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I really thought I was done writing about “social media.” I’ve been bored with it for a long time, over saturated, jaded, stick-a-fork-in-me done. Yet recently I had a conversation with a new online friend of mine that reminded me of one big reason why.  (And in my usual ironic fashion, I thought I’d write about why I’m done with writing about it. However, consider this the last post before a big shift.)

Anyway, back to my friend. Like the friends I’ve been making online since the days of IRC, she and I bonded over our mutual love of music. Only we met via Twitter, not IRC or a BBS. She’s not one of of the myriad marketing/PR/”social media” people on Twitter, nor does she have any more than 200 followers, and you know what? That’s OK. Neither the tool, nor the perceived online “klout” matters as much as what was the glue that brought us together, which was music.

I really enjoyed conversing with her for a few weeks, so I invited her to befriend me on Facebook. Her reply (strung together from a couple DMs) went something like this:

Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind if I decide to add more pals to my Facebook acct. Right now I only follow my kids. I’ve ranted against Facebook for a long time. Now that I’m on it, I’m afraid if I befriend one person over another, someone will get pissed.

I told her not to worry about what the social media pundits/gurus/ninjas/unicorn jockeys say, and to just use social media however it works best for her. She said to me, “Oh, it’s not just them, it’s how I’ve seen the people around me use Facebook. I have no desire to be bombarded by baby pictures!”

We all have our different policies on whom we befriend on the world’s largest social network and why (or why not), but I thought I’d reach out, because, well … I dig her. She did accept my friend request, which I appreciated, but would totally understand had she decided not to.

Though this particular situation is about personal use of Facebook, the implications of her comments are much farther-reaching and apply just as well to the business aspect. . . both of which drive me batshit crazy.

Echo chamber or baloney machine?

This is wrong on so many levels.

Every day, the social media pundits in the blogosphere churn out an immeasurable barrage of “best practices” posts, and at any given time, there is a conference, seminar, webinar, or tweetup going on all about the “right way” to do things on the social web vs. the “wrong way,” yada yada yada.

Scroll through your RSS reader or click any random link in Twitter and chances are you’ll see headlines like “10 Social Media Best Practices for ___” and “5 Reasons Not To Do ___ on [insert social tool du jour here].”  Not only does it get tiring to hear after a while, once you’ve worked with enough companies and individual clients on your own, your bullshit  baloney meter gets as finely-tuned as your patience for hearing it grows thin.

The average person on the web and the average client, whether they’re a small business, a big corporation, or just the lady down the street who enjoys tweeting during NBC’s The Voice  is so bombarded with all these messages, it’s no wonder that they feel pressure to do things the way it’s allegedly “supposed to be” done.

I’ve encountered people who were very frustrated and distraught because they’ve spent money on conferences, webinars, and books all about how they can make social media work for their business, yet they’re not seeing any significant difference in revenue. They’ve followed all the “steps” and did everything all the usual case studies did, but they’re throwing in the towel and saying it’s a waste of time and money.

The fact is, you can follow all the advice from all those sources as much as you want, but if you forget who you are and what your needs are, it’s probably not going to work out for you. Nothing is cookie-cutter, social media doesn’t come in a box, and if you try to follow instructions like that, you’re only going to end up half-baked.  (Pun unintended.)

But… what about the case studies?

Case studies are great, and it’s important to discuss what’s working and what’s not. It’s great to see examples of how companies used certain tools to work to their advantage. But only Zappos is Zappos, only Comcast is Comcast, and only Company X is Company X. You can learn from their trials and tribulations, you can employ their tactics, but what it all comes down to is what works best for you. Everything is subjective. 

Case studies stand out because the company in the study was willing to experiment. The companies (and people) were willing to stick their neck out and try stuff. But for every “best practice” being preached on and about the social web, there is someone doing the exact opposite and it’s working out just fine. (If not a case study such as, “How Company Y Did It Wrong and Got It All Right.”)

