Social Media Isn't Dead, But It Can Be Deadly

I love social media. And I love try­ing and test­ing new stuff. If there’s some new social media tool, web­site, or com­mu­nity, I’ll be one of the first ones to try it out.

But there is a limit. And I think we need to be care­ful. Because social media is like a drug. It can become dan­ger­ously addic­tive. It can even kill your business.

Social media seems to be the cur­rent fad. Everybody’s in on it like it’s one big cock­tail party you just don’t want to leave.

But the way social media is cur­rently being touted, hyped up, and used (or should I say, abused), is rem­i­nis­cent of some­thing that hap­pened way back in the 90s.

(I’ll come back to this in a moment.)

Yes­ter­day, I watched a bril­liant video by Loren Feld­man. Feld­man has a tell-​​it-​​like-​​it-​​is style. While he may be blunt and use strong lan­guage to voice his opin­ion, he is never afraid to voice it. Regard­less of what I think of his style, his video res­onated with me.

In it, he drove home an impor­tant point. I believe what he talked about is not only right, but also some­thing we need to real­ize and become wise about before we need­lessly kill our busi­nesses. And that’s ignor­ing the most impor­tant place on the web…

… Our own websites.

The premise is sim­ple: social media may be cool and fun, and it may even be pro­duc­tive for some peo­ple. But don’t for­get to take care of the one place — the only place — that really mat­ters. And that’s your own web­site. Your blog. Your domain.

Lately, I’ve seen a lot of blog­gers talk about the “death of blogging.”

Recently, A-​​list blog­ger Steve Rubel has moved away from blog­ging and con­verted his blog into a “lifestream” using social media plat­form Pos­ter­ous. Some have indi­cated this is a sign that blog­ging is on its way out, while oth­ers like Brian Clark opposed the notion.

This isn’t any­thing new. When Twit­ter first began, Robert Scoble wrote a piece on the “Twit­ter threat” a few years back, as did Mash­able and a slew of others.

First of all, blog­ging is cer­tainly not dead. Or dying.

Remem­ber that blog­ging is no dif­fer­ent than a typ­i­cal web­site. It’s sim­ply a con­tent man­age­ment sys­tem (CMS). It’s just another con­tent deliv­ery platform.

Say­ing that blog­ging is dying is like say­ing that web­sites are dying. And since web­sites are an intrin­sic part of the web, it’s like say­ing that the web itself is dying, which we all know that’s far from being the case. Evolv­ing? Sure. But not dying.

My thoughts are, social media is attract­ing casual blog­gers and, by the same token, mak­ing the blo­gos­phere leaner and meaner. In my esti­ma­tion, the qual­ity of blog­ging has sub­stan­tially increased since the intro­duc­tion of micro-​​blogging platforms.

I sub­mit that it’s because Twit­ter has forced hobby-​​bloggers and dab­blers to migrate to Twit­ter. (Ditto with Face­book “walls,” Friend­Feed, Pos­ter­ous, and the like.)

Casual blog­gers much pre­fer micro-​​blogging plat­forms because it’s less work. It’s an out­let for post­ing their mean­der­ing thoughts and sense­less streams of con­scious­ness, which is what they used to use their blogs for in the first place.

Those who have con­verted from blog­ging to micro-​​blogging are less inclined to blog reg­u­larly, with a pur­pose in mind, or for busi­ness. Social media is what it is: social. It’s a place to social­ize, not one in which to do busi­ness — at least, not directly.

And it shouldn’t be.

I also sub­mit that, if they wasted time blog­ging, micro-​​blogging will be no dif­fer­ent and prob­a­bly even more dis­tract­ing, any­way. Which is prob­a­bly what they really want.

So it will cer­tainly attract those who blogged casu­ally, for no other pur­pose than to waste time, make friends, or post gos­sip. It may have attracted those who used blog­ging sim­ply as a means of pub­li­ciz­ing their blather or being more visible.

(Feld­man, in his video men­tioned ear­lier, made a great point when he said social media thrive on people’s fears. The fear of being alone and not being heard. But I digress.)

Invari­ably, this exo­dus has opened up the floor to bet­ter blog­gers and bet­ter blogs.

Aside from the fact that Twit­ter may have extracted casual, dab­bling blog­gers from the main­stream, there are other, pos­si­bly more impor­tant and prac­ti­cal rea­sons for this.

Maybe it’s because blog­gers test more on Twit­ter before they put their con­tent to a blog. Maybe they get real-​​time feed­back on the qual­ity of their con­tent before they pub­lish it. Or maybe Twit­ter has given blog­gers the oppor­tu­nity to post their less impor­tant stuff there, leav­ing their blogs for bet­ter, more pur­pose­ful communications.

Who knows?

But what I do know is that I’ve seen a jump in the qual­ity of blogs and blog con­tent in recent times. What­ever is left seems to have become stronger, tighter, bet­ter writ­ten, more com­pelling, and cer­tainly more inter­est­ing than before. In my esti­ma­tion, anyway.

