Real Men of Genius: Social Media edition

(Real men of genius!)

Tonight, I salute YOU, Mr. “I-Sync-My-Twitter-and-Facebook-Accounts”!

(Mr. I-Sync-My-Twitter-and-Facebook-Status!)

Yes, you sir, are oblivious that your Facebook friends really don’t care about your every move & your Twitter followers are a) mostly the same people, and b) annoyed as hell.

(Absolutely, completely oblivious!)

It’s imperative that you tell EVERYONE POSSIBLE about that ham sandwich you had for lunch, or that you are happy it’s football season, because you are just. that. important.

(I’m big on the internet! I’m big in Japan! Germany loves me!)

So go on and open a Ping.fm account, Mr. Twitter-Facebook-Syncer, because YOU are a REAL MAN OF GENIUS.

(Inspired by the Bud Light “Real Men of Genius” radio commercials, you can hear all of them here.)

Social media is not your brand’s “natural male enhancement” pill

Remember these commercials?

You either loved Smiling Bob or you hated him. I thought these commercials were hilarious at first, but after so many euphemisms for “natural male enhancement” and cheesy double entendres, every time I heard that annoying whistling song and saw Smiling Bob’s unnatural-smiling face, I wanted to reach through my TV screen and punch him in the teeth.

However, in a conversation about companies and social media yesterday, Smiling Bob popped (no pun intended) into the forefront my mind. Whether we want to admit it or not, there are a lot of similarities between Enzyte (not linking to them, sorry) and brands’ expectations of social media.

Anybody that fell for these Enzyte commercials bought into the bulls**t that this once-a-day pill would be the answer to all their problems. . . at least in the bedroom (which leads to solving the rest of their problems, apparently). Guess what? It wasn’t.

Consumers who forked over $100 million were sold on this idea, though:

“. . . After a few shorts weeks, Bob has a LANE full of confidence, PRIDE to spare, and now everyone can see that Bob has made some SIZABLE STRIDES to improve his SCORE.”

Many, many businesses seem to think that social media is their Enzyte. That it is some kind of once-a-day thing they do and after a few short weeks, their company will have tons of publicity, they’ll look cool because they’re online, have sizable profits, and an improved overall brand.

Hate to break it to you, but social media is no magic pill that cures everything that ails ya.

We can learn something from Smiling Bob, though. Watch these, and pay attention to the last one, especially:

Let’s substitute a few key words with “social media”:

1. The quality of social media is very important.
2. There’s a proper tool for every social media project.
3. Working with social media can be both fun and rewarding.
4. When it comes to social media, it always helps to listen to an expert.

(I hope I don’t have to remind anyone that the term “social media expert” shares the same degree of ambiguity as Enzyte’s intentional usage of the term “natural male enhancement.”)

According to Wikipedia,

Because Enzyte is an herbal product, no testing is required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. An official of the Federal Trade Commission division that monitors advertising says the lack of scientific testing is “a red flag right away. There’s no science behind these claims.”^[4] The company has conceded that it has no scientific studies that substantiate any of its Enzyte claims.^[5]

So whatever happened to Smiling Bob?

Twenty-five years in prison and over $500 million in fines for massive consumer fraud that “preyed on the vulnerabilities and inadequacies of customers in a case about arrogance and greed.”

I don’t think anybody who promises successful social media strategy and doesn’t deliver the goods is ever going to get sentenced to prison or fined like that — not at all. Nor am I implying that everybody who claims to “do” social media is a Smiling Bob — of course not. But if you think your business can get a quick fix and ahead of your competition with an out-of-the-box social media “strategy” requiring little effort, think again.

Social media can be an enhancement to your overall marketing efforts, but by no means should you think it will solve all your company’s problems. If somebody tells you that, check to see how much they’re smiling at the time.

