Say you’re browsing on Facebook, or Google+, where this is less of an issue (for now), and up pops yet another post complaining about something.
Usually, it’s a complaint about a certain type of post, like political arguments or fitness boasts.
And there are enough of these complaint posts-about-posts that they’ve become a new type of post themselves.
Well, here’s my complaint:
Why doesn’t social commerce work? Theories abound. Among the most popular are “People use social sites to communicate, not to shop,” and “People don’t want to use their credit cards on a social network.”
I’d have to say I agree with these assessments, and I understand the fear of a new concept. It’s primarily about behavior. When social media users visit their favorite sites, it’s to share jokes, keep their friends notified about what they are doing, no matter how mundane, and to see what other people are up to.
So now that you’ve used MySpace, Friendster, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Foursquare, Google+, Yahoo! Groups, LinkedIn, and about a thousand other social sites you’ll never remember, it’s time to make the prognosis: Some of these platforms won’t be here in a few years. Of those that do, they will attract the users who have best figured them out.
For learning to use one of these sites, it’s not really a matter of how, since they’re all pretty easy. They may have their own set of normal practices, and you may look like a terminal noob if you don’t adhere to them, but how much you care about that is driven by your own practices. You either think and act like Google+ or you don’t. If you do, you’ll focus your efforts on that site. If you don’t, you’ll drift away.
Within the next year, I think the shakeout will begin in earnest. When the dust clears, we won’t all be using every tool in a way that is ravenous toward some and pathetic toward others. I’d make the soft drink metaphor but it’s been done.
So it’s time to lay down the cards. Which is best for you?
You know how a lot of teary downer movies come out in January, in an effort to capture the mantle of “Best Movie of the Year” before anyone else? On January 18, it seems the McDonalds chain used that approach in their attempt to win the award for “Biggest Social Media Blunder of 2012” with the #McDStories hashtag.
Why do social media marketing ideas sometimes fail so grotesquely? Sometimes the idea is truly idiotic, or malformed, or naive. #McDStories is different. It actually seemed like a good idea for a well-known brand like McDonalds, which trades on convenience, cost, speed and a chipper all-American wholesomeness. The problem is that McDonalds is well-known to different people for different reasons.
By now, you probably know that Salesforce.com is buying Radian6 for a total of $326 Million. On the heels of Salesforce.com’s investments in HubSpot and Seesmic, I’m not at all surprised at this move. HubSpot’s unique lead generation and engagement platform is great for pushing content, while Seesmic is a cool self-service social network management tool. Radian6 can add some amazing analytical value to the mix.
But Salesforce.com? SFDC’s client list is a who’s who of global businesses with one thing in common: they are either commercial product and service companies or the commercial divisions of very large consumer-oriented businesses like Dell and NBC. Yet, social platforms have largely been considered consumer media. So does this investment make sense for SFDC?
Of course it does.
Look, I’m new to social media, so I won’t shovel you expert advice about building a huge following. Your Twitter mojo is probably a thousand times mine. If you rock the social media house, keep doing whatever you’re doing. I’m probably learning a lot from you.
But like everyone else, I do have an opinion on how best to use social media to grow your business. That’s what it is ultimately about, right? Growing your business? Building a base of people in your community, so that you have a wealth of knowledge and experience to draw on to help you deliver a finely-honed service or product to the people who are willing to pay you for it? Creating mind-share? Getting noticed?
Whenever you read about companies and celebrities using social media such as Twitter and Facebook, you hear all the stories about how these organizations and people have become huge social media success stories. They have expanded their reach to more followers and created another portal for constant engagement and brand-building.
A rundown of these social media success stories usually includes the following:
Do you notice what they all they have in common?
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