Social media is changing the entire universe, and someone might have sent you to this article because you “don’t get it.”
I have no specific credentials to write about social media, but I did some Google searches 30 minutes ago and now I’m calling myself an expert. Since social media is new, you’ll have a hard time refuting that claim.
Let me start by plagiarizing Wikipedia’s definition of social‐media because I’m too lazy to paraphrase it or actually read it.
Social media are media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media supports the human need for social interaction, using Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. Businesses also refer to social media as user generated content (UGC) or consumer generated media (CGM).
Hopefully by the time you read this, the editors at Wikipedia haven’t changed it.
A few other people have written about social media, but it’s like Robert Scoble says, “That’s the first lesson: even though you probably are getting sick and tired of hearing about something… the reality is that most of your friends haven’t even heard the news yet.”
I quoted Robert Scoble because it gives this article credibility, and, quite frankly, I don’t read his blogosphere so I just grabbed that quote from his most‐recent post about his new baby. Scoble’s worldwide website is available if you click that underlined thing one sentence back. He works for Microsoft or something.
It’s time for a gratuitous and recent statistic to substantiate what I’m saying.
According to Hitwise/Experian, “Twitter is now the 26th ranked website visited by Australian Internet users (week ending 5 September 2009).” There’s probably a better quote than that, but it’ll do. It’s current.
People moved from MySpace to Facebook, and now they’re all on Twitter. Pretty soon there will be a new important website that I’ll hopefully convince someone to pay me to monitor and fix. Your company needs a Facebook and Twitter account or it will lose its relevancy and go out of business fast. I can’t stress that enough.
This is the sentence where I differentiate myself from those hyping social media by indicating that I know what’s coming in the future and how it will matter to companies. Actually, I’m going to go ahead and save that part for a follow‐on article called “stupidester.”
What follows is a list that you could title using any of the following: top ten sins, commandments, rules, failures, success stories, case studies, ROI, metrics or results.
- Be transparent
- Moving slowly
- Drives measurable ROI
- Skittles
Companies that “get” social media usually have heard of social media. I’m actually writing this article in hopes that someone at a conference will offer me that job.
They’ll probably be impressed with this article, and maybe not notice that I found the logo on top while searching Google images for “social media.”
I’ve decided this article has too many words, so I’m
going to use a piece of clip art to demonstrate my next point.
This picture demonstrates the measurable ROI that comes from social‐media strategy and tactics. I hope you’re impressed that I started with a random image I found in clip art… and then backed into that meaning. Not everyone can do that.
In conclusion, social media is changing the entire universe, and your company should have a Facebook or Twitter account or it will lose its relevancy and go out of business fast.
[Editor’s Note: Kevin H. Nalty is on Twitter as “Nalts,” and probably on Facebook but he can’t remember his username. He runs Nalts Consulting, which he says “will probably go out of business fast.”
I’ve always admired Nalts for his incisive and generally amusing commentary and keen eye for what matters in online media. He’s the only career marketer who also is one of the most watched online-video personalities.
This is his first contribution to SiliconANGLE. Thank him for it in the comments enough, and I might be able to twist his arm into writing “stupidester” for us. –mrh]
