Frankly, the snakeoil/sleaze factor of social media of late is getting to me. The amount of money some companies are charging--and paying--for stuff like setting up a Twitter account or a Facebook page or doing a blogger outreach campaign--is, frankly, stultifying. My boss and I had a conversation about this recently--he worked in San Francisco during the dot com bubble and he said that what's happening now feels exactly the same as that whole thing felt back in the dot com hay-day. The gold-rush mentality, the crazy money being thrown around, the opportunists creating stuff because people were willing to pay any price because, well, who really knew why. We all know how that ended.
Add to that the whole rockstar component of this whole thing ("Internet celebrity"? Seriously?), the bullshit factor, the fact that half of it doesn't even work half the time (I've said it before and I'll say it again now--the fact that Facebook and Twitter are so prone to crashing, viruses, hacks and who knows what else just doesn't jive with the billions of dollars both are allegedly worth), the focus on number of followers and fans whether those numbers mean anything or not, the fact that we're all basically talking about the same things over and over again....I'm just starting to not feel it.
What to do about it? Break up with social media, like Suzemuse? Blog about something else? Quit blogging altogether and get started on that novel once and for all? I'm honestly not sure.
In the meantime, I'll say this. For all the talk about social media and ROI, to me, this comment made by a member when I posted on Facebook that I had returned to ASHA is what I consider to be positive social media ROI:
You are the Mother of my Facebook. Because of you, I started it. Look at me now.
In other words, to me, it's not about numbers, it's about relationships and helping people connect.
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