Social media is a bunch of tools.

Uh... huh... huh ... she said "tools."

Let’s ignore the double-entendre there for a second and admit that tools are things that exist in order to carry out a particular function.

The other day I saw a tweet that said something like, “I should be able to tell what you do from briefly looking at your twitter profile.” I don’t remember the particular tool who said it (see what I did there?), but to them I say:

Says who?

Who is anybody to say how anybody else should use a tool? My goals for using a certain tool are different from others’ goals. Pardon me for putting my own goals in front of someone else’s expectations of how I “should” act on the social web. Frankly, I don’t care about advertising on Twitter what I “do,” I just want to have fun. So what’s with the self-righteousness?

If you know the history, it was by its users’ ingenuity and NOT using Twitter how it was originally intended that made it grow to what it is today.  Same goes for duct tape. When was the last time you used duct tape on a heat duct? There’s more than one way to use a certain tool, and hell, there’s more than one way to eat a Reese’s.  The examples are infinite.

It’s no secret that I am one of the many people on Twitter who HATE automatic direct messages (“auto dms”). In fact, I despise them so much that I put right on my background “I auto-unfollow all auto-dms.” I think they’re extremely annoying. But a lot of people and companies still auto-dm, and it appears that they’re doing just fine on Twitter. So if it works for them, who am I to tell them not to do it?

I just know that personally, it annoys the crap out of me, so I choose not to follow people who do that. It’s my choice. It doesn’t matter how allegedly “wrong” or “right” something may be, if it works for you, that’s what matters, right?

This may be oversimplifying, if not downright insulting to the social media strategist/consultant/guru/ninja/unicorn jockey who pours all their sweat and elbow grease into blogging and advising people on what to do or what not to do, but if you run all of that echo-chamber “advice” through a metaphorical colander, it all boils down to a very common cliché:

Different strokes for different folks.

Yup, I went there.

So people, please — stop wasting your time and breath on how you think things should be done, or worrying about what other people did, and start concentrating on what works best for you. It’s great to know what worked best for others, and yes, sometimes you’ll get some great ideas, but “doin’ it wrong” for one is oftentimes “doin’ it right” for another.

Note that I’m not saying people who have NO frickin’ clue  shouldn’t seek guidance — there are plenty of seasoned professionals in the field of communications who are well-versed in navigating the digital waters and can help out those who aren’t as comfortable. People who already have experience in trying different things, are familiar with the ever-changing landscape of tools, and may be able to shed some light on possibilities and help shape a strategy.

But figure out what’s best for you. You as a person, you as a business, whatever. Stick your neck out. Experiment. Know who you are, what your goals are, what’s important to you, and especially what’s not important to you. Once you figure that out, you’ll be a lot further along than most. The internet is just an extension of life — everything is trial and error.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go out and buy some duct tape, some Reese’s peanut butter cups, and somehow get that disturbing smiling bologna image out of my mind.

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1. The 800 lb gorilla of social media dependence: When it fails us.

Please help me understand this.

In my field, (un)conferences are the lifeblood of excuses to get out from behind one’s computer and actually (*gasp*) socialize, instead of just talk and write and present and tweet about all things “social” online.  (Crazy concept, isn’t it?) But a very large chunk of these conferences are called “camp” — there’s BarCamp, PodCamp, BrandCamp, WordCamp, GeekGirlCamp, myriad “boot camps,” and I’m sure plenty more.

I’ve been to a few of these “camps” I listed above (for the record: though many tell me I look like Alyson Hannigan, I never went to band camp) and they’re anything but camps. They’re a bunch of geeks in conference centers, usually laptops, netbooks, and iPhones in tow, listening to a speaker, jotting down notes and tweeting as they go. Occasionally they actually talk to each other. Most of the time they dress like this.

But none of this has anything to do with camping. Or campaigns.