I encounter people who think social media is the Enzyte for their business quite a bit, and it’s frustrating. What is it about people that makes them think it’s a magic pill? Is it the overblown publicity of the usual case studies, or hearing about it from celebrities and TV networks? Is there something I’m not seeing?

All I ask for is a frickin’ rotating chair.

As of the other night, yours truly is now a contributor* to a hilarious site for people who secretly (or-not-so-secretly) hate their jobs, Office Evil.

My first contribution is currently the featured MadLib on the home page. It’s a memo from your boss. He/she saw what you were doing on those social networks on company time and NOT very happy about it. Fill in the blanks to find out exactly why you’re in deep.

*Disclaimer: Potential future employers – Please do not interpret this the wrong way. Though I currently work for myself, anybody can tell you that I’m a workaholic, love what I do, and always go above and beyond. This is only for fun, and came about randomly. Don’t hold expressing my creative juices against me.

Facebook thinks I’m old and fat.

We all should know how it works by now — Facebook takes info from your profile & IP address and then targets ads at you in the sidebars. To make it even easier for them to tailor to your consumer needs, if you do or don’t like something, you can rate it with a “thumbs up” or a “thumbs down” and even tell them why you did or didn’t like the ad. Seem fair enough. I cooperate with them and rate ads sometimes, because hey, I’ve actually found some pretty interesting stuff through them, and isn’t that their ultimate purpose?

One would think.

However, the past few weeks I’ve noticed that my ads were increasingly about weight loss.

I’m going to be frank here — although I am a woman and generally we with the XX chromosome sequence do tend to be more self-conscious about our weight — I’m not fat.

I’m not as thin as I used to be, but honestly, I can’t complain and I don’t, especially on my Facebook profile. I don’t even talk about my weight in my status updates, which are constantly changing. Why? Because I’m not an insecure teenager starving for attention (otherwise I’d be on MySpace), and I’m comfortable in my own skin. Sure, I’d like to lose 5-10 lbs., but who wouldn’t?

So I repeatedly tell these weight-loss ads “thumbs down” and tell them “irrelevent,” “uninteresting,” and even “offensive.” They keep coming.

I got to the point where I just ignored them. I rated other ads that are more relevant to me, things about writing, public speaking, social media, local bands, etc.

Then I turned 30.

Now, apparently not only does Facebook think I’m fat but it also thinks I’m old. Case in point:

It should be stated that I am not a mom, nor do I look as old as 30 (I’m sure there’s a strong correlation there). As  a redhead, I am extra careful of exposing my skin to the sun for very long, else I turn into one big freckle and seriously increase my chances of getting skin cancer. “Pale and proud!” is a motto of mine. I’m OK with this, and I count my blessings for having a combination of good genes and brains enough to not tan, therefore, I do not have wrinkles.

Yet Facebook is relentless. No matter how many “thumbs down” I give these ads, according to their keyword spiders or little men on the other side of the monitor, or however these things are decided, I am now not only fat but old. And not just “aging,” but old. For the past few days, this is what I’ve gotten:

This, my friends, is Barbara Walters. Granted, Barbara Walters is one of the women at the top of my personal “Most Admired” list, but nowhere on my profile do I mention her name. And God bless Bawba Wawa, she does look great for her age (though I’m sure she’s had work done), she is 78 years old.

Now, not only does Facebook think I’m fat, but it thinks I’m old, too.

Facebook thinks I’m Sally Struthers. Or someone like her, I mean. Hovering somewhere around 60, bigger-boned than I’d like, dying to look younger and thinner.

Amazing.

What kind of off-targeted ads do you get on sites like Facebook and other networking platforms? What/who do you think Facebook thinks you’re like? I’d rather not be like Sally Struthers, but I’m sure there’s got to be worse … right?

… right?!

I know the last thing you want to see is yet another blog post about the election.

Let’s get it out of our system now:

Yay! Go Obama! Go America! Change we need! Yes we can! RA! RA! RA!

Now here, have a few LOLcats:

more animals

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