Hear Ye Hear Ye!
Henceforth, all social media gurus and wizards and mavens and experts shall be referred to as fortune tellers! Yesterday I wrote a post about feeling a bit bored with all the activities involved in keeping up to date as a social media strategist. Because I am not simply a user of social media, but actually make a living at it (still shocks me to say that really) the way in which I interact with the tools, and networks, and applications of social media is a bit different. Sure I am using them but I am also analyzing them.
When Foursquare is down, I have to notice it. If a certain app keeps crashing, I need to know if this is a chronic or acute condition. If the dominant conversations are occurring on a new network, the way for instance, Google Buzz quickly became a back channel to Twitter and user’s blog posts, and then receded, I need to know about it. I need to know these things because I am advising clients on the best way to use and employ social media in their businesses, in their marketing strategies.
What Facebook’s Demise Could Mean For Businesses
Over the past month, I’ve noticed the severe blow back received by Facebook over their new privacy rules. Over some of that time it looked as if Facebook might have finally stepped over the line. Leading technology people were threatening to quit. Facebook finally relented with an apology by Mark Zuckerberg and a pledge to do better, published as an Op-Ed in the Washington Post. Interesting choice there! (wondering if they were preempting any governmental inquiries)
From my perspective, I didn’t really care. I live an open book kind of life sharing most of my information, my data, my writing, my location and a bevy of other things with the world. But, I do have an obligation to my clients to make sure that they weren’t abusing their fans’ data. And furthermore, I had to take very seriously the possibility that Facebook might have been fatally weakened.
To be fair, that looks a bit premature now and the crisis seems to be fading. But the point is that telling the future, predicting out scenarios is a big part of what I do. If Facebook were to rapidly lose followers, I would have to be prepared with alternate strategies. I would need to find a way for my clients to reorient their strategy.
The Speed of Social Media
One of the things that I have learned and always try to keep a handle on, is how quickly things change in social media. There are new apps and websites launching every day. Existing ones constantly add new features, and old networks quickly lose their efficacy. I once had clients set up FriendFeed accounts to utilize that services streaming and centralizing capabilities. Of course, FriendFeed is still around, but since being bought by Facebook it has lost a good deal of its momentum. I don’t use the service anymore except to feed my Google Reader account into Twitter.
Social media strategists then become something like fortune tellers. We need to hone a pretty good guess as to what we should be advising our clients to do. And the fact that one of the hallmarks of social media is the speed with which things move, it can be a particularly hairy task to take on. But take it on we must.
Because we are fortune tellers after all, aren’t we?
Image Source: benleto on Flickr
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It keeps it interesting, and it keeps it frustrating. I can’t decide which it keeps it more of.
It is both exhausting and exhilarating. You’re right, we’re expected not only to know the “now,” but also the past and the future. And when someone “beats” us to a new service/technology/website/whatever, we’re supposed to feel like we’re not good at our jobs, which is as frustrating as it is erroneous.
Anyway, great post. As far as the future, we only know for certain what it’s like once we get there, and then it’s already the past.
Sigh.
.-= andrew´s last blog ..What American Idol Can Teach Us About Social Media =-.
Andrew
exhausting and exhilarating, especially for those of us who are independent. We don’t have a team of people all properly assigned. Its a mish mash. I know I won’t keep track of everything. Accepting that is first step to being really useful.
When will then be now?
I quit two years worth of work on Facebook.
Aside from privacy issues, just too much of a many-headed hydra and time consuming.- Mark-Philip
.-= Mark-Philip Venema´s last blog ..Info & views for Prints: Digital, Pigment, C-print, Lamda, & Facemount photos with plexi =-.
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