Marketing Director

Is this the end of Social Media?

There have been a lot of posts by intelligent people lately regarding the perceived 'end' of social media or 'the social media bubble'. All I can do is laugh at our collectively myopic perspective. Participation in the social web is less than 20% of all Internet users based a number of recent studies which I should reference here. That is much less than 20% of the population of the globe. Social media is currently in the mid to late stages of the "Growth" phase of the product life cycle. The early majority is just starting to sniff at the potential of the social web.
Yes according to Read, Write, Web social media as a search term - based on current trending - will peak in 2012, but really what does a search really mean. This is based on the logic that web 2.0 is already 'dead'. When in fact we know that the idea and concept are alive and well especially among those looking from the outside in. Sure the regulars stopped using the term ages ago but that's always what happens. The social web is now woven into the fabric of our human collective. It may not be called social media in the future but it's not going anywhere.
The most interesting transformation will happen when the majority of the global population who have access use that access to collaborate, communicate and create. This is the epoch of social of sharing; of the people for the people by all of us. Businesses are now transforming themselves to take advantage of individuals innate interest in improving their world and the things they care about. Also note that based on the search volume for forum, blog, wiki and rss searches for these terms may not reflect the use of them. Blogs still dominate when compared with wikis. Is this a transformation of how we communicate (what words we use) or our actual use of the tools? This applies to the use of the term social media as well. Some food for thought.

The social web may be causing some of us to spend much more time than we are used to socializing digitally and that may be the real source of the burnout on social media. As Erica Glasier so wisely put it maybe we are all just "Oversocializied: My face hurts from smiling". The following comment was found on one of the posts referenced above and does a great job of encompassing my feelings about this myopic chatter on the end of social media.
"[The end of social media is a] very silly prediction IMHO. The buzzword, sure, will eventually fall out of fashion so that the pundits and conference-circuit "experts" have a newer, hotter term to bandy about and explain. But the concepts behind social media, social computing, whatever you want to call it, go back to the 60s, exploded in the early 70s, and will be around on the Net as long as there is a Net. I suspect ten years, twenty, fifty years from now, the applications that collectively comprise "social media" will have exploded beyond present-day imagination, although how they explode can be fairly well guessed at given an extrapolation of trends."
- Brainstorms


I would like to leave you with a video of a 100 year-old woman with her first computer, the iPad.

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Fuelling your Social Media body

Photo: law_keven. Remixed under Creative Commons.
I am a sedentary individual who loves food that tastes good and is bad for us. I have become increasingly unhealthy in the last 10 years. This has led me to have to climb a giant mountain that is my cheeseburger infused physique. That climb started a few weeks ago.
As a member of the Vancouver Board of Trade I've had the opportunity to meet many different and interesting business professionals. When I met @CoryFry of @ThinkCOS it was a great connection. His company offers health and wellness services to large organizations as part their benefits packages. He invited me to a few bootcamps where I got my lazy butt kicked.
Photo By: Amanda Slater. Remixed under Creative Commons.
After falling off that train and neglecting my need to exercise, I was later contacted by the Principal at Think COS to discuss how I could contribute to his organization by consulting around technology. I met with Antonio at a coffee shop near my office one sunny afternoon. Antonio's business acumen, his sheer desire to succeed and his genuine interest in improving the health and wellness of everyone were inspiring. I recognized him from somewhere but couldn't remember where.

I then realized that he was the trainer from the bootcamps. Not only does this guy work 12 hours a day on his business but he also runs the bootcamps to ensure that the exercise is quality and attendees are getting the most out of the experience. At the end of our talk he invited me to join him down at Kits beach Saturday mornings at 9am for a beach side bootcamp. It was that bond that began me on this road to a healthier lifestyle. Someone else was willing to go the extra mile for me and a complete stranger at that. I was floored and Saturday morning hurt but it's been great ever since.


I didn't think about how important what I am eating is to this experience until I was watching this documentary about the making of a hollywood film in Kansas by a father and son team. The movie starts at the exact moment that got me to thinking. Even those who are in the best shape need to be conscious of what they put into their bodies.
By: Paul Kelpe. Remixed under Creative Commons.
What one puts into the machine is so important to determining what one gets out of the machine. The same is true for social media, networking and business in general. What you get out of it is all about what you put in. So what are you putting in your social media machine? Human communications, promotional messages, marketing? Consider what is working in the space. Companies that are putting positive intentions, positive messaging and a true concern for customers into their social media machine are enjoying success on social media. See @Starbucks (big), @GranvilleMag (small).

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How Social Media startups are hurting my friends

Original By: bootload. Licensed under Creative Commons.
There are lots of young people coming up with great skills. They are tenacious, technically savvy, willing to work for less than established people and highly aware of emerging trends. These individuals also possess a feeling that they can make a difference, change the world and be successful. These qualities make them the perfect candidates to help launch the newest social network or bookmarking tool that is going to take the world by storm and be the next Facebook or Digg.

Sadly, there already is a Facebook and a Digg and hundreds of other variations. Unless you have big backers and/or a niche market that is in serious need of it's own social network your idea is extremely unlikely to succeed. The sheer number of 'companies' launching as social networking or bookmarking sites is reaching into the tens of thousands. How many will be successful? Maybe none, maybe one. Now I know that your social network is better, faster, cooler and more versatile than Facebook but that doesn't mean people will use it. The trend that I have been noticing lately is that people don't want to login to another site to access yet another network they have to put time into the benefit; people are already spread to thin.

"Working at a startup is a valuable experience, and making mistakes earlier in your career will save you later on. Even if the social media startup fails miserably, you have learned valuable lessons that will make your future ventures more likely to succeed." -Anoop

Anoop is so right on that and don't get me wrong start-ups are a good things especially when planned properly, not just around an idea but around a business model where revenue is a real thing, not something that will come. How are start-up leaders going to pay their employees? That's the problem; often they don't. Young people like the idea of equity but equity in something worth nothing is worth, well, nothing. Whether it's for equity or as an intern these newly minted technology and programmer masterminds are often being used as 'slave' labour.
By: MotivatedPhotos.com
So how are these social media start-ups hurting my friends? Well by not paying them a real wage is one way. Another way is by locking them into a project which may result in them missing out on real opportunities to build their careers with companies who actually make more revenue that they have expenses. Selling my peers the dream of millions of dollars from your awesome startup bookspotmark.com is the same line that was fed to big Wall Street investors in the years before the original dot com bubble. I am happy to coin this new phenomenon "dot com bust 2.0". That is exactly what it is. There is good reason that VCs are now steering away from risky social media startups.

If you are or know a talented young person drawn in by this new startup model be warned or warn those you know. Any startup without a marketing plan or an inkling of where revenue will come from should be avoided. Below is an image including a number of logos from recent startups in the technology space. The ones crossed with a pink X no longer exist and there are thousands more to come.


What are your feelings on this? Do you have personal experience? Any good experiences? Please share.

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