Are Social Media Rockstars An Endangered Species? Or The Future of Advertising?

Don't get me wrong--I couldn't be happier about Forrester's newest report showing that social media adoption has basically become "nearly universal." Definitely bodes well for me being gainfully employed.

At the same time, though, I can't help but notice that the whole social media rockstar thing is getting a little out of hand. As more and more businesses realize what Forrester's report highlights--namely that 51% of all online Americans have joined a social network and a whopping 73% are, if not joining, at least consuming social content in some context--they are whipping themselves up into a frenzy over the implications of this mass adoption. Suddenly there exist magical "Influencers"--regular people who are universally likeable and respected--into whose hands brands can place their products and these mythical beings will work their Twitter or blog magic and thousands of sales will be the result.

Or at least this seems to be their thinking, from where I sit. Take, for instance, Dooce. Just a regular gal....with 1,142,958 followers on Twitter. When Dooce tweets complaints about her new Maytag washer, this is what happens. OFFERS--plural--of free machines from other companies.

Now is it just me being bitter that I myself am not swimming in swag or is the deitization (is that a word?) of social media "influencers" getting to be a bit ridiculous? I mean, come on--companies honestly see her and others like her as so powerful that they are tripping over themselves wanting to get their product into her hands so she can tweet about it and huge sales will result? It's seriously starting to get a little crazy...I can honestly imagine how this washer thing played out. Dooce tweets her complaints about Maytag. Other washing machine companies, doing their social media due-diligence, are monitoring for mentions of their or competing brands. They see this opportunity to jump in and save the day and probably emergency staff meetings were held at multiple companies: ALERT! Opportunity to swoop in with a free washer and save the social media goddesses' day. It was probably like a hostage situation--a bunch of guys around a computer screen "Ok--quick--get a message to her NOW offering our machine for free! GO!" Waiting with white knuckles to hear back from her or--God willing--to have her tweet kudos and mention their brand's name to her million-plus followers. Many of whom will, naturally, go right out and buy a washer from this company merely because Dooce endorsed them.

Come on now. Is any one person's word THAT powerful? Apparently. At least she's using her powers for good, though.

The flip side of this coin is the sell-your-soul-to-the-devil thing where companies give a blogger a few gadgets to play around with for a few days and a trip to a trade show and expect to own his soul in return. In this case I'm talking about Chris Brogan, being ripped for CHEATING on his sponsoring company when, 8 months after his sponsored trip, he announces a partnership with the company he had a conversation with while on said sponsored trip. Now again--come on. Dude has to make a living. He did nothing wrong--didn't cheat, steal, etc--he struck up a conversation at a neighboring booth which, many months later, resulted in a consulting opportunity. What is about companies thinking that if they throw a blogger some swag they expect eternal gratitude in the form of a non-compete for actual paying business at any point in their lives? People can't live off the odd trip to Disney or a trade show, no matter how swag-lishious that trip may be.

My point? I'm not really sure. I guess it's that these truly are the days of the social media Wild West and it will be interesting to see how the whole thing plays out five or ten years down the line. Will swagging bloggers be a long abandoned experiment that ended up not generating any appreciable business for the companies that thought it would? Or will all journalism be bought and paid for and old-school advertisements a thing of the past? Is getting a social media superstar to talk up a brand the slam-dunk some companies seem to think it is? I guess time will tell.

Forrester Says Advertising Is Changing Forever. What Are Associations Doing to Keep Up?

I was in a meeting this morning about how the reason non-dues revenue is down is because members are posting jobs on Linkedin and Facebook. The answer, naturally, is forbidding "free" advertising on Facebook and Linkedin. If they can't post it for free then they will pay us to post it. Right?

Don't we all wish.

The reality is that the world as associations have always known it has changed and is not going to change back. Job boards and print ads in publications used to be a slam-dunk; now they're not. End of story. Instead of spending time spinning wheels talking about what we can forbid people from doing for free, we need to be spending time thinking of the next generation of things companies will pay for.

Forrester Research just published their five-year interactive marketing forecast and their findings echo my sentiments:

"...media is in trouble, or at least in the middle of a transformation."

Highlights of the report include:

• Digital marketing, which will be about 12% of overall advertising spend in 2009, is likely to grow to about 21% in five years


• Social "media," which will account for $716 million this year between social network campaigns and agency fees, will generate $3 billion in five years.


• Of all the parts of digital marketing, social network marketing one is poised for the most explosive growth.

The upshot? In Josh Bernoff's own words:

"If you're in advertising, you'd better learn to speak digital, because that's the way the world is going."

And if that's the way the world is going, it's also the way your corporate partners, recruiters and sponsors are going. What is your association doing to prepare?

Does Forrester's "Hub and Spoke" Model Work For Association Social Media?

Forrester Research recently released a report on how companies should organize for social media. In the report, they detail three basic organizational models:

1. The Tire (Distributed): Where each business unit or group may create its own social media programs without a centralized approach. Forrester calls this approach the “tire,” as it originates at the edges of the company.


2. The Tower (Centralized): A standalone group within a company that’s responsible for social media programs. Forrester points out that the "tower" is often located in corporate marketing or communications departments.


3. The Hub and Spoke (Cross Functional): Forrester likens this model to the hub on a bicycle wheel: a cross-functional group representing multiple stakeholders across the company assembled in the middle of an organization. The hub facilitates resource sharing and cross-functional communications (via the “spokes” in the wheel) to those at the edge of the organization (or the “tire”)

Forrester suggests that the most effective organizational model is #3, the "Hub and Spoke" model. Makes sense, right?

