Calling bullshit on social media
While I like and use Facebook and Twitter, there’s enough hype and abuse of words like innovation, transformation and revolution around all things social media that a critique is warranted. I hope this post is used whenever someone feels they’re being sold something phony or that makes little sense and wants a skeptical opinion to calibrate where the truth is.
For starters: social media is a shallow term. Is there any anti-social media out there? Of course not. All media, by definition, is social in some way. The term interactive media, a more accurate term for what’s going on, lived out its own rise / hype / boom cycle years ago and was smartly ignored this time around – first rule of PR is never re-use a dead buzzword, even if all that you have left are stupid ones. I’ve participated in stupid terms, from push-technology to parental-controls, so I should know when I see one.
That said, here’s some points not made often enough:
- We have always had social networks. Call them families, tribes, clubs, cliques or even towns, cities and nations. You could call throwing a party or telling stories by a fire “social media tools”. If anything has happened recently it’s not the birth of social networks, it’s the popularity of digital tools for social networks, which is something different. These tools may improve how we relate to each other, but at best it will improve upon something we as a species have always done. Never forget social networks are old. The best tools will come from people who recognize, and learn from, the rich 10,000+ year history of social networks. (Read the Excellent Writing On The Wall: The First 2000 Years of Social Media).
- There has always been word of mouth, back-channel, “authentic” media tools. In Gladatorial Rome, in Shakespearean England and in Revolutionary America, motivated individuals had ways to express their ideas and share them. Call it gossip, poems, paintings or pamphlets, there is a long history of individuals taking action to express opinions through non-official channels. The ease of using these channels changes over time, but they always exist because #1 always exists. Of note, IRC predates some, but certainly not all, of the features twitter is heralded for introducing to the world.
- The new media does not necessarily destroy the old. TV was supposed to kill radio – this was wrong. TV forced radio to change and in some ways improve. The web forced TV, newspapers and magazines to change, and they will likely survive forever in some form, focusing on things the web can not do well. Its unusual for new thing to completely replace the old ones and when they do it takes years. Anyone who claims social media will eliminate standard PR or mass media is engaging in hype, as odds are better those things will change and learn, but never die. It’s wise to ask what each kind of media / marketing is good and bad for and work from there.
- Social media consultants writing about social media have inherent biases. It’s difficult to take posts like this about social media seriously, as it’s written by someone from a social media consulting firm without an ounce of humility or perspective. It’s hard to come across as authentic if you promote a revolution that you personally stand to benefit the most from. Much writing about social media is PR people writing about the importance of PR – see a problem of authenticity here? When did PR, like advertisers, become a reliable source for what is authentic? How is SEO optimization, or similiar techniques for twitter, authentic? When a system becomes popular the greedy will game it and social media is no different. We should be worried when people with PR and advertising backgrounds or consulting firms are leading us in the ways of authenticity or integrity. The Twitter Book, from my publisher O’Reilly, takes a surprisingly reasonable, authentic and low-hype approach to social media I wish was more popular.
- Signal to Noise is always the problem. I’m someone who would rather read 5 or 10 really good things every day, than skim through 50 or 100 mediocre ones. I find much of social media activity consists of people re-forwarding things they were forwarded that almost none of them appear to have read, as they believe they are rewarded for publishing frequently above all else. Using twitter, facebook or nearly any social media service I often feel I’m in the minority since what’s popular is rarely what’s good. If you are interested in quality, and not volume, then the size of your network matters less than the value of what or who is in it. I’m more fascinated by how kottke.org and metafilter.org have kept such high signal to noise ratios for years than I am about most media tools I see.
- All technologies cut both ways and social media will be no different. For all the upsides of any invention there are downsides and it takes time to sort out what they all are. Blogs and Twitter have made self promotion, and self-aggrandizement, acceptable in ways I’ve never seen before, and I’m guilty myself. Is it possible to write or publish without self promotion? I don’t know anymore. I suspect digital tools for social media may have the negative effect of making authentic communication harder, not easier to find, as more people, and corporations, hover right on the gray dividing line between authentic and corporate, or selfish and generous.
