• Common Sense and Old News

    Posted on July 27th, 2011 by and currently 0 commenting.

    We’re a group of happy people here. (Maybe too happy sometimes.) Our good spirits tend to keep our blog posts pretty positive, but sometimes we run across a few things that make us sigh, shake our heads, and riff them pretty hard via a mass-email to all the pirates in the office. Today I thought I’d share one or two of those things with you.

    The first was the headline of an article that someone randomly received in their inbox:

    “Use of Human Voice in Social Media Can Help Organizations Build Relationships” (1)

    That was the conclusion of a study performed at a well known academic institution. Now, we’re not snarky pundits who like to throw strong opinions around to feel better about ourselves. In fact, we’re big supporters research, and if you can put numbers (instead of just talk) behind what you’re doing with social media, we’re impressed. Heck, we’re in the business of helping organizations become more human (and we often use social media as one of our tools).

    What got us about this headline, though, is that it makes the conclusion seem really new and revolutionary when we’ve known the same is true in other channels for a long, long time. Ask anyone in customer service: people don’t like talking to machines. And social media isn’t any different.

    Maybe we’re picky, but it’s hard for us to get excited about common sense and long-time best-practices re-packaged as new-news.

    The second is an excerpt from an article about T.G.I. Friday’s Father’s Day Facebook promotion (2):

    So much for ties or sweaters for Dad. And so much for traditional marketing vehicles.

    In a new world of marketing, where social media is the lone currency that virtually guarantees a return, the beer app is being viewed as forward-thinking by some but tacky by others.

    We believe social media is a great tool too, but I think this author might have neglected to do their homework on how much people still use traditional media. For examples, Neilsen’s State of the Media: Cross Platform Report in Q1 of 2011 found that ”Americans are spending more time watching video content on traditional TVs, mobile devices and the Internet than ever before.” (3). Also, companies still invest a whole lot of money in it: another Neilsen report shows that TV spending grew 8% over last year (4).

    Again, we’re not naysayers. But sensational statements about new technology as a magic bullet have always been a red flag for us.

    OK. That feels a lot better. We’re done shaking our heads.

    • (1) – You can find the study about human voice in social media here.
    • (2) – You can read the article about T.G.I. Friday’s Father’s Day promotion here.
    • (3) – You can read Neilsen’s “State of the Media: Cross Platform Report in Q1 of 2011″ here.
    • (4) – You can read Neilsen’s “State of the MediaTrends in TV Viewing—2011 TV Upfronts” here (PDF).