new tactics but have no ability to discuss deeper strategies.
@susangiurleo That again feeds into the celebration of failure thing we have going on. I think a lot of people in the social media world feel like they need to jump head first into every new platform because “If I fail, at least I’ve learned something.” The problem is that they are carrying an awful lot of people with them, and those folks may not have the room to fail. A lot of people get evaluated based on how their work is perceived, after all. Right?
Everybody wants gold and magic, Margie, but no one wants to pay for it, work for it, or even figure it out for themslevs. I am afraid that I am in the camp that thinks this behavior will continue. When the fever over Pinterest dies down, and not every company is making a bundle doing that one thing, they will drop it and move to the next promised goldmine.
This is human nature. Most of us just want someone to just tell us where we need to be standing for the next wave of money, or traffic, or clients, or buyers.
The negative ramifications will be for these temporary goldmines, who aren’t able to parlay all their temporary loyalist into paid believer’s and take the hit as people move on. Some of those companies wil survive and even thrive. Pinterest may well be one of them. But there will be a shiny new “savior” next year. You can bet money on it.
Martina
@martinamcgowan
@Martina McGowan I know. It seems like the new big thing is coming faster and faster. It hasn’t been that long since the launch of Google Plus and now already there are conversations about how Pinterest is a better traffic driver than anything else. It gets quite exhausting after awhile!
Nothing new. A famous book first published in 1841 is called Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds: “The subjects of Mackay’s debunking include economic bubbles, alchemy, crusades, witch-hunts, prophecies, fortune-telling, magnetisers (influence of imagination in curing disease), shape of hair and beard (influence of politics and religion on), murder through poisoning, haunted houses, popular follies of great cities, popular admiration of great thieves, duels, and relics. Present day writers on economics, such as Andrew Tobias and Michael Lewis, laud the three chapters on economic bubbles.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds One of the most famous examples in that book was the Dutch Tulip Mania of 1636-37. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania These came long before Greenspan in the 1990s warned of what he called irrational exuberance. Pinterest actually is not a new company—it has been around for several years.Then again, if a company can adapt and branch out, it can survive, even grow. Look at how much Apple and Amazon have changed their business models over time.
@Anne-Marie That sounds like a fascinating book. I might have to check it out. Thanks Anne-Marie. Your comments are always wonderful and thought-provoking!
Really love your thinking here, Margie. In fact, I’ve got a blog post in the queue that addresses this a bit. I’ve refrained from talking about Pinterest, but I do want my audience to hear from me about it….and more importantly, why you should look before you leap.
It seems that sometimes the missing piece with these shiny new toys is the WHY. There’s a lot of talk about the HOW, but what businesses really need to do is understand why they should jump on in the first place (if at all). I think that’s our job as marketers and consultants – help businesses make educated, informed decisions about which social networks make sense for their business. Because, after all, there is no social channel that is a silver bullet or a brick of gold. You have to make smart decisions and then do the work. Otherwise, it’s just another shiny toy to distract you.
Good stuff, my friend!
Margie, this is awesome. I’m trying to figure out how to pen it. My advice is to use more words in your posts, it will make it easier for us (your rabid fan audience) to pen your posts and help drive traffic back. If you haven’t heard, penterprise is THE place to share the written word, building your audience, driving traffic and garnering massive SEO benefits all at once. I suggest preparing for it now, when it is released to the public in 2013, it will be THE big thing.