What social media is and what it is not
Posted by Sandra Cosser on 06 Jul 2009 | Tagged as: Social Media
There a few things I enjoy more than a good rant, even if it isn’t one of mine. I don’t particularly need to agree with said rants, I just like the outpouring of such genuine emotion. I love seeing metaphorical toys flung from virtual cots and I am a big fan of biting sarcasm – whoever said that it was the lowest form of wit was witless as I far as I am concerned. So, it was with some joy that I read Scott Berkun’s diatribe against social media and its attendant hype.
Berkun follows the rules of a good rant by stating his point of view right at the beginning, i.e. that social media is a ‘stupid term’, he seems to suggest that he would prefer the term ‘interactive media’ but that it had its heyday a few years ago and that the first rule of PR is ‘never reuse a dead buzzword, even if all you have left are stupid ones’.
I quite enjoyed that. It’s not quite along the same lines as Sherlock Holmes saying ‘when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth’, but it does have a ring to it.
Berkun continues his rant with a list of reasons against the online business community’s new favourite fad in a list. This is also good rant form, it’s clear although not always concise and has the added advantage of forcing the ranter to delve the depths of hate, until the last two reasons or so, when you can usually tell that they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel just to make up numbers (a hate list of 3 doesn’t pack quite the same punch as one with 7 items).
Berkun lists that the fact that we’ve always had social networks, but we used to call them families or clubs and that parties served as social media tools. He adds that the only thing to distinguish modern ‘social networks’ from those of yore (+/- three years ago) is the fact that modern tools are digital. He argues that word-of-mouth marketing used to be called ‘gossip’ and has always been more important than marketers have thought. And then there is the fact that no new media, no matter how digitally social, destroys the media that preceded it. Old media just gets repurposed, like the way newspapers have gone from world leaders in news to state-of-the-art bin liners.
Then there are some generic points, which usually come just before the barrel scrapers, such as inherent bias. Yep, social media is only touted by those in social media, so we can’t believe the hype because it’s all angled toward self promotion. Now, I understand what the bottom line – insert jaundiced eye here – but what else are social media people supposed to write about, analogue watches?
Spam, another middle of the line point. Sifting quality from the mass quantity always presents a problem, that’s why we have to work so hard at our social media writing, we need a lot of practice to keep it out of your junk folder. Which is joined by that other stand by: the old double-edged sword, you know, for all the pros there are several cons, pitfalls and precipices from which careless users can fall, which isn’t really news anymore, is it?
And so we arrive at those last few, the number plumpers: ‘be suspicious of technologies claimed to change the world’, because all new technologies have the same inherent problem, they are wielded by idiots, humans at large. Once an idiot always an idiot and all that, but Twitter enables you to be an idiot on such a large scale that it really is irresistible. And finally, the warning, use with discretion. Social media carries on warranties, you broke it, you don’t only buy it but will continue to pay for it for the rest of your online life – that kind of thing.
As far as rants go, it’s not the most virulent I’ve ever read but it entertaining. And while I felt it could have used a stronger ending (I do so like dire warnings of bleak futures full of global nuclear war and governance by robots) it resulted in that most coveted of rant goals – a rebuttal post (and I’m not talking about mine).
Joshua-Michele Ross actually came up with counter-arguments, as opposed to my sarcastic slightly snarky approach. He has rational reasons as to why social media is not a stupid term (words shape thought and action, words adopted collectively – social media – says a lot of about the way we currently think about business and interaction). Why the fact that we’ve always had social networks is not a compelling argument against them (social networks may not be new, but they still herald change, it’s not the good or the bad nature of change that is important it’s the scale and the effect of the change that matters). He carries this argument over to Berkun’s advice to remain suspicious of world changing technologies but qualifies it by scoring points against power. Today’s social networks disseminate power more evenly and equally than any other tool before. Taking power out of the hands of a select minority and placing it in more hands that count is always a good thing.
Ross’ post is also a bit of a rant, in that it’s a rant against a rant. And in the world of rants, Ross carries more weight then Berkun. His points are few but they are compelling. And his conclusion about power and democracy is a lovely loaded barb that makes it seem as though Berkun doesn’t have the best interests of the general public at heart.
And this post, this unrant about rants, why, it’s just a convenient way of bringing two sides of a very important coin to your attention (important if you’re into social media that is). It’s playing devil’s advocate in a way that allows me to be curiously neutral while maintaining an air of superiority, much like a referee in a wrestling match. And that is the beauty of social media. You can be whatever you want to be, there are no designated roles, and you don’t need to think out of the box because there are no boxes (like that fabled spoon the Matrix). There are no limits and you can make social media be whatever you want it to be. It’s a grand world, for all its virtuality.