- Be suspicious of technologies claimed to change the world. The problem with the world is rarely the lack of technologies, the problem is us. Look, we have trouble following brain dead simple concepts like The Golden Rule. Millions starve to death not because we lack the food, but because of greed and lack of political will. We will largely behave like idiots on blogs and on twitter because we behave that way in real life. Every technological revolution must contend with the fact that we bring our stupidity, selfishness and arrogance along for the ride with our generosity, wisdom and love (12for12k.org being a great positive example). This is true for any new technology we use, and invariably it’s this fact that plays itself out and ruins the current technological wave, setting up the frustrated landscape for the next one. Democracy, steam power, electricity, telegraphs, telephones, televisions, the Internet, and the web have all been heralded as the arrival of Utopia, and although there has been progress in each wave, it seems there are things we want that technological change can not bring to us.
- Always ask “What problem am I trying to solve?” The smartest thing to do with something new is to ask what is it you need it to do for you. Recognize good marketing will not make up for bad products or incompetent services. If your company is marketing itself well to customers, or your social life is fine, perhaps you don’t need a revolution and need something much simpler and more realistic from social media. Spend time figuring out what you need. If you want to experiment and see for yourself, that’s awesome, but know that’s what you’re doing. But above all use whatever media/communication tools or methods work for you, whether they are old or new, no matter what anyone says, including me.
If you liked this post, you might also like my general purpose essay, How to detect bullshit, and How to call BS on a Guru.
Update: @jmichelle posted a response, In defense of social media, on O’Reilly Radar. I responded in the comments.
Update, part 2: six months later, here’s a follow up post: twitter reconsidered.
Update, part 3: A video of me presenting on this topic at Seattle Social Media club (slides):
Ah yes – trying to help charities raise awareness and funds is definitely BS, Mr. B… ;-)
Danny: If you read the paragraph in point 7, it should be clear I linked to http://12for12k.org/about-2/ as an example of “generosity, wisdom and love”.
If it’s not clear let me know – I meant to use http://12for12k.org/about-2/ as a good example, rather than bad.
Hey there Scott,
Sorry, I did read it wrong – I was looking at it in the overall scope of your piece and took it as a “even charitable causes are being sucked in” – my bad, sorry for confusion.
Yes, re-reading it I can see where it’s differentiated – my error, sorry!
And thanks for using 12for12k as a positive example, appreciate it. :)
No problem – I’ll actually change it now to make it more explicit. I’m the writer so if you read it wrong it’s probably my fault :)
(Adding “12for12k.org is a great positive example”) to Point 7.
I enjoyed this.
The only bullshit I see here is this blog:
“I’m going to use social media to bitch about how much I hate social media.”
Shaun: fair enough. It’s possible I’m as full of shit as the things I’m trying to point out.
But I don’t think I say anywhere that I hate social media – in fact I think I make clear I’m criticizing misleading perceptions about what social media is and what it can and can not do.
It’s worth noting using a medium to critique that medium isn’t necessarily hypocritical or self-defeating. Films making fun of films (e.g. Scream), or essays about the problems with essays, can make good points. I’m not claiming not to be full of shit, only that the fact I’m using a blog to critique blogs or whatever isn’t, on its own, much of a criticism.
Scott, if anyone reads just one thing about social media, let it be this.
Seriously, this could help a lot of people not be douchebags online, because frankly, the things that fall under the title “social media” can be very useful. If they’re used well, like you’re pointing out here, they can be a good thing.
Hi Brian: Great link – thx. Had not seen that before.
If he took out take the name calling (but left in the cursing) I’d be a happy man :)
I really enjoyed your point about PR people talking about PR (the social media folks).
That’s probably the first time I’ve read that somewhere and I’m glad to know I’m not alone. Thanks.
Scott, Sounds like we’re pretty much on the same page. I wrote that post about gaming Twitter with the hope of pulling the curtain back on the hucksters who are leading the stampede to “tens of thousands of overnight followers” as if that is an indication of actual influence.
Sure big numbers are an ego stroke. But real influence comes from engaging people over time. Popularity can be remarkably fickle. It tends to last in direct proportion to the length of time in which it is gained.
About all social media can do is amplify your message. If your product or service sucks you better stay far away from social media. If you don’t, whole lot of folks are going to know the great degree of suckiness you offer.