When I was growing up, every year my family would drive Up North (that’s capitalized in Michigan) to Clear Lake State Park, get a campsite, pop a tent, erect our screened-in kitchen around a picnic table, and well, camp. We’d build a campfire in a fire pit, and sometimes roast hot dogs or marshmallows. We water skied on the lake, laid out on the beach, played volleyball, rode bikes, and explored trails.

When I went to fifth grade camp, we were put up in cabins but it was nonetheless camp. There was canoeing, swimming, horseback riding, archery, and we had to schlep quite a ways to an outhouse in the middle of the night if we had to use the bathroom. There was a mess hall, counselors, arts and crafts, hiking, and of course, a campfire every night. You know, “Kumbaya” and the whole bit.

So why the heck are all these conferences called “camp”?!

I don’t go popping a tent in the middle of the woods with a bunch of people, make a fire, roast marshmallows over it, and call it a conference, because it’s not. It’s camping. And neither should a bunch of folks gather in a facility that has tables, comfy chairs, big screen projectors, electricity, running water, and keynote speakers and call it “camp,” because it’s not. That’s a conference.

I don’t get it. Halp?

Photo: That’s my dad, camping a few years ago.

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You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.  You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile.  ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 17

I’ve been noticing something on Facebook lately that absolutely irks me – regular people who are neither celebrities, nor an otherwise public figure, are deciding they need fan pages. I don’t understand why, and I finally tweeted about it last night after I had had enough.

I got a lot of interesting conversation out of it, mainly with Juanita Chronowski, who maintains a fan page for her writing as a way to separate the personal from the professional. OK, that I can understand. Ari Herzog does the same thing. But people who are NOT public figures in any way, shape, or form? Unless somebody else made the page out of appreciation or as a joke – my friend Jen had it right when she said, “that’s flippin’ weird.

Facebook allows personal profiles up to 5,000 friends, and if you actually have more than 5,000 friends then perhaps you do need one. Perhaps you are somewhat of a public figure, and if that is the case, then go ahead and make yourself one.

Call me a purist, folks, but if you are not famous except in your own mind, YOU DO NOT NEED A FAN PAGE. Regular people having a fan page for themselves screams of an ego problem and “look how self-important I am!” — and frankly, makes me question why I would be friends with that person in the first place.

I’m tired of regular people thinking they’re special, unique snowflakes and deserve their own fan page just to boost their own egos. Non-public figure fan pages cheapens the value of fan pages for those who actually are public figures. Don’t believe me? Fan my cat. She’s more of a celebrity than most of these conceited people.

What do you think? Am I wrong here? Am I missing something? Is there a reason regular people who have not exceeded the 5,000 friend limit on Facebook and are NOT public figures should have their own fan pages? This is such a turnoff!

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[If you know me in person, chances are you've heard this before, but I'm at the point now where I feel it just needs to be written down.]

I hate the term “social media.” Really, I do. Why? Because it’s too hard to define. I’m definitely not the first person to blog about this, and I’m sure I won’t be the last. But here’s the truth:

All media is social media.

Media, at its very ethos, is social. Cavemen didn’t paint cave paintings and not talk about them. Egyptians didn’t carve hieroglyphics just because they were pretty pictures — they told stories. Radio never really was one-way — it encouraged interaction with people calling in. TV may seem one-way but do people not sit around the TV and watch it together? Do people not talk about their favorite shows with each other?

All media always has, and always will, encourage social interaction. Whether it’s immediate as what we understand “social media” to be nowadays or not is a different story.

The only difference between “traditional” media and “social” media is that “social media” makes two-way (or one-to-many, or many-to-many) communication a helluva lot faster. And let’s just face it – this is simply the way the world communicates now.

However, like those folks I linked above, I understand that there is no one, true definition of “social media,” and that alone is a problem, illustrated by a story a few friends of mine relayed to me recently:

A colleague of ours, a rather big name in the “social media world” and a bigwig at a rather large, world-famous company, was to speak about social media at a local event. I did not attend said event, but my colleagues did, because they wanted to hear what he had to say about how he’s used “social media” in/for his company. Based on the questions from the audience, however, it became more of a Twitter 101 class, and my colleagues admitted they were a little embarrassed for him. This was not a marketing fail, as the event was promoted appropriately. Or was it?

