The Era of Fluff Is Over
You know how everyone goes completely crazy over a 6-week old puppy? It’s the cutest thing in the world. You don’t know how you lived without it. It can do no wrong, even when it makes messes all over your newly cleaned floor. It is the single best thing in the history of humanity, and it will always stay that way, right?
Then the puppy gets to be 2 or 3, fully grown, and you think, “Yeah, he’s pretty okay, but this chewing on my shoes…it’s getting a bit old.”
Well, Social Media was once the 6-week old puppy, and it had a pretty long run at that cute and cuddly stage. People who joined Twitter were greeted with messages like, “You can be human here!” Maybe you heard, “You can make your brand have a name and a personality! You can get to know your customers!”
Everything about social media was great. Sure, the spam on Twitter was really annoying and okay, Facebook *probably* knows everything there is to know about you, but gosh darn it, you know what Susan Smith who bought your product LOOKS LIKE! And you know that she ate cheerios for breakfast this morning. That. Is. So. Cool.
Except it’s not anymore
There is one little problem with all of that fluffy talk that drew a deep and pleasing haze over the online world for a few years.
It’s really hard to make money out of knowing your customer is eating cheerios. Particularly if you are trying to sell deeply technical machine tools.
The fact is that if you dropped everything and decided to invest all of your resources into social media 2-3 years back, you are probably feeling a little shaky these days. Why? Probably, if I had to guess, because someone is tapping on your shoulder and asking you questions like, “So…how many sales have we gotten from these efforts of yours?” Maybe you’re being asked, “How much money have we made since you started doing that Twitter stuff?”
Do you have an answer?
If you don’t, your love affair with Social Media has likely hit the 7-year itch a couple of years too early.
Real world calling
It’s still really fun to participate in Social Media, but if you followed a lot of the advice that was bandied about a couple of years ago and plowed into Social Media with all fears of danger thrown to the wind, you made a huge mistake, and it’s probably just starting to rear its ugly head right about now. It’s nice to say that you should take risks and just jump into something full throttle, but realistically speaking, especially over the last four years, that has been poor advice to take or give as a business. Now, Â you need to consider how much time you or your business has spent trying to build these “human” relationships. How much money was paid for the nurturing of those relationships? And most importantly, how many sales do you have against that money that was paid, either as a consultation fee or a simple hourly paycheck?
Don’t get me wrong. The idea of really getting to know your customers and your peers is still super cool and there are a lot of benefits that can be garnered from online relationships and networking. But it is time to understand that Social Media is not currently structured to give a business absolutely everything it needs. Most businesses these days cannot wait for that random friend to become a customer, which could take 3-5 years. Businesses need money now, cuz we have this here economic problem going on.
If I may offer my very best and most heartfelt advice, it is to cease talking in floaty utopian ideals about social media. We have passed through the cute puppy stage and are now in the “Shoot, I need to take him for a walk NOW?” stage. People need to hear real advice about how to make this tool work for them. Saying that you can talk to people in real time is not enough. That is not sales. That is not conversion. That is not ROI. That is not what is needed.
The era of fluff is over.
Do you agree?
Image Credit:Â http://www.flickr.com/photos/31760999@N05/4023052711/ via Creative Commons
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Completely agree with the sentiment, don’t agree with how businesses view social media.
If you’re wanting that contact to become a customer now rather than let the relationship development, that’s putting pressure on the relationship and potentially driving them away.
What is social media? It’s a bunch of opportunities to develop your business wrapped up in different platforms and the occasional jargon espousing “expert”.
The fact that businesses have business development departments but have turned their back on social media speaks volumes.
Many businesses have avoided the opportunity social media gave to improve internal communications and seek consumer feedback.
Why? Because the beginning and end of social media is human interaction. Many humans don’t like interaction, many humans don’t like to hear criticism, many humans don’t want to get found out for having been promoted beyond their means, many humans don’t want to hear the truth.
Social media, used “all in” would cause so many businesses to fundamentally change that it’s easier and cheaper for them to ignore it.
@NicWirtz I will have to concur with most of what you said; the beginning and end is still human interaction.
The puppy stage is definitely over; now that dog has teeth and a lot of people are ready to give that dog up. They didn’t realize they were going to have to care for it all.the.time.
@NicWirtz Very well said, Nic, and that’s the biggest issue – time. There is this feeling that social media is immediate for business because it feels that way, but you need to build credibility and trust before you can really make a money-based ask, and even then you have to be careful. These are all things I fear companies are learning the hard way now.
Oh Margie Clayman thank you for writing this in such a, shall I say, direct way. Clients are all about the fluff even when they don’t know what that fluff is really about. When you try and talk around the fluff and get in some good thinking they get right back to that fluff because they think that’s what everyone else id doing. Not true. Those who are going to be groundbreaking tomorrow are working on that today though eventually that will turn into future fluff.
