Comments on: How to Take Social Media into the Mainstream

By: Small Business Not Ready For Primetime - Yet | danny brown

Small Business Not Ready For Primetime - Yet | danny brown — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 15:39:47 +0000

[...] how do we move from early adopter frenzy to a small business-friendly, strategic adoption rate of social [...]

By: Danny

Danny — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 17:54:04 +0000

Ha, yes indeed Joshua – that probably WOULD be the best starting point!

By: Joshua

Joshua — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 17:49:40 +0000

First, you gotta get people to stop clicking on those damn pop-ups that say “you’ve been infected by spyware!”

By: The Lovable Rogue

The Lovable Rogue — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:29:47 +0000

Agreed, Danny. Too much choice confuses people... At this rate, we may find that it gets to the stage where our customers each have their own social network. Now that would be interesting! The Lovable Rogue´s last blog post..Who 'Owns' the Social Media?

By: Danny

Danny — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:14:22 +0000

@ The Lovable Rogue. While I agree that some level of choice is good, Chris, I’m still not 100% convinced that the sheer amount of choice on offer is helping. Sometimes there can be just a little too much, although with social media as “new” as it is, who knows? I agree that the grasping of tangible ROI could mean a shift in how social media is used, though, and it’s something I intend to look at in a future post.

@ George. Good to have you back here, haven’t seen you in a while!

Yes, this is definitely another problem (and one that’s becoming increasingly frustrating!). A lot of this can be blamed on the “new experts” who are trying to be the next Chris Brogan or Jeff Pulver and are getting too embroiled in what they think social media is, as opposed to what it actually is. We can but hope that someone defines the medium. Going back to one of your earlier posts at The Gray Hat Zone, it’s probably going to need someone like a Google to step in and establish a common ground. Until then, I guess it’s the catch-all approach.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your views, guys, always appreciated.

By: George Cozma

George Cozma — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:28:23 +0000

The biggest stumbling block for people trying to understand social media is its everchanging meaning. The term has become so all-encompassing that it is close to useless. Plus, there is a fair amount of hype floating around. New technologies and new ideas usually bring in a new vocabulary. In the field of social media this has yet to happen, but when it does it will make things a tad easier to understand. Regards, George George Cozma´s last blog post..The Curse of Offlinity

By: The Lovable Rogue

The Lovable Rogue — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:04:30 +0000

Danny, This is a tough one... As you mention there are more and more social media applications popping up on a near daily basis, yet the number of people that adequately understand the marketing potential for these platforms remains constant. Whilst I think that the level of choice is reasonably good from a customer's perspective as the likelihood of finding something that appropriately meets their needs is increased, for a marketer this can be a statistical nightmare. From a marketing perspective, I think that the solution is to ensure that a greater number of marketers recognise the value of the solution media. I myself have attempted to highlight the benefits of such platforms as Twitter to marketing collagues in the recent past with very limited success. Unfortunately, I think that what it comes down to at the end of the day is ROI. As soon as some clever sort comes up with a means of attaching a real, measurable ROI to the social media it will explode. Whilst I think that this is a shame, and that it may signal the end of 'caring' social media, this is how I see things turning out. It's just nice to be involved herein whilst the social media is still concerned with being social. TLR The Lovable Rogue´s last blog post..Who 'Owns' the Social Media?