It’s time for Social Media to grow up
I have been hearing a lot of buzz the last few days about something Gary Vaynerchuk said on TechCrunch TV. Apparently, Gary said that 99.5% of social media experts are clowns.
Not surprisingly, this created a rather large amount of blow-back, so Gary posted another video explaining his perspective.
While I’m not sure I would say that those who claim expertise are clowns, I would say this. Social Media – as a group of people, as a gathering place, as an entity – needs to grow up.
Some hard truths
I have actually had this thought forming in my head for the last couple of months, for many reasons. So I am going to dish out some hard truths here. They are spoken with the utmost love and respect, but they are also spoken from the perspective of someone whose primary source of revenue is not Social Media. I’m an outsider here in a lot of ways. I think it might be good to hear what an outsider has to say about the inside on occasion. So here we go.
1. Being “awesome” is not going to pay your employees
2. Getting retweeted by a big name on Twitter is not going to help you sell more products in many cases, unless that influencer’s audience happens to include your desired audience
3. The number of followers you have is completely irrelevant if they are not people who would buy your products or services
4. The number of Facebook fans you have is similarly irrelevant. People who try to sell you Twitter followers or Facebook fans are not filtering those people to see if they are relevant to you.
5. ROI is not about followers, comments, retweets, or likes. It’s about sales.
6. Having public fights on Twitter is not a turn-on for people who are new to online marketing. Would you entrust fighting toddlers with your marketing plan? Probably (hopefully) not. The back-stabbing, gossip, rumor-mongering crap must stop.
7. Claiming that more traditional means of marketing are now defunct is a sign of ignorance, not expertise.
8. Nobody cares about where you are checking in if you’re online to grow your business. In fact, checking in at coffee shops all day makes me wonder if you are working!
9. Empire Avenue seems like an upscale version of Mafia Wars to me. If you are looking to grow your business, would you base such an important decision on how many shares a person gets in a game? Again, I hope not.
10. Klout is awesome for measuring all of the things that will not necessarily lead to growing your business.
11. Chatting is not marketing unless you are chatting with purpose about your products and services (a delicate dance, to be sure).
12. Applauding Social Media as an entity is okay – yes, it’s amazing and powerful – but until you demonstrate how what you are doing can save a company, grow a company, or evolve into something useful for a company that exists beyond the realm of Social Media, few people will care about how awesome you think Social Media is. Money matters.
13. Posting how drunk you are at SXSW does not increase confidence in you or in the industry. I was a little humiliated to be associated with Social Media when I saw some of the tweets emanating from Austin. The mic is always on.
Social Media is I think what would be comparable to a senior in college. We’ve done the partying. We’ve done the drama. The question now should be, “OK, so what are you going to do with your life?”
That’s where Gary V is 100% correct. If you go into a company that knows nothing about Twitter and you say, “I can grow your business because I can get you a lot of followers,” you will fail, and you will decrease the trust that company has in any facet of Social Media.
You’ve established your persona. You’ve got a strong blog. You are tweeting with success.
Now what are you going to do with that? How are you going to show companies how to do that so they can succeed?
What do you think?
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Such great points. I think you really hit the nail on the head when you compared social media to a senior in college. That’s a great analogy.
I was thinking along these lines last week. I think in social media, it’s good to show who we are. No one wants to read blogs/tweets/status updates that are completely dry and void of all types of human emotion. But like you said, the mic is always on. There’s a fine line between having a social media persona and having too much of one. Going too far is going to turn people away.
Well said, Renee. I’m definitely not anti-human, as it were. But for your own sake, I recommend maybe toning down the more wild facets of your personality. For your own sake, I recommend you don’t post form SXSW that you don’t know where your pants are. Things like that can’t really help you and they definitely can’t help the rest of us either 🙂
Haha, totally understandable! 🙂
I believe that your points are well thought out and need to be listened to by “some” of the social media “experts” who are using these tools for professional purposes.
As someone who has been following the growth of social media from the educational user stand point and dabbled in the blogging/twitter side of the house for the past four years, I have seen those who used social media far too often for self-aggrandizement, get rich quick schemes and other questionable uses.
It is one thing to use social media as a personal forum or for private purposes, but with the growth of social media marketing in its infancy (still), is it time for those who use it professionally to act like professionals? I tend to think so and I believe that many businesses that would turn to social media experts for their services would agree.
