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)