My colleagues’ definition of social media was and is much more complex than that of the audience. They were expecting how this guy applied “social media” for marketing/PR purposes. The audience was apparently expecting how to use a tool or two, which is a lot different.

Social media is the new smurf.

Smurfs used the word “smurf” for just about anything, and it was understood without question. Or they used it when they couldn’t think of any other word for something, which is where we are now with “social media.” Hell, any kind of interaction via the internet or mobile now can be considered “social media,” and I can’t believe that for a society as chatty and as articulate as we are, we can’t think of any other words for what the heck we’re talking about.

We need to expand our vernacular.

I was taught that you shouldn’t complain about something without proposing a solution, but honestly? I don’t have one. What I do know is that the more we use “social media” as a term for just about any kind of communication these days, the more confused people get, and the more smurfy things become. I like to be more specific when I speak of expedited communication through ever-changing technology, but I realize that sometimes it’s easier smurfed than smurfed. I know that many times, I still go over peoples’ smurfs and they still don’t smurf what I’m smurfing about, even when I think I’m smurfing on their level.

So what do you smurf? Is “social media” too smurfy these days? Should we be more specific and throw that term out the smurf? Or is it fine and smurfy? Leave your smurfs in the smurfs.

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I can’t believe I almost forgot it was Festivus today. I was reminded by Rico Thomas Rico, who posted his airing of grievances on his blog. Knowing I’m long overdue for a blog post, I’m following his lead and now posting my 2009 Airing of Grievances. Enjoy!

Dissappointing me this year in the world of social media were …

1) Auto-dmers. People on twitter who automatically follow you with a direct message when you follow them. A very amateur move. Especially disconcerting when said person claims to be a social media marketer, or even worse if it’s a “Thanks for following, click my junk!” type of DM.  You people should not be allowed online.

2) People who claim they won’t join Facebook “because they don’t want everybody to know all their business.” Grr … that’s what the privacy settings are for, idiots.

3) On that note, people who over-protect their stuff on Facebook so much that they appear as a faceless “Facebook user” when commenting, and refuse to share ANYTHING. OK, seriously? I’m all about the privacy settings but if you think you have THAT MUCH to hide, that’s called paranoia and there’s medication for that.

4) People who claim to work “in social media” but then say they can’t stand gossip. I got news for you — gossip fuels social media. In a very big way, social media IS gossip. Can’t handle the heat? Get the hell outta the kitchen.

5) Places that start their e-newsletters that I receive with “Dear Communicator” - I have a name, and if YOU were a communicator, you’d know that. You’d also know the %name% function in your email client to insert it so that it wouldn’t sound so generic.

6) People who say they “do” social media as their job. Do you say you “do” the copy machine? Do you “do” the phone? Do you “do” a word processor? No, those are tools you use in order to do your job. Use it as a means, not an end.

7) People who assume I’m a graphics designer just because they hear that what I do has something to do with the internet. I don’t know how many times I hear “I know a guy who needs a graphics designer, I referred him to you…” That’s great, but I’m admittedly artistically retarded. I’ll have to give them a referral to one of the 1000000000000000 graphics/web designers I DO know.

8 ) All these “life coaches” who insist on following me on Twitter. What — you couldn’t figure out what to do with your life so you decided to tell people how to live theirs? For real — go away.

9) Those who do not question “thought leaders.” There’s a term for you that’s not as nice as “thought follower,” it’s “sheep.” See this post.

