Five Lies Im Tired Of Hearing About In Social Media

The column lists five of the most common complaints about social media, without actually digging into them at all. And while Mikal applies the “absolutes” argument as cover, no one I’ve ever read or heard has ever made the claim that these “lies” are absolutes.

I’ll give him kudos for writing a numbered list that plays well on Twitter, but his post deserves a response. His five lies, with my responses below.

1) Size matters.

From the number of connections on linkedin (allowing you to see more full profiles) to comparing conversions against email and PPC, Size can absolutely matter in social media. It matters as least as much as other channels, like television or email lists or calling lists. This is one of those feel good statements with no analysis behind it. It will be the best if you Get Real TikTok Likes Followers. The experience of the business people is pleasant to get the desired results. The watching of the videos at the television and channels is effective to have the right results. 

2) The medium is the message

Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Ning, Forums, email lists and television have different community expectations. You can’t be successful if you don’t know those expectations and work with your community. And it’s another general comment with nothing on it. Here’s an example of how it’s wrong. Customers looking to get answers now look for Twitter and Facebook for company responses. Prospects will often surf to a home page and click on links to social sites. In both cases, the message is the medium. They want to talk to you on those mediums. The message is not important.

And btw – young people weren’t the first to use Twitter. They also weren’t the first in blogs, which really kick-started this whole thing 10 years ago.

3.) Social Media Gurus Do Exist.

This is one of those really bad statements that is never backed up. Name a fraud in social media. No one wants to, so they go vague. Better yet, name a guru in any field, outside social media, and we’ll show you how they’re not, really. There is plenty of experience in using social media successfully. Social media has no more problem with experts than SEO, marketing, PR, TV, politics, science (yeah, you heard me), or child raising.

4) Social Media is “new media”

Social media started out being called new media because we differentiated blogs and social networking sites from “digital,” which itself was differentiated from “Creative.” Aside from that, there’s the truth that social media represented many-to-many communication, as opposed to one-to-many communication. It was new because it enabled an audience to talk back, and to each other.

5) Social Media can be effectively outsourced to a PR firm.

On what basis is this considered a lie? Successful PR firms don’t brag about their work when they have confidentiality agreements, but it happens all the time. What is needed is full client access, but outsourcing works fine in many cases. It works better than internal work if you’re being brutally honest. It doesn’t work for everyone, but this is another example of a general statement that is nonsense, unsupported by fact, and generally harmful. Mikal knows this, which is wh he backtracks in the comments, but if you have to clarify yourself, it’s because your column was poorly written.