Nothing succeeds like Success and also nothing is followed as much as success is. Its been 4 years (almost) since I started blogging and almost 3 since I started advising brands and corporates on social media communications. In hindsight Ive made many mistakes on many fronts both while blogging and while advising clients. One thing is for sure thought I didn’t follow anyone. At the time when I started I did so because I found it interesting, intriguing and a fun thing to do. Even today with very little time on my hands and with hectic schedules it still is a fun thing to do (Though I wish I had more time).
The herd is here..
Now over the last year or so Ive seen people from all quarters *(IT consultants, Architects, Bankers etc) chuck their jobs and look at social media as a prospective business/career. Now before you say what’s wrong in that? Id like to clarify that Im the happiest when I see so many people venture into this space as its a space that is bound to grow and make a lot of money for all involved.
The issue is that not all are good at what they do (its but natural). My worry stems from the fact that sooner or later there will be more people exploiting the medium rather than building it. India is still a nascent internet industry with fewer content creators that do so for the love of creating content and less for adsense revenue. When social media consultants start creating content that purely brand centric it may create clutter that isnt interesting and is spammy.
This is what happened to Orkut where scraps led to spam and there were many of those who felt annoyed and left the platform. Though I must also state that unlike Orkut, Facebook is more controlled and hence brands cannot intrude on a users personal space. But yet there are fake profiles peddling fan pages and in the race to get maximum fans the quality of experience on social media is being compromised in many ways.
What could go wrong with the herd?
With everyone and his aunt trying to get traction through social media somewhere the platform loses its credibility. I was speaking to the Managing Director of one of India’s largest traditional media buying agencies and his view was that too much manipulation happened in social media. Interesting take coming from a 50+ senior executive who has possibly seen it all in the advertising space. Maybe its just his perception but then if the head honcho of a mainline agency thinks this way Im afraid it can’t be great news for the space.
If you overrun a car no matter how new or sexy it is its bound to show signs of damage and same is how I feel about social media. It seems we are trying to get the golden goose to do miracles. Hope we don’t kill it in the process!
I nice and concise article Rajiv, liked it
I agree with you. Too many people start thinking they are “social media” experts just because they use the technology day-to-day. Yet, the reality is, just because you know how to use something does not mean you will be able to come up with effective plans as a consultant. Now, too many companies are flooding the social media space and spamming, not advertising.