Buzz and Backlash in Social Media

The Web has been buzzing on the hype of Social Media for some time. Recently though, we’ve seen increased backlash over Social Media as well; from the fake Amanda Chapel “personality” to thought leader and provocateur Nick Carr who lamented in very ethereal terms on Web 2.0 and it’s failings (and he makes some good points.) Without a doubt capitalism has hit the Social Web hard and fast, and so the result was much hype indeed. Journalists for sometime have decried the loss of professionalism while others say most of the content in the Social Web is mediocre garbage – and certainly much of it may be so. The pundits hail the Social Web as the transformation of democracy and capitalism. So where lies reality? Somewhere in the middle we might say. Perhaps too, it is far too early to truly say.

But as Wired magazine points out, so much of this is a typical cycle. Some new level of the Web is born and the hype-machine goes into action. A little while later the naysayers jump in and there is the turn against  whatever that topic/product/service is. This cycle is seen across many industries where products are popular and “fashionable” and then we turn against them. Perhaps one of the few companies to avoid this typical cycle is Apple.

That there is backlash against Social Media is normal, and good, if not entirely accurate. But then neither is all the positive hype about Social Media accurate. Perhaps what is most interesting is that the majority of anti-Social Media sentiment uses the very tools that generated the hype in the first place. Without the Social Media services and applications such as blogs and microblogs, this antithetical writing could not exist. The personality of Amanda Chapel created by a few PR pro’s rose to “fame” in Social Media through Social Media by blogging and Twitter – with the sole objective of railing against the hype of Social Media.

I find some parallels with the Christian Reformation; which was enabled by the worlds first Social Media; the printing press. The ability to print books en mass enabled Lutheranism to take hold. But it was decades after the printing press was invented that such revolutions took place.

In todays 90-Second Economy, we tend to forget that major social change does not happen quickly. A revolution is not borne in 90-seconds. Social Media, the Social Web or Web 2.0, whatever you want to call it, is still very young. We are only just starting to see how it can impact society in political terms (to whit, Obama’s effective use of Social Media tools in the last election), in economic terms and more.

We are just beginning to learn a whole new way of expressing ourselves, a new level of communicating never before possible. Great mistakes have and will be made. The invention of the printing press lead to smutty, cheap novela’s in the 19th century, just as not all Social Media is clever, never has any mass communication been entirely brilliant in it’s uses. To place such high expectations on this new form of media at such an early stage is not practical and not well thought-out.

Regardless of Amanda Chapel “constructs” and Nick Carr’s view (even though both make some very valid arguments) Social Media continues to grow and evolve, and will do so even more in a hard economic time. In fact, such difficult economic times may cause even more rapid development and interesting uses of Social Media. That we have dissenters is also vitally important, for they can provide warning to possible mistakes and be a sober voice of reason at times. But do note they are using, much as the last scribe did, the very same medium to make their argument against that medium – and scribes went out of circulation.

(Author: G. Crouch, Managing Partner)

Social Media is a Meshy Place

It may be that what will technologically enable the next level of the Social Web is “Mesh Networks” as Social Networking evolves. This is mostly due to the fact that well designed Mesh Networks can be “self-healing” and can hop between established nodes while evolving quickly – as one “node” goes down, another can pick up the traffic. In other words, Mesh Networks can adapt as social media adapts and is used – in an ad hoc manner.

This all has to do with the baseline concept of “permission” or Approval/Disapproval. Prior to Social Media tools, groups had a very high transaction cost to enable connectivity, let alone finding people of similar ilk. Additionally, social groups faced the issue of societal approval – a small group of people may not be able to connect because the majority did not “approve” of that group; laws could be made or general discontent with a small group lead to social ostracizing. With the advent of social media services and the ability to “search”, these small groups could quickly connect (the transaction cost became zero) and they didn’t need “approval” from broader society. Using these tools, such as TXT messaging, enabled huge protests in Belarus and in the Ukraine (the “Orange Revolution”) that would not have been achievable before.

Although Social Media is about sociology, not technology, the technology is what “enables” the resulting activities and formations of groups. So Mesh Networks take all this to the next level – the technology is “organic” and draws its operating premise from “Chaos Theory.” Currently, due to the technology, there is still some “gatekeeping” that takes place – someone has to program the routers and network services and can therefore turn on or off the services delivered over what are currently fairly “fixed” networks.

Mesh Networks bring together all kinds of devices. As is seen in the UK where a number of transit buses are connected to a wireless system feeding to fixed terminals – you can instantly see where the bus is and when it will arrive. Now connect that to Smart Phones and you can spend more time shopping or having that coffee before dashing out to the bus stop. So now you can connect cars, fridges, stoves, houses, buses, ambulances, fire trucks and on and on to Mesh Networks.

Look at New Orleans post Katrina – the Mesh Network in place there was the only network still operating post-hurricane Katrina – and remained so for 12 months! The emergency groups coming into the area simply connected to that network in moments and thus coordination of services was enabled.

So Social Media applications such as Facebook, Ning, MySpace, Twitter – could all connect to Mesh Networks, making the devices superfluous. Suddenly the ability to connect randomly via Meetup or dodgeball goes to the next level, adding inherent value. Social Media is going to get a lot meshier in the future…what do you think?

(Author: Giles Crouch, Managing Partner)

Analysis Paralysis: Are We Over Analysing?

