Growing Pains Ahead For Social Media
Social media is maturing. This is a great thing! You see Twitter showing up on TV and in conversations of people who are not very tech savvy. Everywhere you turn people and companies are connecting and conversing.
Ideas and Angles has been involved in countless events and projects in Kansas City promoting, using, or discussing the merits of social media for business use. Through the Kansas City Social Media Club we have met a lot of great people who share our vision of companies communicating in new ways to their customers. People that are drawn to this kind of thing come from very different backgrounds and career fields but all share a passion for learning. The social media community is filled with people who enjoy sharing the knowledge they come to the table with to help others. When all the boats get raised everyone benefits.
What is going to happen when there are more sharks in the water? Right now the social media universe (especially Twitter) is a lot like the town in the movie Pleasantville. Everyone gets along and is encouraging. Most the people involved share the same passions of technology, innovation, ideas, and sharing knowledge. Sure there are some troubles here and there but not enough to effect the average discourse in most Twitter communities.
We are in this quaint gated community right now but what happens when the masses bring a different kind of mentality?
Agents of social media will be tested and attacked. We are creating a world where the integrity of a company is being represented by people working in a fashion that can be risky and involves a lot of trust. For social media to work a brand’s representative needs to be able to communicate and react instantly. This means no time for for double checking and approval by the head honchos. One single slip up can be a big deal. It only has to happen once. I think social media practitioners need to prepare to be targeted. If you can get a single person representing a company to “flip out” in the social web it can be seen by all and a company could look very foolish very fast. Even things that seem simple and harmless can be blown out of proportion and drug out for the whole internet community as we saw with the recent FedEx\Memphis debacle. People that test social media agents have nothing to lose.
The biggest challenge the social media community will face is their ability to reach out and provide quality engagement to users who are seeking it while understanding their involvement in certain conversations or communities will not suit any of their goals.
If the social media community doesn’t go out and show its worth the leashes will be pulled and the effectiveness of customer engaging strategies will die.
Here are some things to remember for the people in the trenches representing yourself or your company.
- Know what you are talking about because your users will.
- Everything you say will be out there forever in some form. There is no delete button in the social web.
- Being right is not always the most important thing. If you get into a discussion or argument with someone who has no idea what they are talking about and finally prove them wrong after a long back and forth? You were still wrong. No matter how right you were. Nobody wants to see a company lowering themselves to pissing matches online.
- Help the people who want to be helped. Some people are dedicated to being unhappy and nothing you can do will ever change that. Try and help people who need it while filtering out people who only like to hear themselves complain.
We don’t want to scare anyone away from the great things new media has to offer but as time goes on our big goal of appealing to the masses is going to bring new obstacles. Go forth and do wonderful things with the trust your companies have in you.
What obstacles do you see looking ahead for the social media community?
What advice do you have?
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Tags: Future, Obstacles, Social Media
Mar 05, 2009
Insightful post Zach. It made me think of GMA’s announcement yesterday that they’re now on Twitter. Big deal, I thought…it will be interesting to see if they get human and add value, or will they just be uselessly self-serving. But I think also that change in use of social media is inevitable and part of the wave we’re riding. I trust that the main thing that has fueled the initial adoption – a desire to connect with others directly at a meaningful level – will continue to shape the future.
Mar 05, 2009
Great commentary, Zach. Really think you nailed the trench tips. Thank you!
On the attack front: What Embarq has found is if YOU (not “the man” but the individual person – YOU) focus on really helping your customers (not always being right but always being honest, real and compassionate), the community comes to your defense and course corrects the attack.
Mar 07, 2009
[...] and discussion. The main topic of the morning was similar to our most recent blog post about the pressures and obstacle’s social media faces as it gets more mainstream in its [...]