Let me start off by saying that I’m a big supporter of Social Media. In fact, I’ve done my fair share in promoting its use in achieving strategic goals at the places I’ve worked. Over the last few years, I’ve defending its use and tried to shed light on its obvious potential. To my satisfaction, it seems Social Media is starting to really gain traction. Celebrities are on Twitter, companies are incorporating Social Media into their marketing strategies and my mother even joined Facebook. This is not to say everything is running smoothly in the social-sphere. There are still gaps in companies’ service blueprints that Social Media can help fill, corporate legal departments that are still wary of anything that cannot be controlled and the web-industry as a whole is having a hard time separating truly knowledgeable professionals from guru-wannabes. So it’s with all this in mind, that I find myself saying something I never thought I’d say, “Relax, it’s only Social Media”.


Recent Social Media fiascos

In the news within the last two weeks, Frito-lay dumped their “green” bags (for their Sun Chips brand) because customers on Social Media thought the bags were too noisy. They felt the bags were so noisy, in fact, that they started several Facebook pages complaining about them. Frito-Lay took note of this and have since replaced most of their bags with the older, non-green versions. (Don’t get me started on how I think this was a missed opportunity…)

In other news, The Gap recently revealed their new logo…at least for a few days. Basically, in an effort to strengthen The Gap’s soft sales, it decided to refresh their logo. However, once the new logo was revealed, designers and marketers on Social Media lit up and trashed it thoroughly. While I’ll be the first to admit that I, too, find it quite ugly, it should be known that very few people were actually aware that The Gap had changed their logo in the first place. While I could go on and on, bringing up other Social Media incidents like the Motrin-moms episode, I think you already get the point.

The power of the consumer: A shift in Porter’s

Some groups may claim victory for the power of the consumer. Others  may feel that it’s time to revisit a few Porter’s Five Forces  analyses. Personally, I feel that perhaps it’s time for brands to take a step back and pay attention to who is saying what. In truth, despite what many believe, content creators on Social Media, don’t necessarily represent mainstream Earth and that those on Social Media are not a perfect cross-section of any market. Furthermore, only about only a quarter of them are actually generating content. So, every time a Social Media indecent occurs, brands have to look closely and figure out whether their markets are the ones making the noise. With respect to The Gap, the noise mainly came from designers and marketers. Do they represent The Gap’s main segments? Doubtful.

If we’ve learned anything about Social Media, it’s this:

• Social Media is growing in its ability to kill brand initiatives


• Some brands are putting too much weight on Social Media sentiment


• Some brands aren’t planning for Social Media backlash

• Plan for Social Media backlash because it WILL happen one day


• Keep track on who is saying what - not everyone who speaks should matter to your brand (relatively speaking of course)


• Work hard on developing brand advocates to defend your brand for times of crisis - this can buy you time


• Social Media content generators don’t necessarily know all the facts about, well, anything - it’s the job of the brand to educate and fill in these knowledge gaps


• Did I mention PLAN? If not, yeah, plan. A lot.

With all this talk about Social Media, I thought to myself, “What is being social anyways?”. The way I was raised, it was about interacting with people. While it’s true that social media does indeed open new ways to interact with people, it also gives us  a way out of actually interacting with others. Oh and don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. If you’ve ever been on Facebook, you know exactly what I’m referring to. How many times have you checked a friend’s Facebook (“FB” for all your cool cats) profile to see what they’ve been up to rather than to drop them a line? How often have you checked a person’s LinkedIn account profile instead of e-mailing them? Don’t know about you, but this seems pretty anti-social, no? (I’ll bet a few of you check out my LinkedIn account in a few minutes… prove me wrong.)

Social Media: A shy extravert’s friend?

But I guess there is something to be said about the fact that some people simply are too shy to start mingling with strangers in person on a whim. Social media provides… a distant-intimacy that many enjoy - a way to be close (read: Direct Message) with people, yet comfortably far (read: hide my geo-location from stalkers) at the same time. Perhaps social media leverages the “latent social” segment of the population (in case no one has claimed it yet - I hereby claim the term  ”latent social” as my own, feel free to contact me for license agreements). This “latent social” (cha-ching) segment wants to get out there and “get social” but sweats at the idea of small-talk. Perhaps it’s this face-to-face small-talk barrier that channels many wannabe socialites towards social media. Just speaking for myself here, I enjoy the fact that no matter how quick Twitter or GTalk is or becomes, I will always have a few moments to ponder my thoughts and type something eloquent (as opposed to the verbal gunk in this blog post). In this context, social media, in the form of instant messenger, is akin to butterfly repellent for your stomach so you can calmly collect your thoughts.

Hey Rommil, social media also brings people together physically y’know…

Good point my friend. I admit, that whole events have been spurred by the very existence of social media. Events like Tweetup are prime examples of how a medium has promoted mingling and elbow-rubbing in a tangibly physical way. Even phone numbers are exchanged at these things (gasp). But I can’t help but think that every advancement in one direction is balanced by another extreme. As people are meeting to cheer Twitter and all that it’s done to bring them closer together, two other social media platforms come along to essentially keep us more apart.

There was a time, not so long ago, when if you wanted to know where someone was, you had to call their cell phone (or page them, you dinosaur). But today, you just need to check out their Gowalla or FourSquare status. In fact, if you think about it, as we move on, we can know more and more about someone without ever meeting them. With Gowalla (or FourSquare, relax people), I can track a friend’s movements (plus or minus a few metres) and know that he is having a coffee and then switch over to Blippy and track what he bought today. Hello? But am I the only one that thinks this is a touch creepy/stalker-esque?

Ok Rommil, I’ve read three paragraphs already, what’s your point?

Firstly, you’ve already read four. Secondly, I don’t have a point actually. I just wanted to share some of my random thoughts while multi-tasking. Essentially, I’m trying to think of something witty to reply to my friend on GTalk… speaking of which, GTG. TTYL. We should meet up sometime. *air kisses*