When I was a kid, I never wanted to let my younger brothers play with my toys. It’s not that I was selfish & wanted to keep them from having fun, it’s that I KNEW they would break shit. But, because my parents insisted I share, I relented & occasionally would come home from school to what used to be a perfectly working toy (still waiting for that Soundwave replacement fellas). My position was one we all find ourselves in very often; stuck in the middle of a battle you think you should win, but knowing it is one you will not (notice I did not say cannot).
This is how I feel about social media; I’m stuck in between the social media “experts” & people I wish had no access to it. Most days I read a few blog posts or tweets from said experts & get frustrated (actually, there’s only like 2 or 3 that annoy me). I might be at my wit’s end with being told how social media works or how everyone should do this or that. It’s the same stuff you already know cloaked in verbose Abraham-Hicks-eque words. Look, I can do that for you right now – The closer your brand comes to being in harmony with your community, the more in harmony you are with potential brand advocates. When you think of the wants & needs of your customers & identify how you can fill those gaps, you weave yourself into the very fabric of the community. Total BS. If those 2 sentences meant something to you, please leave this site immediately.
Seriously. If I told you that you needed to listen & interact more regularly & on a one-to-one basis with your customers along with leveraging your marketing efforts to learn more about potential customers, your response very well might be, “No shit.”
Well, there’s social media for you. Now make sure you have clearly outlined goals & objectives, a supporting strategy, & the people with the know-how to execute it. You didn’t really come here to learn anything new about interactive marketing did you? Dummy.
I oversimplify this because I’m trying to make a point. You are not a sheep so stop being herded like one. Use your brain, rely on your experience, & ask lots of questions. You’ll gain a lot more traction & get things done faster than trying to figure out how to reshape your world into the mold of someone else’s self-indulgent internet presence.
My other beef is with the people that most likely make up the fastest growing segment of the social media space. You’ve de-friended, hidden feeds, unfollowed, or blocked these people on Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, & Foursquare. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t be sharing my toys with them.
The amount of server space that is dedicated to hosting inane Facebook groups, status updates, tweets, & creepers/stalkers has to be astronomical. As much as I’d like to rant, I just ask that you go back to doing what you were before you discovered Farmville. Maybe cut down how passionate you are about that kind of stuff. One or the other would suffice. Oh, also, don’t bleed your heart out on Facebook or Twitter. It makes you look weak & now that it’s on the internet, it’s there to stay.
It’s possible I have no business criticizing people who clearly have more “experience” & make more money than I do. Nor should I be any expert on what internet noobs (how is that possible in 2010?) do with their spare time. But, I think I’m right & know this is a battle I can win.
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