This doesn’t mean you can’t have a style, be independent or even be a little “out there”/different. It just means to use common sense when you are online. What you do is done in a public forum when using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or any of the the other social media sites that are now available to us.
I am not a social media professional, but I might be a customer for the services you claim to provide. So do I want to do business with you? Ask yourself that before you post.
Harold
Exactly right, Harold, and so well stated. That’s the part that I am most worried about in this space. People are touting their wares as Social Media consultants, but in between promotional tweets they are cussing, making inappropriate comments, or talking about how drunk they are. Now, maybe that’s who they really are, and that’s cool, but do I want to do business with that person, knowing that they might be hung over when I try to meet with them? I’m thinking probably not.
It’s like you’re in an office 24/7. Or you should maybe get a separate account for more personal stuff and lock that baby down a bit 🙂
Dear Margie –
I was pretty sympathetic with Garyvee and I saw his answer to the storm he created.
I am not at all interested in whether you just had a cup of coffee. I did too. Who cares.
You also don’t need to tell me “Good morning” or “Good night.”
This is clown like to me. Gary is right.
I do like to post articles that are thought provoking – and certainly not just mine.
We miss some good ones along the way.
Like yours – which I am posting now.
Margie,
It’s obvious that you spent some time thinking about this. I agree with all of your points except one – many of the “experts” are closer to middle school drama queens/kings than college seniors. This is one of the reasons social media is still considered a fad by mainstream companies.
The benefits of social media go beyond the conversations, retweets, likes, and other fluff metrics. It is a powerful channel for improving customer retention, increasing lifetime value, finding prospects via natural search, and providing better customer care. These pluses are hidden by the drama scenes presented every day.
It’s sad that people miss the opportunities provided by this channel because they can’t see beyond the “clowns.” It’s sadder that the clowns keep performing.
Yeah, I feel like 2011 is going to prove to be the pivotal year for this medium. Either people will start jumping into new territories with it or they will continue on the path of self-promotion and taking all of the perks of the new technology.
I can’t help continuing to come back to the spiderman rule. With great power comes great responsibility. It’s time to start showing the responsibility a bit more.
Thank you for your wonderful support 🙂
Great points here, Margie.
You’re so right that it’s not about the number of fans/followers you have. It’s about reaching the right audience for your niche.
Also, so many people think that if they just get retweeted by someone with a huge following, that’s the key to social media success. But Scott Stratten (@unmarketing) recently shared a vivid example of how this doesn’t work. Back when he had about 12,000 followers, he posted a YouTube video that was widely retweeted. Ashton Kutcher even retweeted it to his hundreds of thousands of followers. But Scott said that he got as many YouTube views from his own followers as he did from Ashton Kutcher’s fans. So getting retweeted by “the A list” may not mean much if their followers don’t click on your content.
I loved it when you said Empire Avenue appears to be an upscale version of Mafia Wars – LOL! I think EA is losing whatever appeal it had pretty fast.
And yes, the mic is always on. I had to remind a journalism intern of that on a chat recently when she posted how much she hated her job. Her boss could see that, future employers could see that. Heck, the Library of Congress is archiving that. Bad news for her.
Social media is a great networking tool for me and it’s taught me a lot, but I agree with you that it would be nice if social media would grow up more. You can find plenty of opportunities and great information if you don’t follow the clowns.
Thanks for this great post! @kamkansas
Hi Kathy!
Yes, people I think forget that when you get engaged in a really interesting conversation with 1-2 people on Twitter, you’re not off in a different room. You’re still out there with megaphones. I sometimes almost slip in that regard. I start talking with friends and get a little goofy and I have to step back and say, “OK, pull it back a bit. These tweets could be seen completely out of context.”
It doesn’t happen often, but it does, sometimes.
It always helps me to imagine a client of ours reading my tweets. Would I want them reading something like that tweet you were talking about? Uh, no. That would be really, really bad.
I just am confused by the Empire Avenue thing. I’m paying fake money as an investment in you. Why don’t you just spend some time talking to me instead? I dunno. Maybe I’m old-fashioned.
Thanks for your great comment. I appreciate it, as always 🙂
This is an interesting post and thought provoking.
I saw a tweet yesterday where someone said they have used Tweepi to unfollow 400 Fans that were not following them back. Why? You shouldn’t be following people because you want them to follow you back to build up your perception of being important in the twittersphere. I follow people because they add value to my line of work, and if they don’t I remove them.