But for those who offer real value, social media can be an amazing thing.
Thanks Scott, your Bullshit series are very interesting and amazing!! I enjoyed them very much. Thanks once more.
Hi Chris: thanks for followup.
Your comments make me think there must be a law of popularity that the faster your popularity rises, the faster it can wane, as the people you are attract first, or in the largest numbers, are unlikely to stay interested or involved for long since they’re just as likely to pick up the next wave as they were to pick up yours.
Dear Sir,
It is refreshing to read a carefully considered critique, at a time when so many people follow in blind support, too petrified to consider debate, lateral thinking or quite simply another point of view.
Scott, you’re a voice crying out in the wilderness. I agree with your overall take, and am grateful for points #1-#3. There seems to be no historical perspective on “emerging media” (probably because of the bias you speak of). It’s all a brand new world. Journalists? Don’t need them. Professors? Outdated. Filmmakers? Anyone can do that because of the technology. I guess we were all born yesterday.
Thanks for your post.
It would be interesting to see some research on that theory. I do know people are remarkably fickle. Sometimes all it takes is the silliest slip up and popularity can evaporate in an instant.
Scott,
I read this post and I heard angels singing. Well, that’s a bit of hyperbole.
Just wanted to say thank you for giving voice to my thoughts. Bravo
Scott, this is a great post. I think it’s so easy to get wrapped up in the hype of Social…er…Interactive Media and not take it for what it is: another tool. In fact, I do give talks to smaller businesses advising them on how they can use interactive media to increase visibility to clients and build relationships in new ways. Recently, however, I’ve taken a step back and am looking at the way I present the data…I want to convey an understanding that they don’t need to jump on the bandwagon to be successful.
If you’re just starting out, there can be huge benefits to blogging, Facebook and Twitter because it can more quickly disseminate your knowledge to a larger group of people than you can physically do yourself…and those people are opting in to see your message, so you’re not necessarily using the phone for a hard sell, per se. Are you selling something? Sure, but that sale is a lot easier when you’ve established even a little trust by providing value without asking for anything in return.
Anyway, thanks for the great commentary, I really do appreciate it!
Thanks, I enjoyed this blog. You express well how I feel about the subject and of all things I got it as a forward through Twitter :D
I recently listened to an interview with T. David Gordon talking about Media Ecology. He said that “when we look at a culture
I second the motion of calling social media – Interactive media. While we are at it can we call web 2.0 as javascript with flair.
Seriously though coined buzzed words annoy me.
A great read. I think that sometimes we need to step back from being excited about the tech and think more honestly about how and why we use web 2.0, especially that it isn’t a new thing – just a new way to use an old thing.
This article is actually a good example of anti-social media :-) Ribbin’ ya.
Nice to read some ‘tude RE: social media rather than just gushing. GR8 points. I’d re-tweet this BUT I read the whole thing. :-) (BTW, this was the 1st link I followed from Twitter this AM. Contrary to the #5 trend above? Or maybe the exception that proves the rule: “Calling Bull Shit on Social Media” is a compelling headline & probably responsible alone for plenty of diggs, re-tweets, etc. by people swept up in the fun of distributing links. Per #5 above.)
I think perhaps you’re looking at it from too much of a broadcast marketing viewpoint. It allows for two-way direct communication with your actual audience in a way that is far more accessible to both parties than ever before–that lowered communication threshold is extremely valuable. It’s particularly valuable for groups that already had massive networks built, i.e. non-profits, lowering the ROI for interaction with these networks on a more frequent basis (and in a much more personal, authentic way). Not to mention the massive increase in the analytic possibilities of social media communication vs. traditional communication.
All that said, yes, there’s a bit of an over-swing on the pendulum from the PR/Marketing crowd in regards to just how much this all matters as compared to traditional techniques. As with all new tech, the true fit will be in addition to traditional techniques, not as a full replacement, not any time soon. I also agree that follower count or fan count is a poor measure of influence–that’s just more traditional, broadcast mindset that fails to address the real use and potential of social media–humanizing interaction.
Interactive Web-based Media is even more accurate… I think we are all probably tired of the promised results, hype, and self-proclaimed “SM experts” out there.