Enter silos.

A while ago I read an outstanding post by Beth Kanter about silos and social media, and it's stuck with me ever since. I think the impact of silo culture on social media has yet to really be brought to the forefront, mainly because most associations have yet to formalize their social media strategies and therefore have yet to deal with staffing those initiatives.

Here's the thing: close your eyes and think "hub and spoke" and what comes to mind? Probably a picture of a bike wheel, or something like that. Now think "silos"--and what comes to mind? Probably something like this. Now try to do an overlay of the hub and spoke visual over the silo one. Doesn't really work, does it?

As Geoff Livingston says in his post The Cultural Challenge to Integration "Publishing a Twitter feed, a blog, a Facebook group, a “viral” video is not the answer. Instead change the way relational communications are approached throughout the organization."

I suspect that, as time-consuming and challenging as it is to convince some association execs that engaging in social media is not only worthwhile but necessary, the real battle will lie with convincing them they'll need to totally overhaul the organization's structure first.

Eff It Off Friday Links

It's summer and it's Friday so I'm having a hard time gathering my thoughts into a cohesive post; rather than wait for the words to start flowing I'll let these links do the talking themselves:

• Awesome post by Josh Bernoff on the Groundswell Blog about Social technology: a way of life . . . or just a damn hobby?


• New Forrester Research has a new report on how companies should organize for social media. I probably should not include this in a post entitled Eff it Off because I think this report is super important...oh well, too late now.


• My favorite blog post this week Delegation Equals Death in Social Media. If you don't feel like clicking on the link, here's a summary of this post: "Everybody in your organization – including senior managers and ownership – needs to understand and participate in social media. Period." Amen.


• If you're looking for some light yet awesome summer reading I highly recommend Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod. Reverse disclosure: sadly, no, I did not get this book free to review or anything--I just like it.

This Just In: More Old People Are Using Social Media

Forrester Research has updated their data on Social Technographics and--shocker--the upshot is that social technology participation has grown significantly in the last year. "Inactives"--people who don't participate at all in social networking or technologies--now make up only 25% of the online population in the US. "Spectators"--people who read blogs, watch videos, rate products or listen to podcasts--jumped in just one year from 48% to 69%.

According to Forrester, much of the growth in social media adoption came from "middle- aged" people: 35-to-44 year-olds. Even bona fide old people--45-to-54 year-olds--are participating in Spectator behavior and joining social network at record levels: 68% and 24%, respectively.

If you're not already on the social media bandwagon you may as well climb on, because these numbers are only going to continue to rise.

What do Jurassic Park and Groundswell have in Common?

Have you seen Jurassic Park? If so, you might remember Dr. Malcolm’s (Jeff Goldblum) diatribe about the dangers of doing something just because you can:

“I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you’re using here: it didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you’re selling it, you want to sell it!”

How does this quote relate in any way to Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff’s book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies? Maybe it’s just me, but I see a direct correlation.

Groundswell is about social computing (I, a non-analyst, prefer the term social media) and how it’s shaping not only the personal lives of many individuals around the globe, but also the way companies do business. It’s not that social media is anything new; I’ve been an active participant on numerous online forums for over 10 years now. I’ve made money, formed close friendships, gotten jobs and learned countless things—all through different social media applications.

Lately businesses have begun to tap into the groundswell—“a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other rather than from traditional institutions like corporations”--to enhance customer relations, build brand loyalty and, of course, make money. These days hardly a day goes by where some company or another isn’t discussing their web 2.0 strategy and taking the plunge—in most cases, “because everyone else is doing it.” Or the opposite—doing nothing for fear of opening up a giant can of worms that, once released, will run rampant and ruin the company’s reputation or slash profits.

The thing is, as the book aptly points out—doing it just because others are doing it or because it’s possible isn’t reason enough to incorporate web 2.0 applications into a business strategy. Just as bringing carnivorous dinosaurs back into existence just because it was possible without thinking about the consequences wasn’t the brightest of ideas, jumping on the social media bandwagon just because everyone’s doing it isn’t reason enough to do it. Obviously the consequences of starting a blog, establishing a presence on Facebook or randomly beginning Tweeting are nowhere near those of setting loose a bunch of killer dinosaurs; however, the underlying concept is the same: maybe you should think about it before you do it.

The beauty of Groundswell is that it lays out in explicit detail the RIGHT way to develop a social media strategy. Forget just randomly tossing around a few ideas in a conference room then rushing back to the computer to start blogging or start a Facebook page; Groundswell provides hard data about the ways people are using social media and shows you how to develop a strategy that taps into your specific customers’ behaviors and needs. Bernoff and Li go a step further than telling stories about what other companies have done; they provide a tool businesses can use to assess their own customers’ social media behaviors in order to develop a strategy that taps into those individuals’ behaviors and needs.

And of course, in addition to the facts and figures and case studies, Li and Bernoff give a very comprehensive overview of the groundswell technologies and how and why to use them.

In short, Groundswell is by far the best and most comprehensive book I’ve read about social media and I honestly think it’s a must-read for anyone with even a passing interest in web 2.0. Forget Good to Great or those other yawners that every company has employees read before the annual retreat/brainstorming session; Groundswell is much more interesting, informative and pivotal to the way companies will be doing business from here on out.