I am stunned!
Over at MyRagan there is a 20-something who writes that even she feels ‘overwhelmed’ sometimes by social media and struggles to keep up, which is why she attends conferences, seminars and workshops on the subject.
After her post–and yes, I agree with Sue Johnston that the headline of the article was exceedingly cheap and misleading; shame on you Mark et al–there is a plethora of fellow business communicators whining about how they can’t cope.
Give me a break!!!
The whole point is not whether you feel swamped or not, the whole point is that you can no longer afford to be uninvolved.
Drew Mendelson points to ongoing research by Universal McCann [pdf] that comes up with interesting stats and comments, some of which I repeat here:
- Social media is a global phenomenon happening in all markets regardless of wider economic, social and cultural development.
- If you are online you are using social media
- Asian markets are leading in terms of participation, creating more content than any other region
- All social media platforms have grown significantly
- Video Clips are the quickest growing platform, up from 31% penetration in Wave 1 to 83% in Wave 3
- 57% have joined a Social Network, making it the number one platform for creating and sharing content
- 55% of users have uploaded photos
- 22% of users have uploaded videos
- Blogs are a mainstream media world-wide and as a collective rival any traditional media
- 73% have read a blog
- The blogosphere is becoming increasingly participatory, now 184m bloggers world-wide
- China has the largest blogging community in the world with 42m bloggers, more than the US and Western Europe combined
As a business communicator you no longer have the luxury of burying your head in the sand and pretending that this will all go away. It won’t. And it will just get bigger and bigger and go faster and faster and if you don’t leap onboard now you will never catch up.
KPI your bottom, Mr BeanCounter
As I explained to a client in Brisbane yesterday, Social Media doesn’t replace any of the more traditional channels of communication, instead it adds significantly to your burden. You need to throw resource at it and you need to forget about any dumb-arsed KPIs and ROIs. It is a set of ‘relationship’ tools, not easily shoe-horned into neatly fitting your CFO’s ‘Cost-Benefit Analysis’ metrics.
Every businessperson worth their salt knows that taking clients out to lunch, or to golf, or the cricket, or whatever, is beneficial in the long term for the relationship betwixt company and client. No one stands with a clipboard and a calculator outside the CEO’s office when they return from a golfing day and grills them about the ROI of their golf.
As Alex Manchester once said to me, “how much is a good relationship with your customer worth to you?” THAT is your bloomin’ ROI, Mr BeanCounter.
Social Media Burnout
Yes, there is such a thing as Social Media burnout. My good friend Iwan Winoto at IBM pointed me to an interesting article from the New York Times. It seems that they are not alone in worrying about ‘blogger burnout’.
Yes, the demands of this never-off Internet are incredible. I feel under pressure to blog something intelligent every day (Mrs BetterComms would argue that I rarely have one intelligent thought a week) less I lose my audience and subscriber numbers. I know that employees of companies equally feel under pressure to perform, to meet ever-tougher KPIs.
Yes, there is a new ‘must see’ Social Media tool released every week (sometimes several a week).
Yes, it can be an incredible drain on your time evaluating them, let alone joining them.
But who says you have to do it all yourself? Doh!
Be uninvolved; be unemployed and unemployable
I’ve had very legitimate concerns expressed to me about the whole Social Media thing; not in terms of whether it will stay, but where does one find the time to get up to speed on it?
The answer is simple: how do you learn ANYTHING within a corporation? Answer: you go to a seminar, attend a workshop, invite a guest speaker in to your meeting, bring in a consultant to help you strategise and roll-out your strategy…
Is it expensive? Yes. Well, at least I am, but then again I’m also one of the very few experts in Australia who understands this stuff and is available to help you grow. Laurel Papworth is another. Trevor Cook is another. So is Gary Hayes. So too is Stephen Collins.
We don’t come cheap. After all, do you expect ‘bargain basement’ pricing from, say, PwC or McKinsey and at the same time expect the top level of intelligence and insight that they are able to bring to your company’s benefit? In business life you very much get what you pay for. But you already know that.
What you probably don’t wish to acknowledge to yourself is that if you don’t keep your own skills current you will be unemployable within five years.
Yes, unemployable. Second-rate. The business communication world is moving at such a pace that if you don’t have a few Social Media campaigns and successes under your belt you will be passed over for promotion/head-hunting/a new job by someone else who does.
Survival of the fittest.
Remember all that HR bumpf about ‘life long learning’? They were telling the truth.
Says Anna:
Just last Sept I attended some teaching workshops for working with students at the university level and social media issues were brought up several times. I was shocked when I was informed that I would most likely find it difficult to relate to new students as a recent graduate myself because the typical generation gap has now shrunk to about 4 years. The availability of cellphones, laptops, wireless internet, ipods, msn, facebook and basically social media in general is a major factor behind just how differently these students interact. Although I’m hardly older then these students, I am somehow now old.
Just don’t be one of the whingers (that’s Aussie-speak for ‘whiners’) over at the MyRagan site who are whimpering about it all. Either be part of the problem or be part of the solution; either skill up or get out of the way. Tough love.
Think that’s a bit harsh? As we say here in Australia,
“build a bridge and get over it.”
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