I do think though we need to be careful in reference to the context we use “social media” as I use social media to improve communications and enterprise collaboration behind the firewall. But again, I agree there is no direct revenue associate with this either and nor would I try to position it so.
But just to finish off, in my experience anyone who calls themselves an “expert” in anything generally speaking is highly likely not to be.
Nice post!
Hi David,
Thanks for stopping by. I’m glad you enjoyed the post!
You make a few really important distinctions here. Namely, the act of using Social Media does not make you money. It is a tool that you can use to help you make money. It is an aid in helping you accomplish certain business objectives, or at least that’s how it could be used.
If people spend a lot of time gathering followers who may or may not be relevant to their business, how can they then claim that Social Media isn’t growing their business? This is something we really need to hit hard. We need to see the forest for the trees, as it were 🙂
Thanks again! Great contribution to the conversation.
You know, it’s funny. I look at how often some “experts” are on Twitter and Facebook 24/7, and answering blog comments as soon as they’re left. And I’m asking – when do you work??? 😉
I’ll just sit over here in the corner and quietly get on with things. 😉
I do my darndest to get back to people, but man, that job sure gets in my way 😀
That’s what the hours of 8-11 are for, right? I tell myself that, anyway.
Thanks for popping by, Danny. I appreciate it!
EXACTLY. I’m particularly amused by the “guru flame wars” that spring up from time to time. The “clown” label definitely works in that case.
List post dressed up as a rant spotted.
It was excellent and I’m sure there’s many more points that could be added.
One you can add is the snobbish views of the “unemployed” social media expert – being unemployed is pretty much the only way to keep up with social media these days and gives ample time to do all the things the “experts” say should be done.
Social Media is full of contract workers and “consultants”. By their very nature a social media “expert” is liable to find themselves out of work from time to time.
Come in like a lion, go out like a lamb 🙂
It’s true, it’s definitely hard to balance working a job outside of Social Media and balancing it with everything you would do in an ideal Social Media reality. I think people who are looking for jobs think that jobs will come to them via Social Media like a message in a bottle from the ocean, but you actually need to work 24/7 to make something like that happen, it seems.
Would add another.
The hypocrisy of stating there are no experts, whilst having hashtags such as #smleaders or people exclaiming that they’re amongst the SM elite at an unGeeked event.
Of course there’s different levels of social media players, both in quality, perceived quality and ego. There’s A-list bloggers for heaven’s sake!
All of the titles (self-declared and otherwise) definitely drive me nuts =D
Great post. I laughed while I read it, it’s true. Especially that social media will replace traditional marketing. Mostly it seems like a great way to network(if you find the right people,like you mention) I have found I learn a lot from others. It is interesting and compelling to read peoples unique writings and perspectives
Glad to bring a smile to your face, Jody 🙂 I enjoy learning about other peoples’ perspectives, too. I think it’s one of the best parts about Social Media.
We need a Gary Vee and Margie Clayman in Puerto Rico. It is ridiculous how many PR firms decide they understand Social media because they have been doing PR for decades. Similar to all the comments you just added.
Love the fighting toddlers comment.
I also learned a new phrase that I will use and quote you Chatting with a Purpose.
Great observation Margie!
haha 🙂 Yeah, you can use that Raul. I give you full permission 🙂
Nice post Margie. I’ve been talking about a lot of your points! Especially the “why” behind social media: if it isn’t growing your biz or making money you should not be there. I don’t understand why brands think about social as this “new” and “different” medium. It’s the salt and pepper of your marketing mix. Sprinkle it in if it fits into your strategy. If not don’t.
I think so many businesses do not understand the amount of time and effort that go into social. I went to SXSW and actually felt I did not want to be associated with social media after attending–way too much swirl and far too many people publishing content without thinking.
I love that!! The salt and pepper of your marketing. I think that’s a fantastic analogy. But a lot of people are digging into the salt and pepper with a big spoon, right? 🙂
Watching the tweets from SXSW was really disappointing. Adding to the ick was that those tweets were coming out of Austin during the earthquake in Japan. It was almost a surreal experience seeing the drunken tweets from Texas mixed with the news updates from Japan. Kind of crazy.
Thanks for your comment!
