The Church of Social Media

When you work and play in the pools of social media, sooner or later you begin to detect faint outlines of differentiation in how various groups of people approach social media. Before long, those faint outlines emerge, as if in relief, as craggy crevices. The social media congregation is a raucous one indeed.

The broader arguments our culture frequently toy with, between faith and rationalism,  extends into this arena. Unsurprisingly, the church of social media is ripening towards a chasm. It isn’t shocking because wherever and whenever you collect large groups of people, you quickly see the strong disagreements. This is especially so when the stakes are high, which is no doubt the case now. There are is a lot of money, jobs, influence on the line with social media.

Up until the present, those involved in social media, whether as entrepreneurial startups, marketers, content creators, publishers, PR et al. have all been evangelizing on behalf of social media. They’ve been doing so to what was once a broader and more skeptical public. Social media seemed buzzy and yet another fad our culture had to put up with until the next fad came along and moved it aside. It was as annoying as an invisible mosquito that we cannot hone in on.

The mosquito has now landed and the bloodsucking has begun.

Is Social Media a Religion?

Previously, when everyone involved in social media was busy recruiting the rest of society to come dip their toes in the water, it was easy to paper over the differences the various constituencies had; the broader goal of mainstream adoption was worth it. Better to keep our family politics off the front porch, at least until the house was full. (Lots of metaphors here today huh? mosquitos, pools, churches, families. I blame the weather) Now the house is full and those differences that seemed so minimal just a few short months ago have now spilled out into full view. But is it really as simple as having either blind faith in the power and force of social media or of being more coolly rational about it all? Actually, it kinda is.

So can you tell who are those animated by blind faith and those with reason and rationality? As someone who came to social media looking for a transformational force, a democratizing influence, it didn’t take much to convert me. I had just left finance and was figuring out what to do with my life. The second rise of the internet (the first rise having crashed in a sea of dot com bursts in the year 2000) was the real deal, or so I told myself. I spent almost a year as a reactionary “useful idiot” proselytizing to any one who would listen. My friends and family got annoyed. So naturally, I started this business. So I could annoy others as well.

But working in social media, depending on it, meant that I had to find a way to meld my belief in social media with something a bit more scientific. No wonder that early on in my business you were much more likely to hear me talk about content strategies and the marriage of design and functionality and other creative aspects of social media. I knew the metrics, I knew how to gather, analyze and evolve strategies based on what the metrics told you, but they were never the most exciting part. The exciting part was unleashing creativity in places and people that you wouldn’t expect to find it.

And of course, metrics and quantitative analysis is not the only instance of the science of social media.  There are many processes that are rather cold and antiseptic. For instance, in my strategies that I take great care to prepare for clients, metrics, deliverables, objectives were, to be honest, always kind of thrown in at the last second. I paid lip service. But I didn’t really care about them.

My how things have changed!

I now realize how important those staid processes and protocols are to the creative side of social media. In fact, in most of my recent strategies, I’ve not only begun with the science aspects of social media, I’ve focused on them throughout. All this means is that I get to watch two sides duke it out. But are there two sides? Or am I just seeing things?

Image courtesy of VinothChandar on Flickr

Tagged as: Building Trust, Social Media Criticism, social media faith