How­ever, as the Rud­yard Kipling say­ing goes, “Never the twain shall meet.” By that I mean, blog­ging is def­i­nitely a part of the social media space. But I don’t think social media should be a part of — let alone replace — blogging.

I agree that social media is frag­ment­ing. We saw this with the explo­sion in TV chan­nels. But it’s becom­ing way too frag­mented, espe­cially in an age of convergence.

Frag­men­ta­tion is nor­mal. But just because media is becom­ing more frag­mented doesn’t mean we need to frag­ment our mar­ket­ing efforts — much less our con­tent, too.

And to those who think they need to be on every social media “chan­nel” in an effort to be in front of as many eye­balls as pos­si­ble, think again.

For exam­ple, do you sell golf balls? Com­mon wis­dom dic­tates that you should adver­tise on the Golf­ing Chan­nel. But just because TV is frag­mented with over 500+ chan­nels on every topic imag­in­able, it doesn’t mean you need to be on all of them.

Ditto with social media.

If you dis­trib­ute your con­tent, you still own your con­tent. If it’s syn­di­cated, it still comes from your own domain or blog. Or at least you should have con­trol over it. And the rea­son is, you should have a way to own and/​or con­trol your traf­fic, as well.

But frag­men­ta­tion doesn’t mean syndication.

It seems like the social space is becom­ing just one big mesh of var­i­ous time-​​wasting social hang­outs. Too many, in fact. Some do pro­vide value. But I think we’re going to start see­ing some of these fall by the way­side and weed them­selves out.

And when they do, what will hap­pen to your con­tent, let alone the peo­ple who were (for the lack of a bet­ter word) “trained” to expect and con­sume your con­tent on these sites?

The one I fear will suf­fer such a predica­ment is Twitter.

Sure, Twit­ter is extremely pop­u­lar right now. But if Twit­ter doesn’t mon­e­tize itself soon, we will see it die, replaced, or over­run by another, newer social medium that has found a way to mon­e­tize itself. And believe me, it will hap­pen if they don’t do some­thing about it.

I’m not the only one who thinks that way. Here’s an inter­est­ing take on the topic by my friend and top Inter­net mar­keter Armand Morin. The issue, accord­ing to him, is that Twit­ter is not a des­ti­na­tion. It’s a con­duit — one that oth­ers can eas­ily bypass.

In other words, you can use Twit­ter with­out using Twit​ter​.com (I use Tweet­Deck, for instance). The prob­lem, there­fore, is that Twit­ter doesn’t own or con­trol its traf­fic. The one asset they do have and may pos­si­bly mon­e­tize is the con­tent they host.

Yes, that’s your content!

Sim­i­larly, with tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials, you don’t run your busi­ness on TV. You reach peo­ple through TV. In the same way, you may run an online busi­ness but you still own your busi­ness — includ­ing your con­tent, your traf­fic, and par­tic­u­larly, your brand.

If you adver­tise on TV, the TV sta­tion doesn’t own your prod­ucts. If you buy some air­time to broad­cast your show, they cer­tainly can’t take it and do what they want with it. But social media web­sites have that capac­ity to some degree.

Don’t think I’m exag­ger­at­ing. Remem­ber the recent Face­book fine-​​print fiasco?

So in real­ity, social media is not really media like TV, radio, or even the Inter­net. They are more like chan­nels on them. Even then, these sta­tions don’t own your con­tent, much less dic­tate how you dis­trib­ute your con­tent — and how oth­ers should con­sume it.

But social media can. And some do.

Admit­tedly, I like post­ing small bits of con­tent on Twit­ter and Face­book. It’s no dif­fer­ent than going to a social func­tion. And I’ve tried Friend­Feed, Ping​.fm, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Pos­ter­ous. (And many oth­ers, too.) But it all scares me somewhat.

Sure, post­ing a tid­bit in one place and hav­ing it posted to mul­ti­ple places at the same time is a great to spread your social author­ity, your brand, and your vis­i­bil­ity. But at the same time, it has the power to dilute, dimin­ish, and devalue them, too.

Admit­tedly, I’m guilty of this. I’m start­ing to see social creep in my own com­mu­ni­ca­tions, which is why I need to stop, cut the excess fat, stream­line my con­tent, and focus.

I hate hav­ing too many places to post. I hate hav­ing “too many hands” on my content.

The prob­lem with doing it this way is, it’s risky. If they ever die or get acquired, you’re screwed. Plus, it not only dilutes your value and your con­tent, but also, to bor­row an anal­ogy, you run the risk of “catch­ing some­thing” along the way.

What I mean is, some of these sites may have terms that can poten­tially threaten the own­er­ship, con­trol, and integrity of your mate­r­ial. By using them you inad­ver­tently may have given them the right to use, dis­trib­ute, and mod­ify your con­tent as they see fit.

More impor­tantly, it is a dis­ser­vice to your audience.

