Social Media is not a Business

Susan Murphy is right on: we're at what I would call a social media inflection point. The "try to find someone around here who gets it" phase of social media is over. We're now entering the "real opportunity phase" of social media. In terms of tactics, we're past the point where doing something crazy on Facebook or YouTube got you meta-buzz (that is, the buzz about the buzz).

I'm glad, honestly, that we can leave the hype phase behind.  This does not mean that you cannot do fun, amazing things which show your customers that you love them, or show your prospects the kind of company you are on your best days and wish you could be on your worst days.

Instead, think about how social media reduces the costs of connecting to people but also increases the likelihood of doing so.  Email reduces costs but really didn't do much to reduce barriers to reaching out and forming genuine connections.

Companies have become so large that an impossible maze of technology and physical distance now separate the person who designs a product from the person who sells it, and both of them from the person who buys it.  You'll probably never meet the person who designed your shoes, made your shoes, or marketed your shoes, or started the shoe company.  Even if you tried to find out who those people were, you would have a tough time.

These processes de-humanize our expreience of products and services.  We buy things impersonally, and in a lot of cases that's an advantage.  I don't need someone to hang over my shoulder when I buy a book i know I want. 

Yet in an age of firms that seem ever more obedient to Wall Street, institutional ownership, the 24-hour news cycle, and quarterly earnings reports, and less focused on long term financial health and customer satsfaction, I wonder if individual employees would think twice about how their actiosn affected the outcomes for the firm.

Sole-proprietorships and small businesses thrive on relationships- being close to the customer , building amazing loyalty, and knowing that the success of the business is equivalent to their long-term livelihood.  To the extent that such businesses are not driven out by the big box stores, I think we'd never see them make a short-sighted decision just to hit their numbers. 

The next challenge for social media, as I see it, is to be a technology platform for bringing all employees closer to the customer.  A place where they know who the customer is, how their jobs deliver value, and participate in expressing the company's brand.  We'd all be proud of working in a place like that.