Rambling Thoughts on Social Media

Every once in a while, we come across something that makes us say “a-ha!”; a song, movie, book, article, photograph, or speech that is able to perfectly articulate how we feel. I’ve been writing notes for this blog post for over a month (as well as mulling things over in my head for much longer), but it was one of those “someone else gets it!” moments this morning that finally convinced me to flesh things out and write about it. I have a love/hate relationship with social media. One the one hand, I’m present and active on a number of different social media platforms, and I love the way that it’s changed both my relationships and the way we do business. As someone who has worked in marketing, I’m continually fascinated in and delighted by the new ways that companies are using social media to reach and communicate with their customers. Social media has no doubt helped bridge the gap between seller & buyer, artist & fan, and celebrity & “normal person”, and at least in the theoretical sense, I believe that everyone can have an equal voice. Something, however, has been bugging me lately. In his 2009 article “The Social Media Echo Chamber Makes Me Not Want to Listen”, Kevin Palmer said:

One thing I have the most trouble getting over is the massive echo chamber that is social media. Originally I was going to call this post “the social media circle jerk” but I thought it might have been a bit harsh, however the more I think about it the more appropriate this title seems. …… In the end I guess maybe social media is led by a few people, a few examples, and then everyone else is a self-proclaimed expert even though they are just glomming original ideas from another person twice removed. If that is the case I am going enjoy the seat on the sidelines while you all decide who the pivot man is this week. Where is the original thought in social media? Is there really wisdom of the crowds or is the blind leading the blind? (source: Kevin Palmer via Social Media Explorer)

Thank you Kevin! I’ve casually talked with people about this, but haven’t come across many people discussing the “social media expert” / “personal branding” phenomenon in a serious way. My biggest issue that social media has created a cottage industry that produces no tangible products, and that everyone is happily gulping down the Kool-Aid. Search for “social media expert”, and you’ll see people hive-mindingly focused on growing friends, hits, followers, linkbacks, things which have no inherent value. I think owe my brother a few million dollars by now as a consequence of our betting on our pickup basketball games, but I’m not sure that really means anything. Just because I can play 4 or 5 guitar chords, that doesn’t make me a professional musician, and you’d never see someone call themselves a “brain surgery guru”. At best, a lot of this is harmless eEgo-boosting behavior, which, given the disconnect between many of our online and offline lives, is common and widespread. At worst, however, part of it feels like trickery and cheating to me. I don’t define myself by my online “persona”, but I think a lot of people do define themselves that way. For a lot of people, band with 10,000 MySpace friends < band with 15,000 friends. On Twitter, people with 50,000 followers are thought to be better, more interesting / influential / successful than those with 15,000, no matter where those come from or how authentic they are. I’m not sure what caused me to think about all of this more than is normal/healthy because they’re really just stupid internet profiles and I have no room to judge anyone. Without people taking chances and doing something new, our world would be a vastly different, more boring, place. I’m all for entrepreneurs and originality. In fact, I suppose that some of my criticism could be perceived as jealousy. I guess my thoughts are a little torn and all over the place after all.