DISQUS

Rab · 1 year ago

whoa. you just blew my mind.

that is an excellent concise short to the point irrefutable argument. kudos.

Jim Tobin · 1 year ago

@Rab Thanks Ryan. Wow. That's a pleasant surprise to see in the comments.

Glen Allsopp · 1 year ago

To me it was appreciated. Because even though the post was old and I had asked for your help, I did in the end get a response and that is what matters most.

You got yourself a backlink (even though they are no-followed, they do help in my opinion), got your name out there with other top internet marketers and showed you know what you are talking about.

Tabz · 1 year ago

I'll modify, I just got all excited and forgot to add that you agreed!

John C. Havens · 1 year ago

This was a very thought-provoking post, and for me, anything that does that means it's time well spent. For myself, I actually do get a lot out of reading magazines like Fast Company and Wired and actually consider it a way to make money because the ideas they inspire in me help me keep up with my industry at large (in a mass market kind of way) and I enjoy the writing. That said, I also really connect with some TV shows, (Friday Night Lights, 24, PBS) and although they don't necessarily help my business, they do prime my story telling pump (FNL) keep me up to date (24 provides Internet water cooler conversation) and truly expand my mind (PBS has been running a great series on TV's first comic innovators and watching Carl Reiner's earliest work is a great lesson for anyone in any business).

My point here is that while I firmly do NOT think social media is a waste of time, I don't devalue traditional media or the potential power of advertising there. What irritates me, however, is the hubris/ignorance that's still pervasive by many media pundits in regards to said traditional media being more important than new/social media. I hear this and the message that comes through loud and clear is, "Holy crap, I hope I don't lose my job." Period. I see people clinging tenaciously to their current gravy train which I empathize with (I was an actor for 15 years and understand the need for job longevity), but frankly need to say to people--get over yourselves. If you're a good storyteller or provide value, you need to learn how to do it in any/all mediums and I won't let you say yours is bettern than mine or anyone else's just because your august institution reigned supreme for so many years. Do you smell that? That's the coffee. Wake up and smell it.

So on to the notion that Social Media is a waste of time. That's a useless statement to make as Social Media encapsulates such a broad ranging world--are you talking about listening to a podcast or leaving comments on a blog? Friending someone on Facebook or reading a Tweet? And how can you universally say none of these provide Business Value? That's simply just crap. Think LinkedIn, for instance. That's Social Networking, albeit fairly formal and not as open as Facebook, but when I need to contact someone for work, LI is the first place I search before Google. Why? If I'm connected to them through a friend, that's the best way to meet them versus a blind hello. Secondly, I get to see a full breadth of their working history so I have a better context when I get in touch with them.

Or Twitter--people focus on the mundane side of what people use it for ("I'm eating brie") versus setting up a mini-business network with your colleagues when you go to a conference so you can text everyone at once and say, "let's meet for lunch at noon" versus sending 20 individual emails or calling everyone. This is a HUGE time/money saver.

So in other words, if you can't use ANY social media EVER to do ANYTHING business oriented, yes, it's not a good business tool. But don't blame the medium for your lack of creativity or business savvy.

And also, don't tell me how I waste my time. When people make blanket statements like "social media is a waste of time" they're leaving out two words at the end that are critical..."for me." Okay, thanks. You could tell me why it's a waste of time for you so I can hear some context, but fine. That's your call. But don't condescend to think you know how I spend/waste my time. Time is a precious commodity and I determine the value, not you.

In closing, I've enjoyed writing this comment and should be working. But I never ever undervalue being inspired to think. So thanks, Jim, and I look forward to Part Two.

Allen Taylor · 1 year ago

People are programmed to expect immediate results. If they don't get their expected result when they want it then they label it a waste of time. I believe in serendipity. Things happen when they should happen because they happen for a good reason.