Analysis Paralysis – when you’ve got so much data that you stop making effective business decisions. It happens to the best of us. Perhaps more so now. Marketers and communicators engaging in Social Media are debating heatedly over what metrics are right, what exactly to measure and what to report and how…and so on. With digital media, analysis becomes a easier than ever before – and both marketers and PR professionals are in part to blame, since they hyped this ability to collect such data. Add in that more CEO’s are spending their time bogged down in financial management than building the business, we have a situation ripe for analysis paralysis. There are so many measurement tools for Social Media that it is easy to become overwhelmed – and make the wrong decision, so no decision is made.

Marketers and PR pro’s will dump mass amounts of data into clients laps saying “look, it worked”, and this data then ends up in front of the CFO to justify the budget spends, which in turn has the CFO and CEO discussing budget spends – with too much data to make a truly effective decision. The issue then becomes over-analysis, getting to the minutiae that may not support a good decision by both marketers/communicators and finance.

Metrics are important, analysis should be done, it can help shape better financial and marketing/PR decisions. A CFO will spend money if it is justified, but it’s all about the “right” amount of analysis. So when running campaign or event analysis, concentrate just on the factual data that matters. Set the end metric first, then a few milestones to measure on the way to that goal. Good marketing is a managed investment, and managed properly the return is “growth” however that is organizationally defined. We often advocate heads of marketing and finance working together to align the strategic goals, while the “implementers” or tactical folks in marketing/communications and finance iron out the details.

Today, many financial managers have much a broader understanding of business. Working together you can set expectations on what amounts of data you really need to measure successes and failure and avoid analysis paralysis.

Media Potholes, Blurring and Diffusion = value disruption

Value Disruption? That is, the disruption in how different types of media are valued. Pundits have been ringing the death bell of broadcast television for years, yet TV consumption has risen! Twitter was beaten up at first by bloggers et al, today it is the rage (perhaps the new email killer app?) The music industry is clinging to scratchy vinyl and the market doesn’t care. Radio is shifting and the jury is still out, yet Satellite and Internet Radio seems to be picking up the lost transistor waves.

Marketer Tom Hespos railed on about the waning of terrestrial radio and cited the writings of Adam Gerber of “media potholes” those dark spots where “advertising” doesn’t reach, or consumers who don’t listen to channels with any advertising messages.

The once crisp lines of media channels are blurring. Usage patterns are shifting and we are seeing a greater diffusion of how and where people consume media of all types. As video blurs across the Web between professional and consumer generated, the “value” of that media is disrupted. I suspect the major networks currently laying off employees due to “falling advertising revenues” is not entirely due to the “recession” we are/aren’t in. Rather, the marketing dollars are being spread around.

What we may come to find is that not all cuts being made now in various media channels are the actual result of an economic downturn nationally or globally – but of the disruption in value because of so many diverse channels and the growing shift in how, what and where consumers consume media.

The cost of delivering media en masse is lower than ever in human history, as is the cost of production. The cost of accessing the channels that deliver the media, and the pervasiveness of those channels has contributed to this.

I believe we may be seeing the start of the result of value disruption in the economic ecosystem of media, it just so happens to be tying in nicely with the “recession” if that is what we are in. What do you think?

Social Media As A Weapon

On the darker side of Social Media, it can effectively be used as a weapon to discredit a competitors product or service. It can be used to discredit a person/celebrity or to even shake up a stock. More importantly, it does not just affect big corporations. Today, Social Media can be used as a competitive weapon to hurt local or regional businesses.

We come into the area of Online Reputation Management here, but from the angle of competitive intent. What is often overlooked, is that sometimes an individual, business or stock is not under attack by a “random blogger” or group of legitimately frustrated consumers. Sometimes the attack is planned and highly coordinated; by a competitor or rival celebrity. It’s an aspect of Social Media that until now, has not been generally discussed. Through our experience however, we know it’s very real. We also predict it will become an element in corporate competitive strategy in the future.

So how come we haven’t heard about it much before? If you’re the company under attack, you may never know it was coordinated, or the way in which an outcome is settled is not one you want to announce publicly. Just dealing with the ensuing crisis is expensive enough in terms of brand reputation, PR costs and stress on internal resources and stakeholder communications. The ability to gather evidence of “where” the issue started or by “whom” can be challenging at best and is murky in legal terms.

Our case was with a petrochemical company (I can’t give any data other than the industry) who faced a sudden upswing in public complaints and was registering increased hostility from consumers and government. The story was close to hitting mainstream media. Instead, quick research was done and the story was countered effectively before it spread across more of the blogosphere or hit traditional media.

So in what way are these attacks occurring and why? A competitor can “plant” information with “apparent” evidence with a series of bloggers known to have the right following, or in bulletin boards used by retail traders, as an example. The story is usually “emotional” in nature, designed just so it will be shared and incite discussion. Then the consumer takes over, adding to and building on the story. The primary objective is to have the “issue” hit traditional media and accelerate it further.

So, why then, and who? Social activist groups are learning the power of targeting companies they feel are committing social wrongs – no surprise there. Competitors can discredit a product on launch to either stop or divert their competitors attention on the product, culling marketing and sales efforts. Damaging a brand via Social Media can result in setting a victim back many months and weakening their market position. There are a number of tools including “splogs” or “Spam Blogs” that can aid in driving a negative attack, seeding misleading messages through anonymous accounts, link spamming and more.

Such actions, if a person, organization or company is caught, can lead to serious litigation, defamation of character and slander suits. Is it happening? yes. What can you do? Certainly a monitoring tool helps, but there are certain indicators that can be analysed to give indicators an attack is not random. Proof can be challenging, but there are ways. Caught quickly, most attacks can be diverted, but monitoring remains an essential element.

(Author: G. Crouch, Managing Partner)