Yes, Margie!!! Brands are dipping into the “salt and pepper” way too much. Despite all the awful SXSW tweets there were a ton of people on the ground donating/working for the tsunami effort while I was in Austin. It’s funny how the “online” world is never truly representative of what’s really happening. I’m a firm believer of a blended approach of offline and online — doing one is never enough. Just realized after I posted to your blog that we connected on #blogchat last Sunday. 🙂
Social media is just a tactic and not a strategy. People in my opinion are overdoing on social media while neglecting other aspects of marketing. When a tactic becomes a strategy it is very easy to beat. If I were to counter the social media onslaught, I would sell things offline and then probably mention that I have some 20 followers and still made sales.
People confusing strategy with tactics will have a hard time selling something to customers.
That’s a great idea, I think. “Hey, I built this huge business, and I use Social Media, but not a ton.” Go for it! 🙂
I find social sites disappointing trivial and often downright silly. We thought once you got past the “I am on the train/in the shop”, and “I ate cereals this morning..” sent in by 10yr old contributors, it would evolve to an more adult approach, but it just seems to get worse, as adults dumbed down to child level responses, only point 2% of social site usage, is estimated as relevant, this is lower rating than the blog systems, which still seem to be holding their own. Twitter people want longer posting space, god FORBID ! (Less surely). It’s the arrogance of the user, who feels he or she is SO important, everyone on the planet is hanging on for their next tweet or FB posting. such is the arrogance they are at it 24/7. That seems pretty ANTI-Social to me…. The small percentage of high quality social site use is about the only justification for it. But so hard to find.
Looks like I hit a nerve there 🙂
Yeah, I mean, I use Social Media a lot, and sometimes I use it just to chat to people because I enjoy that side of it, but things like Foursquare postings or updates on your trips to the bathroom just don’t hold much interest for me for some reason. I must be picky 🙂
I also think the call for more characters on Twitter is interesting. Try blogging! The problem is that a lot of updates to Twitter wouldn’t be good blog fodder.
Thanks for your comment!
Isn’t the question that comes out this post “Do you need to be a social media expert to know social media?”
What a great post.
There are no more social media experts than telephone experts and the problem is that most social media marketers never learned nor practice marketing.
The good way to start is: decide who is your target, develop a unique value proposition and then engage with the people who matters. Alas most “experts” advise you to listen to everything and anything and waste your time in building list of followers who are non sense to your business.
Best
Thanks, Dominique.
I think there are Social Media experts in terms of people understanding how to maneuver the system, but that does not lead to making money. That is why a lot of people will be falling off the bandwagon at some point – and that will be done at their own peril, by the way.
[…] I came across a thought-provoking blog post from Marjorie Clayman titled “It’s time for Social Media to grow up” that made me really think more about the past, future and now of social media, marketing and […]
Great thoughts – especially #1. We sometimes confuse popularity with success (especially with social media). Popularity doesn’t always convert. Thanks for sharing!
Great post and so true! Thanks for sharing.
Hi Margie! I so relate to this post and wrote a similar one (yet to be published – guest post for DIY) not too long ago. I get very frustrated by folks who think the combo of Klout, RT, winning comments and atta girls will translate into a successful business. Simply. Not. the. Case. I really like your clear list and points made and each one drives it home with laser like focus. If it’s not translating into profits or sales, it’s not the end all, be all so many claim it to be. It’s one tool. Use it with your others, but don’t throw the rest out just because you’ve found this fun, shiny new one. Great post, Margie!
Thanks, Jeff. Glad you liked the post!
I’m looking forward to reading that post, Erica! You said it all with this comment, and you said it well 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
Margie,
Wow, a lot of the points that you made I agree with 100%! I never understood what it meant to be a social media expert, guru, or whatever transcending title they may use. And what type of qualifications are required to be an expert anyway? Don’t get wrong, I think social media is very powerful and can do a lot of good for an organization. But like you said, social media activities must be done with focus.
I really loved your point on having tons of followers on Twitter means nothing if they are not your target audience. How true is that? It got me thinking about who I want to follow (I think I’ll follow you…). I hopes are to someday have my own marketing agency so I should start now to build my audience.
I think this is a great post for any business owner. It’s like a “come to Jesus” meeting with social media. There is too much hype about the quantity of followers/fans/friends over quality. If I only have 10 followers but all 10 use my services, I’d take that over 1 million who don’t any day.
