I was an early adopter, and now I think I’m an early dropout. I’ve done a bit of everything with social media and honestly I’m a bit tired of it. I don’t get the ‘reward’ and overall I’m bored and using the tools is more work than it is worth.
I’ve been online in some form or another since the early 90′s. BBSs, Prodigy, Compuserv, etc… I had my first website in 1996 or so. I’d like to think that I’ve seen it all, but I’m sure there are a few gaps in my experiences.
When social media rolled around it didn’t seem all that new, just easier and with different names. Today, it just doesn’t really fit into my daily workflow all that well. There are too many networks, tools, aggregators, and distractions to be of any real use.
My boredom started with FourSquare and Twitter. I was a fanatic on Twitter for the longest time. Then I stopped caring. I stopped following people back, so my numbers stopped growing. Checking my Gmail account it seems I’ve had in excess of 15,000 people following me, but since I didn’t follow them all back they didn’t stay. They didn’t really care what I had to say, but they were just pushing for numbers.
The ‘close’ feeling network that Twitter had in 2007 is gone. I can’t expect that something I say will be seen by friends. Its mostly comprised of people sharing links that I already saw two weeks ago and boosting their egos. I liked it a lot more when I had 100 followers that actually cared than 2,000 zombies who can’t parse their own stream of tweets due to the volume.
The tools never evolved all that gracefully. Since the iPhone isn’t really a multi-tasking monster it isn’t a good mobile way of interacting with Twitter. Tweetdeck still crashes and is a memory hog.
But more than anything else, I just get nothing from it. Sure I know all of the ways that you can use it for your business, but for me personally I just don’t really feel it anymore.
The same with FourSquare. At first I thought it was really cute. Then I got bored. I don’t really care where people are and sharing my location nonstop seems to give up a lot more than it is giving me. I had a killer time with it at SXSW, but even that seemed to be so much work. The bugs, the battery drain and poor interface just kinda kill it for me. Also, like I said, I don’t get anything out of it. Great, now I can see the ‘popular’ locations and where people were 45 minutes ago (but no longer are because they are en-route elsewhere).
Sure, I still use social media in many ways. I’m writing this on a blog. I browse my RSS reader and consume from sites like Hacker News and Reddit daily, but asides from that I just don’t have time. I’m hoping that my attitude changes, but there really isn’t much in it for me right now.
For those building networks, I’d think about these things a lot. Building a useful tool isn’t easy, let alone one that someone is expected to interact with nonstop. Humans just aren’t made for that.
SXSW hasn’t even started yet and I’ve had quite a day. I got into Charlotte ok, although the plane did have to attempt the landing a second time due to another plane being in the wrong place. This is the second time this has happened to me in Charlotte and it is always slightly unnerving.
Before I took off I sent a DM to Jeff Pulver (140Conf, Vivox, Vonage) asking if he knew of anyone. Jeff is always massively helpful and I saw him helping his friend Geo Geller out trying to get to SXSW as well. Jeff almost immediately got back in touch with me and referred me to Alan Weinkrantz in San Antonio. When I touched down I emailed Alan and he called me back almost instantly and offered to help not only get me to Austin, but a place to stay for the night.
For this I am highly thankful and appreciative. I’m on standby for doing directly to Austin, but if that doesn’t work at least I know I’m in good hands.
I’m headed to SXSW Interactive today on behalf of imVOX. My journey started at an early 4:30am wakeup. Sarah drove me to the airport, but we didn’t get there until 5:38 or so. By the time I got through the checkin line they told me that it was too late for my flight which was at 6am, and scheduled to takeoff at 6:20. Boo.
The US Air rep was nice enough to look through flights for me to try to find an alternative. At first the results were grim. No way to get there. Period. Until Saturday. At best. We could get to Charlotte, NC, but there was no way of getting to Austin. This does not make me happy. He checks other airlines. Same story. We find a flight to San Antonio, TX instead. Just 71 miles away from Austin. Close enough.
My current hope is that I can get to Charlotte and that the flight at 4pm from Charlotte to Austin isn’t completely full or someone else misses it and I can get onboard. If not, I’m looking for a way to get from SA to Austin. The train only runs in the morning so that isn’t an option. The Greyhound is a remote option, but doesn’t seem to be anywhere near the airport (increasing the cost).
The best way there seems to be a rental car one way to Austin, or finding someone on Twitter to give me a ride. Are you headed from SA to Austin tonight? If so please email me or comment here. It would be much appreciated as I’m trying to keep costs down here.
David Meerman Scott had a little rant on the ROI of social media on a podcast the other day. He feels that business people asking for the ROI on social media are asking an invalid question. I tried to leave a comment on the blog, but for some reason it wouldn’t post.
David makes an argument that I’ve heard multiple times- that you can’t calculate the ROI on social media. He doesn’t outright say it is impossible, but he seems frustrated that executives don’t question the ROI of billboards or silly things like ‘putting on your trousers this morning’. He boils asking for ROI to be an excuse for fear. He properly assesses that most TV commercials and traditional advertisements aren’t well measured, but pushes against the ‘MBA calculation of what ROI is’.
What is ROI
ROI is ‘Return On Investment’. Generally investment is made in money, but can also be time or other resources. This is why when someone says, “social media is free” they are incorrect. It takes investment of time, resources and efforts that you could be putting into other things. The return itself, while generally defined in monetary terms, doesn’t always have to be money upfront. It can be another defined goal. At the end of the day however, everyone does want to know how much money they will get out of an investment.
