

Why you have to engage in social media, even if you don't want to - lrm242
http://blog.asmartbear.com/blog/why-you-have-to-engage-in-social-media-even-if-you-dont-want.html

======
jnorthrop
This post strikes the nail on the head for me. I have a Twitter account, but
never use it. I have no interest in FaceBook nor do I have a blog. I've never
found a compelling reason to be that public with my life.

On the other hand, I was building websites in the mid-90's and can remember
the "why do I need a website" questions, and I would always struggle with a
compelling answer. I guess I'm on the other side of the coin this time and I
never thought to draw the parallels between early websites and early social
media.

Got some thinking to do...

~~~
lucumo
Well, on the other hand... There was a short period where (some?) people were
massively enthusiastic about getting in Second Life. Companies were buying
virtual property to market their brand. That didn't last too long.

~~~
frossie
Yeah, the "They laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Newton, they laughed at
Bozo the Clown" effect. Just because people were slow to take to the web
doesn't mean that anything people are slow to take to will be the next web.

First, I didn't like the tone of the article. My kneejerk reaction was "Don't
tell me what I have to do". Secondly, I'd like to see some real analysis
behind the statements. For example I keep hearing about Zappos, and twitter
and what not, but I have been buying from Zappos for years because they have a
large selection, fair prices, good photos and _free fedex shipping both ways_.
I couldn't care less what they twitter about.

As to customer reviews, that is appropriate at the retail end. I am not going
to go to Sennheiser's web site and look for headphone reviews. I am going to
go to Amazon (did I mention how much I like free shipping both ways?) and read
the reviews there. So browbeating Sennheiser into a blog, customer reviews and
a twitter feed isn't going to make me more likely to buy their headphones.
Reviews on Amazon saying "most confortable headphones I have ever bought; no
sound leak; great audio quality; sturdier than the Other Brand" is what will
make me buy.

As for blogs, god help me from another boring ill-conceived company blog. Over
the course of a year, I consume products from hundreds of manufacturers and
brands. You think I am going to add them all on my RSS feed? The blogs I read
are by real human beings on deeply human topics. Not about which pair of shoes
has sexy heels.

The reality is that in most cases, a consumer has a very brief relationship
with a manufacturer eg, "My headphones broke. I need new headphones. I will
research headphones. I will buy headphones. Done with headphones". A social
network is based on building long term relationships. I do not want a long-
term relationship with an entity I am only going to deal with once every three
years.

Things like Nike are exceptions because it is a kind of brand that has fans,
just like a sports team. It then becomes a special interest group, not just a
commercial communication.

The comparison to Second Life is very apt, I find.

------
kragen
It has been ten years since <http://www.cluetrain.com/#manifesto> said,
"Markets are conversations." To me, it sounded like a kind of goofy metaphor,
or maybe wishful thinking; from my point of view at the time, markets, in the
form of spam, were crowding into the places I had been having conversations
for a long time, and actually making the conversations pretty difficult. At
best, it sounded like a prediction of a happy future.

What this article says is that we are now in that future. Markets _are_
conversations, and companies that aren't participating in the conversations
are getting left out of the markets.

The Cluetrain Manifesto no longer reads like a series of utopian techno-
determinist predictions. It reads like a matter-of-fact description of how
Amazon does business, how Fog Creek does business, how Zappos and Twitter and
Flickr and Facebook do business, and why they are kicking the asses of their
competitors.

There are some very big companies that it still doesn't describe, though. It's
been ten years since the Cluetrain Manifesto's 95 theses were nailed up on the
door of the internet, and AT&T and Google and Microsoft and Comcast still
haven't taken delivery from the clue train. Do they need to? Or can they keep
doing business the same way as before?

------
teej
> you have to jump into the world of blogging and Twitter and Facebook.

The entire article hinges around this point. Your business -MUST- use
Facebook/Twitter/"Social Media". The article then goes on to point a dozen
examples of companies that were successful with _nothing related to social
media_.

The day you see "Company X increased their sales by their Social Media
presence" is the day Facebook & Twitter become profitable.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
You clearly didn't read this post very carefully. Every example he cited was
one where "Company X increased their sales through social media". Now, we can
debate whether or not the increase was actually due to social media, which is
a valid question, as social media ROI is still hard to measure. But it's
pretty clear to me that the author's point was well-supported by thoughtful
examples of companies who had strong reason to believe that was the case.

I'll throw it another one that he didn't mention: Dell, who has said they've
done millions in business through their Twitter efforts.

~~~
teej
Rubbermaid increased sales through customer reviews on their website.

Fog Creek establishes authority by having a well-received programming/business
blog.

Nike has an online custom shoe store.

Zappos is big. Zappos is fanatical about customer service. Zappos uses Twitter
as one small channel of their customer service initiative.

Marketing.FM has a blog.

If the article was about how blogs and customer service are good for business,
it would have hit the mark. But I'm missing where Facebook, Digg, Reddit,
StumbleUpon, and Delicious fit in to those examples.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
He's including blogging as part of social media, which I think is accurate.
Blogging seems to work best when it's used with Twitter as a conversation
medium, rather than just a place to post stuff without listening to what
people have to say.

Zappos is big now, but they weren't always big, and I don't have any reason to
not believe their CEO when he says that Twitter has been a big part of their
success.

The Nike example was weak, I agree. But the Rubbermaid thing is a good example
of using social media...just because they hosted those reviews on their site
doesn't mean that it's not social media.

Here's another example that he missed: Yelp. In areas where Yelp membership is
high, it has a big influence on local businesses.

I agree that some of the sites you listed probably don't have a big impact on
the bottom line, but to write off social media entirely because some of the
social media sites are time-wasters with no ROI is a mistake.

------
edw519
"You have to jump in even if you don't yet understand it."

I'm a fellow hacker on the leading edge of a lot of things who understands the
importance of new developments, but even I have to call bullsh*t on such a
ridiculous statement.

The problem is that OP is looking only at one demographic.

I have customers all over the U.S. transacting millions of dollars every day
buying and selling almost anything you can imagine. And how do they
communicate? Cell phone, land line, email, fax, EDI, and, oh yeah, they
actually talk to each other. (Sometimes I think more deals are made at
Starbucks and Einstein's before 8:00 a.m. than everywhere else all day long.)

No question we should always keep our eyes open to new possibilities. Everyone
has a website and a cell phone. Lots of sales people get leads from LinkedIn.
But facebook? Twitter? For fun, perhaps. For niche industries, sure. For the
majority of business transactions? Hardly.

Will it be this way in 5 or 10 years? Who knows. Nothing would surprise me.

So if OP wants to say, "These new developments provide promise for the future
of communication. You may want to learn about them and decide how to use
them."

But to say "you have to" is stupid and irresponsible. Enough time is already
wasted "friending" and "tweeting". The rest of us have work to do.

~~~
smartbear
I accept your argument that "you HAVE to" is too strong and for many
businesses is actually false!

Of course it's a literary device, not meant to be a mathematical statement.
I'm not sure "stupid and irresponsible" is quite right either?

But thanks for the response -- you're right that when reading stuff like this
you always need to filter it through your own lens.

