Comments on: Why you can’t “do” social media

By: Janet

Janet — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:42:15 +0000

I think this is what the Dominos commercial is doing, tackling the buzz head on and letting the consumer know the negative feedback has been heard and they have changed their strategy to reflect that.

It’s like their own YoTube video, but they payed a few hundred thousand more dollars for it, someone should tell them about YouTube…

By: Geoff Jones

Geoff Jones — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:25:18 +0000

@Bobbie: I truly believe that early adopter talk is rubbish, quality cuts through clutter with ease. It is rather easy to stand atop that pedestal and proclaim that no one will reach their ‘guru’ stature, because they took a lot of time and hard work to cultivate their influence and followers.

Alternatively though, anyone can amass thousands of followers in the attempt to shout at their followers to join them on the Trump network etc, but all that is doing is bastardizing a worthwhile communications tool.

You are obviously getting something of value from using Twitter so don’t let the tall talk and egoism of arrival at “social media expert” get to you.

Also, isn’t it best to always show up fashionably late to parties?

By: Andrea Parent

Andrea Parent — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:43:28 +0000

Very interesting ideas, and thanks for posting. Like the blog a lot, will check back!

By: Bobbie Stacey

Bobbie Stacey — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:04:20 +0000

I’ve been struggling recently over a webinar discussion led by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. They seemed to both imply that early adopters of Twitter will profit and that when “everyone is doing it” the newest adopters will be too late to the party. It reminded me of network marketing (ala Amway) and that idea really saddens me. I have avoided the auto-follow options to build a follow base. I want to have real conversations and build real relationships through this media. But I have wondered if that makes me a fool who is wasting time while she could be first “building clout.”

My initial attraction to Twitter began after reading a NYT article about an itinerant food cart owner who had 5000 followers all waiting to learn his featured flavors and on which corner he would be located for that day. To me this was beautiful. It used Twitter as a convenient, instantaneous communication tool capable of delivering the message literally into the hands of potential customers.

If I ever sense that all the real value and profit in social media will funnel to those with the largest number of followers then I will tune out, turn off and unfriend as fast as I run away from every other traditional network marketing “opportunity.”

But I don’t believe that is the real value. The real value of Twitter to me is in how fast I can learn of the availability of something of interest to me specifically. If you don’t have something I want to hear about, then don’t bother me with a Tweet. On the other hand, if you’ve taken the time to get a sense of my wants and you have something that meets those…well, in that case you’re practicing the ancient slow art of customer service, but with unnecessary service delivery delays eliminated. I don’t believe that customer service could much improve upon such a formula.