What The F**K is Social Media?

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You’ve probably already seen this slideshow, touted as the World’s best presentation (Via: B.L. Ochman), but just in case you haven’t surfaced from under your rock in a while, here it is. I also wanted to comment on it, or to be more exact, what becomes obvious from the numbers it presents.

It concerns me too that there are governments and others with a vested interest who would seek to control either free speech or neutral and equal access to content on the internet. It may seem counter-intuitive (or even counter-revolutionary); it probably won’t do anything to save the planet, but capitalism and rampant consumerism could well be, strangely, what keeps these doors open, at least in what we laughingly call the civilized west.

The clue, I believe, is where slide 26 says:

14% vs. 78%

Hmm …

Which was explained in the previous two slides (view them, you won’t get any more *spoilers* here). With that much (see Reason #2) riding on such an effortless way of marketing, you can be certain that the big fat corporations will make sure that as many punters as possible can freely join in.

Wouldn’t you if you could, effectively, get 78% of your marketing done by others?

And you can too. Of course, you’ll need some good products that people actually like and want as well, but hey, that’s a mere detail.

How much consumer control is real or perceived?

This whole social thing works (it is not a fad) because of a phenomena called group psychology or group influence and, marketers (both good and bad) have been taking advantage (with either positive or negative connotation) of that human behaviour for longer than we’ve had a name for it.

It will go on working, because it’s unlikely we can change human nature.

Everything we do, think and buy these days is, at the very least, carefully and deliberately influenced (if you want a polite description), or engineered and herded like sheep (if you want it spelled out), but that’s today’s reality.

The question today is, can companies grow up enough to let go of control?

We can hope. And, here’s where we, as consumers, come in, again.

"Fortunately", one of the "benefits" of the current poor economy is a shift in control to the consumer (think "buyers’ market"), who will naturally demand better products and services when their investment has to be thought about more carefully, where the budget has to be stretched and, where purchases have to be made to last that bit longer. I know, this will not be achieved overnight, but as the realization hits enough of them that ignoring customers no longer works, the process will automatically draw companies into the conversation (and they need to see that it is to their own benefit to be there), because if they stay outside they’ll go the way of the dinosaurs.

As George Eliot (Middlemarch, Chapter 46) has already told us, you can’t have, "a bit of an avalanche which has already begun to thunder."

The social revolution has begun and it cannot be stopped now.

Paradoxically, once businesses do relinquish the reins and, instead of trying to control with their dictatorial rules, actually become part of the group and the process, then they will regain some of their influence. It’s rather Catch 22.

A couple of other bits of recommended reading are this post, What do the Tour de France and a Victoria sponge have in common with your social networking web site? Or, if you want to get a bit more in depth, you might consider:

While researching and expanding on my thoughts for this post, I came across a blog called, Internet Psychology, where "Professional Speaker and Internet Psychologist Graham Jones provides regular updates on how the psychology of the Internet should be taken into account by businesses trying to sell online and undertaking Internet marketing," which I like. You might too.

Also see: What’s Next In Marketing & Advertising