Thank you very much.
Yes, having the right followers is 100% key, and “right” doesn’t mean people with thousands and thousands of followers. Because if THOSE people aren’t reaching your audience, all of their followers don’t really mean as much for you.
If you are thinking about starting your own agency, there’s no such thing as “too early” in terms of seeking out your audience. Get to know them well 🙂
My response in the GV thread went something like this:
Why are people spending so much time and energy declaring who the experts are and are not ?
Social Media has developed into this big giant swath that covers just about every activity done online now. Going by that standard then there are not and never will be any experts. Just people who know alot of each little bit of the pie.
But more specifically why do people care so much? What we have is a bunch of people who use SM for self-promotion yelling at a bunch of other people using SM for self-promotion. Everybody is saying that you should “look out for the expert that is not an expert” and trying to define what the expert is and isn’t. They usually throw the humble pie statement in there too – something like “I don’t call myself an expert”. There is no governing or panel of gurus that declares who is and isn’t an expert. And I wouldn’t trust them if such a body existed.
Don’t we have this same challenge in all areas of business? Who are the car experts? The lawn experts? The wine experts, and the construction experts?
The great part about reputation is that it alls gets discovered and settled in the end. Whether you are good or bad what you do you will be called out.
So let’s spend less time worrying about pointing out who the experts aren’t and more time just busting our asses to be the best in each of our niches.
Yeah, I would say that’s a pretty darned good argument. I would add to it that being a Social Media expert really doesn’t matter much in the long term. If you gain notoriety online, that’s great, but if you aren’t doing anything with that exposure, it won’t pay off for you.
So it is with any kind of expertise. If you don’t have a good way of using your skills somehow, what’s the point in honing those skills?
Great post Margie, not sure where to begin 🙂
The long and short of it is that sites like Twitter and Facebook were started not to help marketers but to connect people together. Over time with the amount of growth marketing opportunity was seen, however few people applied business to it – namely building relationships that can lead to business or directly making money.
Many companies still see it purely from a numbers standpoint as well, evidenced by the sheer number of services where you can “buy” Twitter followers, Facebook likes, and YouTube views. These are in demand services for a reason – sometimes all people care about. However when it comes to actually doing business the numbers, as you said, can be completely meaningless.
As with everything though, people want the numbers and other people will sell them numbers. In the end though, only one side of that wins, and it’s not the side you want.
Well said, Robert! Those “buy followers” services drive me nuts because they so far miss the point of what Social Media *could* be all about. Now, if those services could say something like, “we will help you build a community that will help you grow your business, that would be slightly better, but doing so takes so much time and patience I don’t see any of those services developing that way. At least not anytime soon!
Hi Margie – the content in this post is excellent and it’s precisely the kind of post more business owners need to read.
Social media can be a powerful tool for businesses to leverage, but it needs to be in the scope of reality and not a bunch of hype and BS.
Thanks for sharing Gary V’s video as well, I hadn’t seen that… it was true and in your face… just like Gary, eh?
Everyone of your points were great, but #7 stuck out in my mind:
“7. Claiming that more traditional means of marketing are now defunct is a sign of ignorance, not expertise.”
It’s amazing how many folks drink the social media Kool-Aid so to speak and just don’t have a grasp on reality, or don’t understand SM is not the end all — it’s just an effective platform businesses have that help them launch, build and/or grow a successful business.
Have a great day Margie : )
Mark again I find you where I go looking.
Your point is true, as I seek to find a path that doesn’t seek to erode what obviously still works for what is still getting its teeth.
Billy
PS isn’ this a great site?
Thanks.
I am fed up with “awesomesness” and all of that stuff.
You have said what needs saying.
I’m new, so I waited; eventually I would have said something that got me in trouble!
Thanks for postponing my coming drama 🙂
I use my blog to learn, and I’m learning quickly about the state of things.
I followed you on the strength of what you said in this post.
Thanks
Billy Delaney
Earlier today I saw a site that sold “Like us on Facebook” and “Follow us on Twitter” placards to put in your company’s lobby.
What the world needs are “(We love you even if you don’t) Like us on Facebook” and “(We want to know what you think even if you don’t) Follow us on Twitter” signs.
Unfortunately I don’t see those anywhere on the horizon. I’m discouraged by how arrogantly myopic some people are, how they can’t see what a turnoff their insistence is.
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