You have articulated clearly what I have not been able to explain. Social Media circle seems to be group of people each trying to become more popular than the rest of the group within the group! Thanks a lot!
Scott, I totally get the “hype” especially from late adopters who just fuel the noise.
Then I see stuff like this from Ignite Boston’s recent event. The audio and video are poor but the message is powerful and only 5 minutes (as you know).
http://cdn.oreilly.com/ignite/boston/09_MikeTroiano.mov
Oddly enough on the same night Jay Neely gave a talk
Hear hear!
As long as there are humans, there will be fads.
Besides, it’s all much more fun if you don’t take it so seriously.
Off to read your essay on detecting bullshit. I know some managers who could use a lesson in that.
Good piece. I was confused about “social media” when I heard the term when I signed up for Twitter. I like my friends on Twitter and FB, but I recoil at so-called Social Media experts and those seeking a huge following (I call that broadcasting). I am sick of FollowFriday, etc because I don’t want unsolicited followers. I like my small circle and the few new folks I meet periodically.
So – there are no experts. I just want to relate to people and hope they interact with me.
Insightful, love it!
Your post made me think a bit more about the concept of Social Media Ethos that I have been playing with (“Social Media Marketing…or Social Media Ethos?”
http://www.jussisolja.com/2009/07/01/social-media-marketing-or-social-media-ethos/)…in my post I apply it to brands but reading your thoughts I think it should apply to agencies, “experts” and really anyone who has a presence in social media…how can we truly (or can we?) have a presence that is neutral and not biased…? Is this comment just another form of self-promotion or am I really contributing to the discussion?
Interesting… ;)
Berkun My Take on point 2: Social media as it exists today is faster, wider, smarter and inescapable!
My Take on Point3: New media does not destroy the old. It converges. Social Media Platforms put the ball in our court.
You can also catch me on: Twitter – ZeenatK
we couldn’t agree more….
Great post. It really rings home to me about the whole, PR people preaching how important PR is.
The entire social media scene is full of too many people (about 95% in my opinion) who are little better than snake oil salesman who have their product wrapped up in the cloak of person-ability and “doing you a favor”.
For disclosure I consult on social media myself, but I am truly sick and tired of the sheer amount of people who proclaim it as the end all and be all and are out their preaching what amounts to bullshit just to make a quick buck.
If you’re not already, can I suggest you follow @amandachapel on twitter as they act as a vocal and needed counter balance to the flood of pr/social media/marketing crap.
Scott,
Your points in #7 is incredibly profound and I think can easily be adapted to other sectors. Also, the quality vs. quantity concept in #5 I whole-heartedly agree with, sadly it seems to be paying off, guy kawasaki for instance, but maybe that is just short term. Within a few months on twitter and it became painfully obvious that “authenticity” is more of a buzz word.
Great post!
Dustin
So you think “parental controls” is a stupid term, Mr. Berkun? How about “family safety settings”? Glad to see your still making sense after all these years! Re-tweeting you now…
It’s trendy to hate on social media. All the cool kids are doing it.
What you miss is that you really should hate people. It’s the same 20% who ruin most of the awesome experiences & inventions in life.
Hate the players, not the game.
Very nice post. I want to especially highlight point 8, ie. asking “what problem are you trying to solve?” As a consultant working in the collaboration/innovation/social enterprise space, I’m often asked about blogs/wikis/etc./etc/etc. as they pertain to customers or internal collaboration.
The first thing I ask is “why?” What business issue will be helped by having a blog? More often than not the client doesn’t have a well articulated answer to that question. Helping the client frame the problem can be as valuable as the proposed solution.
Very good read! Social media on the internet has its pros and cons but some people buy into it way too much. It makes me think about the decline of the newspaper in America. We need legit, accountable media in this country.
Great post. But I think the argument against the name “Social Media” was not convincing. Tradition media was unsocial. Alternate name could be “interactive media” like you mentioned, but then the word has picked up steam anyway.
Jack,
I have to agree that there is a lot of hype around “social media” but for good reason I recon.
I don’t think you “get it” at all.
Traditionally media and the web (web 1.0) wasn’t social at all – it was for consumption.
