The Digital Lookout

It is the social networking phenomenon which has taken 2007 by storm but I have started getting a little bored with Facebook of late.  Now that the thrill of connecting with old friends has passed and the days of logging in to a potful of notifications is behind me I’m struggling to get excited by it all.  All I seem to get these days or invitations to join the latest application doing the rounds and numerous postings of those annoying chain letter style messages (for the last time, nothing bad is going to happen if you don’t pass it on, no-one is going to delete your profile and you aren’t going to come into any money!).  There are a few friends who I contact through it which make the process of logging in worth while but aside from that its all a little dull for me now.  Maybe I am alone in this feeling? I know for a fact many of my close friends are still wildly addicted to it and if they go a day without logging on they start breaking into cold sweats and having panic attacks.  But I just don’t get that feeling of anticipation when logging in anymore.  Sure, I still use it, but more out of habit than enjoyment and also the fact I use the internet all day everyday at work so have access all the time.  I certainly wouldn’t be too worried if I had to go with access for a period of time though and can’t see Id miss it at all.  Maybe this is the start of the great Facebook decline, where the casual user drifts away and only the hardcore remain, leaving thousands of redundant accounts.  This is how I see Myspace’s current existence, I haven’t seen their take up figures recently but I would imagine they are in sharp decline, part due to the rise of Facebook but also because they are no longer the flavour of the month and only the hardcore survive.  Facebook is a long way from this status as they are still in the stage of sign up growth but they need to keep one eye on the future and think about how to avoid the decline, either that or get out while the going is good.  As they say, timing is everything, but I doubt they will ever be valued at more than the current $15 billion so it may be time to cash in.

Social media and networking is the new buzz word in online marketing and everyone wants a slice of the action.  It could be through blogging, customer discussion or other means businesses are sitting up and taking note of the power of the social internet community.  But does it work for everybody?

This is a question I asked myself in the face of a company who were very keen to enter this sector and asking for guidance.  The problem is that people take this buzz word, hear the hype around it and decide, “we need to be doing social”, without thinking about what that means to them as a company.  I imagine what they think it means relates to myspace, facebook and bebo, but how do you engage these audiences when you are selling something which doesn’t fit, pensions maybe, of life insurance.  That’s not to say that some of the audience would not be interested but the vast majority aren’t going to be. 

The first question a company should ask itself is, “does my product fit with social media? What am I going to achieve by getting involved?”  If the answer to the first question is no, then stop, look for other ways to achieve your goals.

This example relates directly to the common perception of what social media involves, i.e. social networking sites.  When looking at the broader scope of social it may be you can find a small element which will work for you, customer discussion boards, integrated blogging, community engagement, they are all forms of social media and all have a use.  Social media has a much broader reach than the websites people automatically quote when the phrase is uttered.  So look further afield, engage an social media expert and take their advice on board.  And at the end of the day, if social media isn’t for you, walk away.  Just because something is the flavour of the moment, doesn’t mean its going to taste sweet to everybody.