Did you ever notice that the kind of people who talk about “the power of social media” are unemployed, lonely, and generally unlikable? That’s not a coincidence!
If you’ve read Social Media Is BS, which you absolutely should if you haven’t, you know that I draw a connection between the start of The Great Recession and the rise of many social media marketing myths.
Think about it. What’s the key theme behind the many myths of social media marketing?
1. It doesn’t cost you much (if anything) to use.
2. It gives you a ‘equal voice’ to that of the traditional media.
3. The different platforms all have the potential to lead you to riches.
Sounds a lot like a get-rich-quick-scheme, doesn’t it? In fact, if you were to take the term “social media” out of it, and explain to someone the benefits of using an Internet platform with these three points, the odds are they’re going to look at you funny. But if you add in “social media” you get an entirely different reaction.
Thanks, Obama.
Just kidding. It’s not his fault. It’s the media’s fault.
When the economy collapsed, and with its minimal recovery now, the myths of social media marketing were peddled by the media like it was gold during the gold rush. There are a lot of reasons for that (again, all explained in the book), but the key is that like the Klondike Gold Rush, the people who got rich off this foolish belief in “the power of social media” weren’t the people who believed that nonsense, but the people selling that nonsense to them. (See: Social media marketers Amy Jo Martin, Mari Smith, Gary Vaynerchuk, Dave Kerpen, Danny Brown, Chris Brogan, the list goes on forever.)
So you have to be careful when you hear this BS about “the power of social media”, especially when it’s being said about the use of it by … yup, a member of the traditional media. Let’s say, an NPR host for example. In fact, you’re usually not more than two or three hops away from someone talking about “the power of social media” and the point of origination for their BS being a member of the media.
Unfortunately, we live in a society where the loudest idiot wins, and the media is so obsessed with itself and what members of it do that if they’re doing it, they can’t possibly conceive of how you’re not doing it. I like to call this Ann Friedman Syndrome, and a lot of members of the media suffer from it when it comes to social media.
So between the members of the media suffering from Ann Friedman Syndrome and the loud group of unemployed, lonely, and unlikable people making all sorts of proclamations about “the power of social media”, we’re sort of drowning in their BS.
The good news is that these people are wrong. Time has proven this. The bad news is that we’re stuck listening to them because, like members of a religious cult, they can’t process a reality in which their savior doesn’t actually exist.
Just know that you’re not alone in questioning “the power of social media”. Although good things can come from these platforms, and they can be useful given certain factors and data, they don’t offer anywhere near the things the people talking about “the power of social media” thinks it does.
Social Media Is BS 