10) SEO people, especially those who feel the need to put “SEO” after their name. OK, here’s a newsflash — SEO is NOT ROCKET SCIENCE. Having said that, if you are in the Cult of SEO (a.k.a. those who believe you have to be in some kind of secret society and know some kind of secret handshake in order to get SEO), YOU DO NOT NEED TO PUT SEO AFTER YOUR NAME. SEO is NOT a PhD. You do not need a doctorate degree to figure it out, and if your name is “John Jones, SEO” on LinkedIN or Twitter, it does not make you look credible, it makes you look like a douchebag.

Disappointing me this year in the rest of the world were …

1) Whoever took Randa Jawhari. This person is actually at the TOP of my list. My hometown of Fenton has a hole in it because she has been missing since February 2009. It won’t be filled until she’s found. Please give her back.

2) Traffic weavers. I hate you. You people are DANGEROUS. And you know what? Danica Patrick does it a helluva lot better than you. And she’s much better looking.

3) The people who live above me. I haven’t lived here for long but I’m convinced they think their living room is a mosh pit.

4) Kanye West. Do I have to even explain why?

5) People who toss cigarette butts out car windows. Dude, if you absolutely HAVE to pollute your lungs, don’t pollute the planet, too.

6) That guy who warns everybody about being “that guy” but doesn’t realize that HE IS THAT GUY. You know that guy.

7) Ghost bloggers/writers. Pardon me for being a purist, but I find it highly ironic that the very things that would get someone expelled from college (plagiarism) are common practice in the professional world today. That’s nothing but B.S.

So there we go. My airing of grievances for 2009. There’s no doubt in my mind that I have more, but these are the ones off the top of my head. Now I ask you — what are YOUR 2009 Festivus grievances? Leave ‘em in the comments.

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Courtney Engle pointed me to this awesome video by Scott Stratten of UnMarketing and it was too good not to share. Scott’s talking about bad “social currency” and the annoying stuff people do on Facebook:

I can totally empathize. There are many people who say that there’s no wrong way to use social media tools, but I think that’s a bunch of baloney. If you do the things that Scott’s describing, you might not think you’re doing anything “wrong,” but the rest of us want to reach through our computer screens and strangle you.

Scott only scratched the surface of  “Don’t Be That Guy on Facebook” — personally my biggest pet peeve is That Guy who has to post the SAME DAMN STUFF to multiple Facebook groups and fan pages. I’m not going to name names, but I’ve got a couple of Those Guys.

People, please — don’t do that.

When you do that, it floods my (unexplainable) “highlights” section on the home page with the same thing over and over, e.g.: “John Doe added these 5 pictures of Event X to the group __”, and “John Doe added these 5 pictures of Event X to the page __,” etc.

If you have a story or some pictures you think might be of interest to people in similar groups or fans of similar things, chances are they’re mostly the same people and you’re spamming them.

FACEBOOK IS NOT FOR SPAMMING.

When you do this, it may appear to you that you know who your audience is because you’re targeting groups and fan pages of similar interest, but if you were really paying attention, you’d notice that it’s mostly the same people and you’re being rude. If you are in multiple groups and pages of similar interest, so is everybody else you’re trying to reach.

Sure, I could choose to “hide” updates and stuff from the people who do this, but then I’d not get the information at all, and I do want to receive the information. Just not over and over and over again.

So if this sounds like you, cut it out. If it sounds like somebody you know but don’t have the heart to tell them, send them a link to this post.

What other annoying things have you noticed people do on Facebook? Rant away!

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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?

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Since the advent of Twitter, and especially the ever-increasing popularity of its API, there has been an explosion of third-party applications using “tw-” as a prefix. We can list ourselves and find people by profession on  Twellow, measure somebody’s Twinfluence, watch and tweet Twiddeos, and if we have OS X, tweet from our dashboard via Twidget. The list of apps is practically infinite.

Of course, just as naturally, I suppose, has our lexicon increasingly been speckled with the “tw-” prefixed words, referring to anything Twitter-related. We have “tweetups,” refer to each other as “tweeple” or “tweeps,” the world of Twitter is known as the “Twitterverse,” and if we accidentally send a direct message to the public it’s a “twoops.”