Web 2 on the other hand is social – society (people) can have mediated large scale participation.
The next hype of course is websquared – where the social (people participation) goes to yet another level.
No doubt you will be calling bullshit on this too
Thanks for calling BS…
SocMed – in my ‘biased’ opinion, is a wonderful tool for starting conversations that lead to profitable relationships.
IF you are genuine And have clearly defined goals.
To your point, the biggest problem outside the “Get a Trillion Twitter Followers” crowd is failure to understand why you should or should not use Social Media. SocMed is a tool, not an end unto itself.
Nice article, I enjoyed reading your well argued points.
someone posted the question recently “why aren’t CEOs on Twitter”. Answer: they are active [insert mission statement from company annual report], wether it is increasing shareholder wealth, making society ‘better’, the ‘good of the cause’, increasing personal wealth. The point it, there are doers and there are those that ‘talk’ about doing. From where I sit you are doing – keep it up. Those in the fishbowl need to hear that they are in the fishbowl.
While I agree that we should all “Be suspicious of technologies claimed to change the world.” we should also recognize when technology does just that.
Social Media – and I’m okay with the term as a way to differentiate two-way communication from one-way traditional media – has been revolutionary from the standpoint of reach.
Never before have so many been able to express so much with an audience so wide. Between blogs, Twitter and Facebook the planet has truly become smaller and social networks (yes, they’ve always existed) have broadened in scope.
As with all terms, social media is overused to the point of making me nauseous, but it’s all we have to describe the advent of global citizen interaction – which the cool part of SM.
Scott, what a great post. I find Social Media is used more often to “discuss Social Media” than it is to discuss actual findings, subjects etc. When I opened my first email account I used to write emails that read “hey, this is pretty cool, reply when you get this”. Social Media – although more advanced than my first email – shows signs of the same. Your post, the comments (like mine) that follow is much of the same.
Thanks for this. I won’t even tell you how many blogs I have time to read, but this is now (the) one. ;-)
A funny/nauseating story and a request:
First the story: When Wired magazine premiered, I called to request a media kit. The woman asked me for my “analog coordinates”.
Request: I don’t have time to spread an important opinion I think many would agree with and support – perhaps you too? “Old media” has a crucial place in “new” — recognizable journalistic credibility/credentials. Has the Freedom Forum, Columbia, NYU, or my own beloved Newhouse helped to come up with some kind of criteria for bonafide reporting in new media? A label? Some kind of immediately-recognizable certification that would help millions – especially my mother – be more discerning about what they read and repeat? Are thousands already talking about this, and I haven’t noticed?
Thanks!
I enjoyed reading this. It’s always good not to take ourselves too seriously.
When the volume of communication increases by orders of magnitude, it’s naturally going to be harder to find what you’re looking for, unless it has increased in proportion along with it. And even then, the volume is the real challenge, isn’t it?
If your implication is that our culture has changed because of these tools, then that seems to undermine one of the premises of your post — that they are just tools, and that this is not really a change in our culture.
But these tools have changed our culture already. Politics are even now operating on a different basis, just as politics changed when the printing press helped give voice to the governed. I just don’t see how these things are just the same as back when people could scratch on papyrus.
The change is control: Who controls the saying machines? Back when the pharaohs ruled, your average mucky muck didn’t have a voice beyond those who could hear him — when he felt safe enough to even speak. He could not write, and even if he could, he certainly could not afford scribes to copy his writing or messengers to distribute the copies. When the printing press came out, then those of less significant means could in theory distribute writings. This made education more accessible, which then leveraged more power out of those printing presses. The paradigm of political power started shifting at that point. Over time printing presses and distribution became very expensive and the large-scale media conglomerates came to dominate. The appearance of TV and radio did not change that significantly because they ended up dominated by the same players. It was the same paradigm.
The shift happening now is that there’s a new printing press. The social media tools like Twitter are part of the evolution of this new printing press — the Internet, where people can talk to each other from afar, and talk to many with affordable distribution.
Yes, there’s more noise. But the real change is that the voices empowered (and controlled to some extent) by the owners of the saying machines of the 20th century are now competing with people who were disadvantaged, disempowered by that paradigm.