Businesses aren’t afraid- Marketing Is
I don’t think businesses are the ones afraid of social media. If it shows a positive return consistently, then they are more than willing to put money into it. However, not every business experiences the same results that Dell did when they launched their Twitter account.
Marketers however are terrified that the ROI would calculate to not be positive. Often, they don’t have the conclusive results to show it as positive results. Marketers only want to speak about positive results. David himself does this with his case studies on his website. They never mention the millions of Facebook Groups that never go anywhere, the thousands of blogs with decent content that go unread, the Twitter contests that only have a dozen bots RT the campaign, or the ‘authentic people’ that go overlooked because someone else who is inauthentic but pulls tricks to get publicity get big.
The assessment that social media only returned a 5% ROI, or worse yet, generally lost money, would crush many of these experts extolling the values of social media and charging high consulting and speaking fees.
Quite simply put, the Emperor may be wearing no clothes, but everyone is too afraid to look- so they assume he is clothed.
Advertisers Don’t Like Measuring Either!
Advertisers (and marketing by proxy) has always enjoyed being able to say, “But what about the mind share? You can’t measure that!” and dodge questions about direct impact. Television and print have built a multi-billions dollar industries from this. Since there is such a severe disconnect between what appears on your TV screen and a direct attribution to sales- they are able to continue extracting dollars from companies regardless of actual effect on sales or the company’s bottom line!
Online advertising changed a great deal of this, and advertising rates have plummeted. Once people started doing hard measurement and realized the supply of ad space available rates fell through the floor. Maybe a banner on the front page of a site isn’t worth $20CPM afterall…
Why can’t they measure?
If measuring definitively would be of assistance however, why can’t they measure? Because they don’t know how and lack the tools.
Social Media consultants are generally non-technical people. Yes, know more about computers than the average bear, but if you confront one of them with the concept of a pointer they will likely find someone else to speak with quickly. They probably struggled in their statistics classes, but rocked at English and public speaking. Most of them went to school for business and marketing and really lack the crossover skills to excel in technology. They are very good at using pre-made tools like WordPress, Excel and Google, but they cannot make their own.
These are somewhat broad generalizations, but overall true. These aren’t stupid people- just marketers. When I was at the first 140Conf in NYC I was working on some Twitter API hacking and someone beside me glanced over with amazement and said, “Wow, are you programming?” as if they had just seen a unicorn enter the room. Compare a Podcamp to a Barcamp and you’ll notice a severe lack of code on the social media side of things.
The tools haven’t really matured for measuring social media well. Some companies like the Web Ecology Project and Rapleaf have done solid work the field, but there are still many unanswered questions that require you to break out the coding skills to make happen.
Measurement is possible!
There is a difference between saying that measurement isn’t possible, and measurement is difficult are two very different things. The Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle says that it is not possible to know both the momentum and position of a subatomic particle, and the more you know about one, the less you will know about the other. This isn’t the case in marketing. Just because it is ‘hard’ doesn’t make it impossible. And it is an entirely other issue if the measurement simply doesn’t turn out the way you like!
How to Measure
To measure you need to clearly define the goals that the company has for the campaign. Once you have those and you enact the campaign there may be positive side effects that were unexpected, which is great and counts toward return, but it doesn’t mean that the goal was completed either. Timeframes should also be understood. Since there is a long term effect often of things online, some things don’t contribute toward instant value, but to long term value.
Sometimes you’ll find that you need a piece of data that isn’t easily accessible. Not everything in the world is pre-made through a web-app or can be done through Google instantly. Some things require massive amounts of data. That’s where a team of competent programmers come in. Of course, this can increase your costs, which can factor against you, but can also reveal other very interesting and helpful data.
What about negative ROI?
You may find that the campaign fails to meet defined metrics. You tweeted a ton, and ran a contest, but it didn’t take off. You should still honestly measure it and what happened. Don’t instantly blame the product, but show data that traffic was being delivered to it. Perhaps some things there could be changed. What customer feedback can you take to them for revision?
This doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t run a campaign again, but that maybe some things need tweaked. Redefine goals, do the things that worked well again and keep trying.
I’m frequently invited by brands to go to events, become a fan, or mess with an application on Facebook. I almost alway turn them down, even though the requests come through friends. I do have a lot of friends in marketing, so I suppose its to be expected- but what do I feel about the brands then?
About 3% of the time I think, “Alright, this is a brand I like and I want to support them!” but most of the time I feel annoyed, spammed and a negative feeling toward the brand- more so if it is one that I’m unfamiliar with or doesn’t offer something that I’m highly interested in.
So if I see Moog Music on Facebook, I will definitely friend them, become an fan, and if they have a local event then I’ll go to it. This is partially because I’ve been to the factory, had several emails with their CEO Mike Adams, and met Bob in 2002. They’ve done good stuff for me and I want to support them. I’d probably even get a Moog tattoo if they paid for it.
Yet if a brand that I’m meh about starts inviting me to events, to become a fan, and to use an application, I’m just annoyed. Sorry Dell. I use your servers, but not because I love your brand and want to show it around to my social network. This also often goes for many startups that I get stuff about. If they are awesome ones that I already use their product, then I’m game, but otherwise I’m not really inclined to check them out.
So basically if I really love a brand, I’m more than happy to interact with them on Facebook. Otherwise, I’m thinking that Facebook is a place for ‘friends’ and everything else is just a distraction and frankly annoying.
Oh and application and quiz invites? I have yet to find one that doesn’t piss me off.
