The problem with social media for most people

Ok. So, social media. It’s the darling of the internet, it’s going to eat Google’s lunch. Real time search is the bomb. Engagement. Blah blah blah. You know, I buy into social media. You can find me participating on Facebook, FriendFeed and Twitter as well as whatever random other networks I’ve tried and not found particularly useful to me.

Here’s the thing, though. Typically, when I read about how Twitter is more useful than Google or Friendfeed is the new Twitter or whatever – it’s by a social media guy, unsurprisingly. And it drives me insane. You always read how twitter is so much better because you ask a question and you get a thousand answers in real time. Wow, that does sound good.

Would you like to know how many answers I got the last time I asked a question? Or the time before that? Or the time before that? 0. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Naught. None.

Same thing on Friendfeed – well, sometimes I get a little more response there, because I’m more active there. And I’m not saying that this causes me to dislike either service, it’s not true – I genuinely like them and get both value and entertainment from them. But, what bugs me is the blindness of the social media experts who keep claiming how great it is that they get all these answers so quickly – as though that’s how it works for everyone.

These services reward interaction. So the more you are active on the service – in the role of actively seeking out new people and commenting and replying and otherwise engaging a wide variety of folk you don’t actually know in real life the more it will engage you back. It’s a reasonable cause and effect and this is great for people with the will and the drive to do so. It thus makes sense that social media experts, for whom this a part of earning their living, have a wide and vibrant social network.

But for most people – they don’t have the time or inclination to be quite so active. And right now I’m talking mainstream – not early adopters, because if we’re talking about taking Google down a notch in any meaningful way in search or advertising, we’re talking main, mainstream. Most of these folk are not going to have the drive to develop a wide network of lots of internet buddies and so, for the most part, when they go and ask a question, they’re going to get approximately the response that I got.

Again, I’m not saying that these sites don’t provide value – even to those who aren’t hyperactively engaged in it. All I’m saying is that when you’re making predictions about how awesome these services are going to get – if you’re a social media guru, it ought to factor into your equations that most of the mainstream isn’t even going to have a fraction of your network and that’s going to provide them a very, very different experience than the one you’ve got. That’s all.

  • I'm not partial to any particular community, and though I have problems with social media (like Twitters suggested follow list) I don't have a problem with Social Media as a whole. I've got love for anywhere active conversation is going down. Early adopters get to conversations early and can potentially command it as Scobleizer does, especially in FriendFeed. As long as your plans are not for total domination of a Social Network you don't have to be an early adopter and you can still get plenty of real action out of Social Media.
  • Now *that's* a good post.
  • Totally agree. I really enjoy Twitter, and I've had some cool experiences with it, but I also receive ZERO response to any random questions I've asked my followers. If I do receive a response, it's from somebody who is watching for keywords and chooses to respond in order to sell their service.

    My problem with social media is explaining it to those who aren't yet acquainted. Different people use it in different ways. It's hard to tell somebody what their 'way' should be!
  • There's definitely good value in keeping a community small - it maintains the essential character that the early adopters valued in it, basically as a rule of thumb, the smaller the community the better the signal to noise.

    But, the purpose of the social media postings on these is not to encourage said smaller community - often they are to encourage or wonder at the inevitability of mainstream acceptance. To that end, I think their postings are - to some degree - detrimental to that goal. Of course, it's possible I've read them wrong! :)
  • As your interesting post suggests, social media is very much a work in progress.

    HubSpot recently reported that those who tweet between 10 and 50 times per day tend to have the most followers, suggesting a high level engagement is necessary to build an audience (http://bit.ly/K3yfN). Of those followers, how many are actually listening and how many interact? Brands and businesses want to know that answer from an ROI perspective, because although Twitter and other platforms may not require a great upfront investment of dollars, it does involve the valuable time of paid staffers.

    As an individual, I find Twitter to be a good news filter. I follow those who share my professional and personal interests and demonstrate a track record of providing useful information. As an oracle that sources the wisdom of crowds, you are quite right that Twitter seems to work best for those individuals who engage frequently (social media devotees) or are established celebrities -- i.e., Stephen Fry, journalists, politicians, etc. -- who actually do their own tweeting (authenticity is key).

    Finally, Gordon Crovitz, former WSJ publisher and current writer of its "Information Age" column, recently said this at a Fordham University media industries conference: (paraphrasing) we tend to over-estimate new technologies' short term impact -- and underestimate its long-term impact -- on consumers.