So yes, this is a revolution of sorts. Our culture is changing from it. Our politics are changing from it. How and to what extent, we don’t know yet, because we’re still extremely early in the paradigm shift. Note that nobody can really say what the internet will be like 5 years from now. Lots of guesses, but no real easy prediction — not even of which companies will dominate the business side of it.
In the end, this post strikes me more as a rant against the marketers. In that point, I’d agree, and it’s annoying. But that does not mean there’s not something very new and revolutionary going on. After all, 20 years ago you would have had no means to post your thoughts here without the buy-in of someone who owned a saying machine. Few would have ever read it unless you got a big saying machine to publish it. And fewer still would ever have the opportunity to talk back like I am here. That’s revolutionary.
Scott, I admire your forthrightness in the views you express, the relatively high signal-to-noise ratio, and I think you are on the right track in several areas.
All media is social? I think that TV is one of the least social mediums that there is. And so I would have to disagree that there are not “anti-social” media.
If I have any problem with the term social media, it is with the “media” part of the terminology, rather than the social part.
Signal-to-noise ratio is paramount, in my view.
Value of the social media, however, is only as good as people’s use of it, and will always tend to sink to “the lowest common denominator” of the people using it.
And unfortunately, people are fickle, have always been fickle, and will always be fickle. How many times have you (or I) sent an email to the person sitting in the cubicle next to us? Yesterday, someone on Twitter reported IM’ing his wife who was sitting 10 feet away from him. How many times have some of us been guilty of using email for meaningless chit-chat, or opening, addressing, signing, and sending an email that said, ‘thanks’ or ‘whatcha doin?
I do not believe that this is necessarily a condemnation of social media.
Your point is well-made, and cannot expressed often enough – ask what problem is being solved.
That said, I am not sure what problem Twitter was designed to solve, and in fact I think it was a solution in search of a problem. I, ever the skeptic, experimented with Twitter expecting very little, and am surprised to report to you today that the best insights – the highest signal-to-noise ratio I am getting – is now from Twitter. Go figure.
http://www.slideshare.net/codelust/social-web-talk
From 2-years ago, but much in agreement.
Thanks for a refreshing perspective. As a self-appointed social media maven, your comments remind me that my audience often asks, ‘So what? and why should I care about social media? The answer is a work in progress.
Wouldn’t have read this great article if someone hadn’t tweeted it to me. Social media is useful and by its viral nature helps to accelerate or expand the delivery of online information – but it’s not the answer to all the problems many folks make it out to be. I may have to keep a copy of this around to re-read whenever the hype gets hard to wade through.
You might think I’d be one to disagree with you, but this is mostly spot on. I’ve spent 3.5 years trying to tell people that social media is a lot of the same in a new context.
Of course, this makes me terribly unpopular with the social media idealists. The social media “experts” also don’t like it when I and others who make a living online point out that they’ve never done what they advise their clients to do.
Thanks for for the post.
The emperor has no clothes
Hi Scott. First I like to thank you for posting this intresting post. Lot of good points and I do agree on many things you say. But after reading it, I thought what really made you in the first place write this post. I don
There will always be mass hyping of new ideas and technology. What I find amusing, is that the first users of these technologies and the innovators have usually moved on to the next thing by the time mass population catches on.
It drives me crazy how people will talk with an attitude of since they “Tweet”(God I hate that word), they are really tech savvy and in the “know”.
Great post! It actually became one of the most retweeted today, so popular does not always mean bad ;-)
Internet and its various tools will continue to evolve at a rapid pace. I agree that the hype around social media is a bit too much to digest. I think the fault lies with the mavens who create this. It is very good that thoughts like the ones you have are there to bring a semblance of sanity. I love the world of internet (just as I am sure you do) Hype makes the internet more like a fad than an important aspect of people’s life or for that matter the society’s. You might want to take a look at my last post which talks about this.
http://thefreeunion.blogspot.com/2009/06/why-does-it-have-to-be-either-this-or.html
Great piece, but you really should add some sort of social bookmarking buttons to your posts. My first impulse was to tweet this out, and alas, no buttons!
Testify!!
And I’d love to hear your opinions on “Web 2.0” :-)