Why? Because, for one, by try­ing to be on too many social web­sites, you are edu­cat­ing your mar­ket to con­sume your con­tent in only these loca­tions, par­tic­u­larly among all the white noise and clut­ter. Thus, you risk them miss­ing out on your valu­able content.

Sec­ond, you’re spread­ing your­self thin. If any of these web­sites die, change, move, or raise the bar­rier of entry along the way (such as by charg­ing users a fee or inun­dat­ing them with ads), who do you think they are going to be frus­trated with?

These social sites? Try again.

So the key is focus, focus, focus.

Focus on your brand. Your con­tent. Your traf­fic. Your audience.

Now, I admit Face­book is cool because I use it to con­nect with fam­ily and real friends (i.e., high school friends, long-​​distance cousins, old work­place col­leagues, etc). And Twit­ter is fun. I love post­ing inter­est­ing links, web­sites I’ve seen, tips I encounter, etc.

But if con­tent is king, then my blog is the castle!

Be the mas­ter of your own domain (yes, pun intended). For if you offer truly valu­able con­tent, peo­ple will find you. And the peo­ple who do find you are the peo­ple who count.

Now, ear­lier I said I’m start­ing to see some­thing rem­i­nis­cent of the 90s.

Here’s what I meant…

Social junkies are no dif­fer­ent than affil­i­ate junkies. You know what I’m talk­ing about, right? Those garish-​​looking web­sites plas­tered with blink­ing affil­i­ate ban­ner ads in the hope that some­one will click on them, buy, and make them money.

They are junkies in the truest sense of the word. Like an unquench­able drug addic­tion, they keep plas­ter­ing junk ads on their web­sites in an effort to max­i­mize clicks and sales. But how is that any dif­fer­ent than free-​​for-​​all link­farms? I’ve said this before…

Give peo­ple too many choices and they won’t make one.

In Inter­net mar­ket­ing, they say it’s bet­ter to cre­ate, own, or sell your own prod­ucts. You get higher profit mar­gins, you have greater con­trol over your mar­ket­ing fun­nel, and you own your lists for opti­mal back­end mar­ket­ing. It’s the same with social media.

I’m not say­ing that affil­i­ate mar­ket­ing is wrong. Au con­traire. There’s lots of money to be made in affil­i­ate mar­ket­ing, and I rec­om­mend it myself, par­tic­u­larly if you’re just start­ing out. Same thing with social media, too. I don’t think it’s wrong.

But being an affil­i­ate junkie is highly inef­fec­tive. And so is being a social media junkie.

Instead, focus on your own domain or blog. If you must, stick with one or two social sites. But be the mas­ter of your own domain, your niche, your con­tent, and your audience.

And don’t become a social jack-​​of-​​all-​​trades.

Don’t join every sin­gle social net­work­ing site out there, post­ing on as many of them as you can, and plas­ter­ing your blog with badges and ban­ners and wid­gets and gadgets.

Speak­ing of which, have you not noticed how some blogs are becom­ing more and more mind-​​numbingly cramped and clut­tered these days? Like Face­book badge this, Google con­nect that, MyBlogLog com­mu­nity this, follow-​​me-​​on-​​Twitter that. Oh, my!

Too much is too much. It just makes these overzeal­ous web­sites look like one big blur of white noise all com­pet­ing for your atten­tion (and get­ting none of it), which is no dif­fer­ent than those blink­ing, dizzy­ing, seizure-​​inducing affil­i­ate junkie sites.

Bot­tom line, take con­trol of your content.

By frag­ment­ing your­self instead of focus­ing on your own blog, you run the risk of los­ing con­trol over your con­tent, your traf­fic, and above all, your audience.

Think of it as the dif­fer­ence between rent­ing and own­ing. Going to par­ties rather than host­ing one of your own. Extract­ing quan­tity ver­sus attract­ing quality.

Finally, let me end this by going back to the cock­tail party anal­ogy for a moment.

Social media is like a plethora of cock­tail par­ties. It’s OK to go to some of them and hang out. But you can’t be at all of them at the same time, let alone stand out at each one.

Say you’re look­ing to find real friends and make real con­nec­tions. If so, bar hop­ping won’t get you any friends. Or lucky, if that’s your wish. No, it will only get you drunk.

Look at it this way. Cock­tail par­ties are great for net­work­ing, gos­sip­ing, and social­iz­ing. But noth­ing beats a party I host in my own house. And that’s my blog.

Be a host of the party instead of some face­less par­ty­goer who’s voice is drown­ing among the white noise that peo­ple won’t ever notice much less remember.

Let oth­ers syn­di­cate your con­tent for you, link back to you, talk about you on social sites, rec­om­mend you, and drive traf­fic to you. Let oth­ers do the talk­ing, in other words. Pro­vide qual­ity con­tent and value, and serve oth­ers well. And oth­ers will talk about you.

In short, don’t be the life of the party. Be the talk of the party.

About the Author

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