Some of my best business contacts came about because of serendipity. I wasn't looking to meet someone, I just did. One thing led to another and I made a sale, hired an employee who increased my productivity, met someone who introduced me to someone else, or hit upon an idea based on something I saw while watching TV or surfing the Net. Wasting time can make you a lot of money if you don't see it as a negative.

Jim Tobin · 1 year ago

@Glen: Thanks man. Hope things are going well and you're at peace with your decision

@John: Well said. Thanks for the very thoughtful response.

@Allen: You're absolutely right. The things you find when you're not looking constantly amaze me...

Paul Ford (Social Launch) · 1 year ago

Entertainment activities are largely a waste of *business* time. Social networking activities done for entertainment then fall into that category - not much business reward or potential.

However, savvy marketers are spending time, and in 2008 predictably an increasing amount of time (per person and en masse) on social networking for as non-entertainment. And employees of companies that engage with consumers along social marketing channels certainly are doing it for business, with entertainment thrown in if that helps the brand objectives.

Individual techie developers are blending the entertainment and business parts of of social networking, and (gasp) sometimes in the same sentence or tweet! The ROI for these activities is part business, part pleasure, with little wasted.

Chris Norton · 1 year ago

Hi Jim, I agree with you. Social media is a distraction but its a distraction that can lead to new business if used in the correct manner. We recently blogged about a social media tool and provided a balanced view with what we thought were the good things and of course pointing out the bad elements as it's what we do. Three weeks later this distraction caused us to be contacted by a major worldwide brand asking us to see them about a similar project.

Great post - I think I will go and blog about it myself - obviously referring to your article. There, that's two minutes I was distracted from worth but I think it was worth it.

beautifulisness · 1 year ago

My buddy Charles is on top of all this ( he reckons ) : http://www.charlesheflin.com/

Aaron · 2 weeks ago

Social Media Marketing is highly dangerous to brands and must NOT be embraced at all. Too many cooks spoil the broth! If you are 'engaging' in customers who mix business speak along with playful banter and perhaps rude comments, you are making your brand common as muck. Even seeing your brand logo along with potentially harmful comments on a twitter feed, blog, facebook page can tarnish a brand. Seeing customer complaints being posted on twitter is not good. Customer services depts speak to customers one on one without the world watching. Social media, just like the .COM bubble will burst with a catastrophic bang. People who have jumped onto the band wagon and are embracing social media are dancing with danger and damaging their brands. A brand is NOT about engaging with people on twitter. If you intelligently analyse what the MAJORITY of twitter feeds are about - it is merely internet 'GURUS' promoting some dodgy eBook via an equally dodgy looking one page sales-letter website. If you then look at twitter intelligently, you will find that millions of people are all talking millions of different things all at the same time - this causes a catastrophic information overload and achieves nothing. Social media does NOT improve productivity or sales at all. If you really look beneath the covers you will find that employee man/ woman hours are utterly wasted on facebook and twitter. Furthermore the ROI of twitter is no where near as high as the ROI of a traditional advertising campaign. This is because in the LONG -TERM (what really matters) - the brand will be damaged beyond repair. Engaging in social media is like making every one of your clients/ customers a brand manager - and when this happens it is a case of too many cooks spoil the broth or in this case - the brand!

I know I am being very controversial about not agreeing with the masses of people that are embracing social media--however, during the .com boom, the wise sage Warren Buffet disagreed with the masses of investment professionals around the world who were jumping on the bandwagon regarding the dot com boom - Warren Buffet never invested even one dime in the tech stocks of the dot com boom and he predicted the crash and it happened. Now, to give you a bit about my background, I have an elite MBA in Finance & Strategy with International Marketing and have worked for numerous Fortune 500 Co., as well as run an advertising agency. This does NOT make me an expert of any sort, but I do have a deep understanding of business and branding and corporate functions. It appears EVERYONE is trying to get something from nothing—this attitude in society caused the .com BUST—where investment bankers and MBAs and private equity firms were throwing money at any .com startup even if they had NO IDEA of HOW or WHEN they would generate revenue. The same attitude caused the current credit crunch crisis—trying to generate money out of nothing—thin air by living on CREDIT and not knowing HOW to pay it back. Similarly, SMM is free and people are trying to make it generate millions—there is a fundamental flaw in this business model that people cannot see. The main problem with the SMM model is the very nature of the fact that it allows everyone to comment on anything and everything—there is no longer any strategy or coherence in the message as you cannot coherently control millions of individuals with millions of opposing views.

