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Category: Rant

Malcolm Gladwell misses the point

I’ve finally had a chance to read the recent Malcolm Gladwell article in The New Yorker, entitled “Small Change – Why the revolution will not be tweeted”. While I respect Malcolm Gladwell quite a bit, I do often disagree with his views on certain subjects, usually those involving social media. The last great debate he sparked occurred when he called out Chris Anderson (author of the Long Tail), essentially dismissing Anderson’s “free” economy theory and views on the future role of journalism. The ensuing discussion and ripple effect this created throughout the social Internet is what I found most interesting. I’m hoping a similar “long-tail” discussion will evolve out of his latest piece.

Listen before you socialize

Why is that we don’t want to listen? In the modern rush for social media presence, organizations are not spending enough time listening. Instead they want to be heard. Even the search trends show it. The relative search volume for “social media marketing” is nearly 8 times larger than “social media monitoring”, and the gap is widening. Granted, true marketers know that the term “marketing” encompasses the environmental scan “listening” component, however let’s face it, most people don’t.

If your service/product sucks then it’s really going to suck online

Those of you that know me personally, know that I like to be blunt, no beating around the bush. This isn’t always easy when dealing with clients, but is often necessary nonetheless. One issue I have run into on a few occasions now is organizations thinking that social media engagement is the be-it-end-all solution to all of their marketing problems. Usually the mentality behind this is that social media engagement will allow them to drastically increase awareness of their product/service at very little cost and have more people using it as a result.