There is no shortage of Twitter glossaries out there, but seriously, I think we’ve gone a little too far. The following is not something I am unlikely to hear in real life:

I went to a tweetup to meet my tweeple and got caught in twaffic, but once I got there it was twitterific!  What tweethearts they are! As we were enjoying twitteritas, one twude twinterjected and made a twitfessional that he needed a twatcation because his wife twinks he’s a twitaholic. We said that was twitdiculous!

Seriously?!

Look, folks – I understand the enthusiasm for Twitter. It’s wonderful. I’m practically married to it. But, please, please, PUH-LEASE–

STOP TALKING LIKE TWEETY BIRD!

It’s not cute, it’s not funny, it’s not even coherent most of the time. I don’t mean to be a “mean ol’ puddy tat” here, but every time I hear an adult confound the English language with such absurd Tweety Bird talk, I don’t want to follow them on Twitter — I want to put a helmet on them, give them some crayons, and take their cell phone away.

Is this just my exaggerated imagination, or are you hearing it, too?

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I might be slaughtering a few sacred purple cows here.

It seems I can’t go anywhere online to any of my networks without seeing advertisements or invitations for workshops on “How to use Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter for Business.” Join a few groups on LinkedIn and you’ll find announcements for these things all over the country. I’ve been to a couple, and they are very helpful for those that are just dipping their toe in the social media waters.

However, I’ve talked to some small business owners and a few nonprofits, and the impression I get from them is that they feel very pressured to join these networks. I had a potential client email me last week that said, “My organization needs a Twitter campaign, and needs a Facebook page, and needs . . .”

You get the idea.

The overabundance of these workshops has all but struck the fear of God into people, as if they absolutely had to use Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for their business and/or nonprofit or else it would be nothing but fire and brimstone — their businesses will fail, their ships will sink, and they’ll die old and lonley. (OK, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration.)

Here’s the good news for folks that are feeling this way:

Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are not the Holy Trinity.

They are the “Big Three” for now. But, as the auto industry can tell you, don’t assume that all of the Big Three are infallible.

There are many people with businesses and/or nonprofits that do not use these services that are doing just fine. David Meerman Scott is not on LinkedIn and he’s totally OK with that.  Twitter is a great tool, yes, but just because Oprah uses it (allegedly) doesn’t mean that everybody does. There are a LOT of people that don’t use it, and your audience might be among those people.

As I commented at Duct Tape Marketing,

If you’re in a small town and the majority of your customers not only aren’t on Twitter but haven’t even heard of it, what are you trying to accomplish? I like to say, “If your audience is at the bowling alley, don’t go marketing yourself at the roller rink.”

Social media is much, much bigger than Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Your audience could be on any of these networks and even some that aren’t shown:

The beauty of the internet is that things are constantly changing. There is a possibility that someday soon one, two, or all three of these current “Big Three” services will be trumped by the newest shiny object in social media and they will quietly fade into the background a la Friendster.

But even Friendster is still popular . . . in the Philippines. And other networks are more popular in other counties, such as Bebo in Ireland. (I had never heard of it until I befriended an Irishman.) So if your customers or donors are located elsewhere in the world, I recommend you take a look at this data of social network popularity around the world (as of 2008) .

The trick here, as it always has been, is finding where your audience is spending time online. Then go set up camp there. But first establish a strategy, don’t just be somewhere for the sake of being there if you’re not going to engage your audience.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m a very big fan of Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. They can be great for business . . . if used correctly. First get acquainted with these three as an individual, then think about them as possibilities for business. It’s the same concept as dating somebody before marrying them — it’s probably a good idea to get to know their good qualities, their bad qualities, maybe even their mother — before deciding if this is someone or something you want to commit to, because once you do, you’re in it for the long haul.

What do you think? Are these “Big Three” absolutely essential for business? Or are they only hot right now, with something else “essential” on the horizon?

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