SMM can:
1) Disintegrate a strong internal corporate culture by giving individuals too much power. Governments are elected by people to RUN the people and country to prevent ANARCHY! If you give PEOPLE all the power to have a referendum on EVERYTHING then you ruin the country and cause CHAOS. Similarly, if you give CUSTOMERS all the power to dictate what a brand should be, the multiple opposing views will cause brand anarchy and OPENLY annoy and anger people around the world at a rapid pace. Furthermore, it will cause employees to openly oppose internal corporate culture, openly challenge management strategy, cause openly shared silos and rifts and disintegrate corporate culture, which in turn can affect the brands values by affecting customer service, employee morale etc. This goes a LOT deeper than the internet ‘guru’/ work at home mom/ soccer mom mentality. SMM can damage brands beyond repair.

2) SMM is extremely time consuming and generates trickles of revenue compared to traditional main-stream media. SATELLITE, TV, RADIO, MAJOR NEWS/ MAGS, INTERNET ADS—these are the channels that even though are saturated, they have more consistency and enable more control over your message. The SECOND you hand over your brand message to the masses of un-qualified ‘brand specialists’ AKA the public, then you are going to cause chaos, confusion and mayhem. Imagine if the government said tomorrow, we are resigning and would like YOU the people to run the country! IT would end in utter chaos because people look up to LEADERS, but if you have NO BRAND LEADER and just millions of ‘followers’ trying to dictate what a brand should be—it makes millions of leaders, which causes disintegration and damage.

3) RISK! SMM can produce unprecedented amounts of risk to a brand. Not only is there the direct threat from competitors, and dissatisfied customers, but there also is the threat of data protection violations which can cause people to lose trust.

If you REALLY THINK about WHY in the past the peasants WORSHIPED ROYALTY, or in the present day WHY the masses WORSHIP CELEBRITIES—it is because of the perceived POWER! It is because they are JUST OUT OF REACH, it is because they cannot be touched—BUT—the second you remove that perception and you say, hey WE ARE JUST COMMON LIKE YOU—then the POWER goes out of the window… and with it goes the perception of being ELITE—and when that happens no one will want your brand anymore. If ROLEX advertised on the back of milk cartons no one would pay $5000 for it. THE CHANNEL is just as important as the message—and if you ‘advertise’ using SMM you can damage brand reputation.

All this is just the tip of the iceberg—I have written an in-depth thesis about all this backed up with evidence—it is controversial but highly engaging and interesting. Thanks for your comments and I hope this opens up a huge debate because I would love to learn from everyone out there too. Thanks!

Jim Tobin · 2 weeks ago

Aaron, wow... That's quite the response. Lots of things we can talk about there...

But let me just take this one. You wrote: "Even seeing your brand logo along with potentially harmful comments on a twitter feed, blog, facebook page can tarnish a brand."

I agree. And that's another argument for participating in social media marketing. No brand can stop a harmful comment from any of the 30 million Twitter users or 350 million Facebook users. Putting your head in the sand and cranking out TV ads (as you seem to recommend) only let's the damage go unchecked.

Could there be a bubble, where the "phony folks" in this space go away? Likely. But that doesn't justify what you're saying at all. You say SMM can damage brands beyond repair. I'd like you to list of some brands that go into SMM and were damaged beyond repair please... Because I can list countless examples of those that have benefitted...