But anyway thanks for the great insight.
@CarlSorvino Fluff can be nice sometimes, but it needs to be surrounded by something solid. Take a dandelion. Very very fluffy on the top, but boy do those roots go deep 🙂
I discovered how fickle the residents of cyberdom are when family emergencies required me to trek back to “real life” just before the release of my book. I lost most of my followers, and cybersales suffered. Even now, I can’t tell that my efforts have done diddly. As far as I’m concerned, the dog is rabid and needs to be put down.
@Linda Yezak I’m so sorry to hear that, Linda. That is really unfortunate =/
“Floaty utopian ideals,” I wrote a little something about this the other day. The sentiment that social medis is easy, a must-do for everyone, the magic bullet, or any other notion – that’s just wrong. I get being truly social, but businesses are about being truly in business. You are so true, social media is a tool and requires strategy, work and ultimately results. FWIW.
@3HatsComm Well said as usual, Davina. I don’t reckon I can add much to that statement 🙂
What a perfect picture you paint of the puppy fluff to doggone reality Margie. I’m reconfiguring my site in the new year to focus on business, hopefully without losing contact with the wonderful friends, colleagues and associates I’ve met and grown to admire and luv. I just need to get out the pooper scooper on my own site to clean it up to achieve my goals. Cheers! Kaarina
@KDillabough Oh, I seriously doubt you need a pooper scooper, my dear. But yes, focus is key. Plans are key. Strategy, I must say, is key. That’s all there is to it.
Thanks for your comment 🙂
@margieclayman I am focused. I am planning. I am strategizing. Thanks!
The realization is happening at such a fast pace it’s really scaring people. What I’ve found is, people are still thinking it’s “the magic answer” to all their business problems. Where many folks are falling short is in 2 spots. 1. These are tools, like any other tool out there, there needs to be a plan on how it fits into the overall picture and end result. And 2. These tools work best when they’re part of an integrated strategy, not working on their own.
I suggest people start looking at ways these tools can help enhance an existing strategy (or one to be planned) and not thought as the answer to all their problems… thats my take 🙂
Thanks for the great post.
Troy Claus
@TroyClaus Exactly right, Troy. I have been trying to find ways to integrate these social media tools with more conventional marketing, but if a company threw out everything except for social media a few years ago, jumping back in is going to be extremely difficult. Very seldom are things “all or nothing,” but unfortunately many businesses viewed their strategy (and some may, still) as “I’m doing social media or old stuff.” Now there is going to have to be a fair amount of back-pedaling in order to get back on track, and that is unfortunate indeed.
[…] going. Maybe it’s just where my head is right now, but both really hit home. Check out Margie Clayman and Michael Schechter’s posts on this topic; do you agree or […]
Margie,
Too bad I missed the puppy stage, huh? 🙂 I’m entering at the peak of the rabid dog phase. I was initially overwhelmed with it all, but am settling in for the long-haul, realizing there will be a ton of work to get where I want to go. But I can get there with this interesting and new (to me) set of tools. Yes, tools 🙂
I started for a very simple reason: To write better presentations. You know, speechification 😉 That’s it. Well, I didn’t realize how much I would enjoy it, mainly because of all the incredible people I’ve met along the way. Wish I would have started earlier.
Thanks, Margie!
@Craig McBreen It sounds like you’re in your own special puppy stage 🙂 It can come to people at different times, but the time for telling businesses that talking to people is wave of the future may have passed. There are good fluffs and bad fluffs 🙂
I’m glad you’re here!
@margieclayman
“special puppy stage” Yes, I guess so 😉 Hopefully the tail keeps wagging. 🙂
Thanks and have a good one!
Every time I read posts like this I think about the craziness we experienced during the “dot-com” craze where VC money flowed like water and no one asked the hard questions about whether an idea could be converted into something that generated revenue or was better suited as a pipe dream that might one day come about.
Many people don’t have anything but a cursory understanding of social media and how it works. That makes it very challenging to explain to clients and or supervisors. And by explain I mean you need to tell people what it does, why it provides value and how the business is benefiting from it.
Without that the puppy is probably going to discover that they are locked up inside the doghouse with a very short leash.
@TheJackB Yes, the bright shiny silver bullet is always the holy grail (to horribly mix metaphors). Anything that promises more business with little expense and little effort always sounds great at first, but usually there is a great big huge catch that people don’t get until it’s way, way too late. Sadly enough.
Agree that fluff is a waste of time, but honest, dedicated sharing never is. I wrote a post recently, coming off a great blog by Esteban Kolsky … social media is infrastructure. Looking only for ROI misses the point.
@maryhruth I definitely agree with you. By fluff I mean offering advice that isn’t really based on anything meaningful, useful, or solid. Things like, “get lots of Twitter followers to build your business” doesn’t make sense anymore because we know it’s not a quid pro quo.
Make sense?