    Just because some social media platforms seem over-hyped now doesn't mean they won't have a unforeseen, paradigm-shifting impact in the more distant future.
  • I see your point. On the other hand, perhaps it makes for more interesting networks because it weeds out the people not really, really interested in the content there. For example, I still belong to forums and boards from the late 90's / early 00's because the communities were so interesting. Social media sites are the same as those, there's no real difference between those old tools and our new ones with rounded corners and pastel colors. I sort of like that many are weeded out and don't break through that don't want to commit the time - it ensures we get content interesting to the network.
  • Adam, I definitely didn't mean to imply that there was no value in social media. My point is that, the value that those who put in a lot of effort is not at all the same value as those of more casual mainstream users. There's still value for casual users, plenty of it, but it's qualitatively different than that of heavy users - yet when they blog about how this site is going to take over the mainstream they blog as though their experience is going to be typical for most users - which it simply is not.

    At times, I think they may actually be doing social media a disservice - telling people a value proposition for using a particular site that is just not going to be what they get. They sign up expecting a certain thing which they don't get and give up - whereas telling them a more typical user experience would have them finding the real value that most people will pull from it.
  • That's true in any network or anything in life - you don't get the value out of it until you put in the effort. Don't pigeon hole it to social media - music too. I wrote music for many years before I was able to create something aurally pleasing. There's no instant value to anything truly worthwhile.
  • One of the most sensible pieces I've ever read about the social networking craze. Thanks.
  • Here's the thing - while I agree early adopters are important to success, in things other than social media, say google search or web based mail or e-readers - the essential experience that early adopters had were largely the same as what the mainstream would experience. In social media, I feel the experience is radically different. Yet, often when I hear the experts expounding the virtues they speak as though their experience was typical.

    This isn't to negate those experiences or to say that the sites they are discussing aren't in fact great and worthy of mainstream attention - I love a good few of them myself - but I think they need to factor that in when thinking about the future success of the service.
  • I understand very well that what I experience is not even close to mainstream. But, the only real action is in early adopter land. That's where you'll see who will win tomorrow and why.
  • I couldn't agree more--great post. This reminds me of Mrs. Kutcher and the suicidal Twit. Because of the social investment Demi has made in various forms of media, she has an active following. I like to think the same response would have occurred for 99% of the rest of us, but I think that's naive--especially as these networks grow and there's more competition/noise.

    Scoble and many other geek celebrities are out-of-touch if they believe the social functionality they experience comes close to the average user. That doesn't mean Scoble isn't leading in the understanding of future value for the masses; I certainly agree metadata and relationships in FriendFeed are a gold mine. But for that value to be realized by mainstream users, a combination of automation, integration and simplification must occur.
  • I also hate it when people try and seriously suggest a right or wrong way to use the service. People will use them in the way that makes it useful to them, period. Or they'll stop using it - you can say how *you* use it and maybe that would be helpful, but to say that if you use it this way, you're doing it wrong... well, that's just annoying.

    (also, I'd never set up twitter to send to my phone - I barely get any but all the SMS buzzing would drive me nuts. Heh!)
  • I agree with you completely - it's a balance between a UI that caters to the power users v one that caters to the mainstream. You can already see this happening on most of these sites who are engaging in redesigns.
  • I recently had a friend get quite cross with me, because I didn't save her a seat at a local music event, which was first-come first served.

    What happened was this. Although I'm not a really big Plurk user, I use my Gmail Chat bot to send messages to various services, one of which is Plurk. I send a message that my wife and I were going to this event. My Plurks end up as status messages in my Facebook. I only log into Facebook itself one a day or so. I don't find it very useful, so I don't use it much.

    She didn't realize this. She saw the status message, and replied back to it - on Facebook. As I didn't log in, I didn't get the message.

    In the end, all worked out, as we found her a spare chair.

    The point of the tale is this. Personally, I find, Twitter and Friendfeed to be most useful for me. Easiest to use, interesting output from those I follow.

    My friend prefers Facebook. Once I explained what Twitter was, and how it had good portability (no, she didn't need a smart phone, she could follow some Tweeters via SMS), she joined Twitter.

    I follow her, and added her into my small SMS band too. She knows now, that if she wants to get my attention, to send me a Tweet, as my phone will beep.

    Funny side to this though is that she told me last evening, that she's taken me OFF her SMS list, as I tweet so often her phone never stopped beeping all day for very long.

    So, should social media function like IM, for instant contact, or should it be more email, to read at your leisure, when you have time after dinner in the evening, perhaps?

    My view is that it's not only a mixture of both of those things, but it also depends on who you are and what you want to use it for.

    There is no 'right' or 'wrong' way of using any of these services, but simply in the way that suits you best. Just don't expect everyone else to agree with your viewpoint, and don't be pressured into agreeing with theirs.
  • you're referring to @scobleizer I believe? :)
  • Excellent post. I feel the exact same way. I've flip-flopped back and forth trying to get engaged with twitter many times. The thing is... I shouldn't really have to but that much of an effort to "get" it. That probably means twitter isn't for me, which could be because my real life network isn't on twitter.
  • SeekGround
    Awesome post which speaks to my own experiences. I would go one step further and state that most of the main, main street will have difficulty with the more nuanced settings and the rest will not engage in a meaningful way due to privacy concerns.
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