Social Media Is Old News, Right?
August 8, 2008 – 3:18 amIf you’re planning to jump on the “social media” band wagon (the wagon that pulls the idea of using social networks like MySpace or Facebook to promote your company or gain new clients, and that also has blogs, social bookmarking sites, lifestreaming, and so forth along for the ride) you’re a little late to the game. Social media is old news.
I’ve been thinking this for a while, but it was made evident to me the other day when I met with a friend of mine who runs a small business. He’s a great guy, but not the most risky of people. What I mean is, if you were to tell him about Seth Godin’s “Purple Cow” concept- making a product remarkable - which means being innovative (which is risky), he probably wouldn’t be for it. He was very much for social media, though. Which means he doesn’t feel he’s risking anything by using social media.
I think there comes a point in any market where the “cutting edge” becomes riskless, or pretty darn close to it. At that point, as you may have guessed, the “cutting edge” is no longer the cutting edge. It’s mainstream, or in the process of becoming mainstream. When you see this starting to happen, you know it’s time to start either innovating, or looking to see what the new edge is… or, well, die.
Some people have difficulty seeing when the edge has shifted, especially if the industry they’re trying to follow isn’t the one they’re in (for example: following new tech based marketing trends as the CEO in the pharma industry). For those people, here are 5 ways you can tell something is no longer at “the edge” and that you need to start innovating (or looking for the new trends).
- The number of times “the edge” shows up in the New York Times over the past 3-6 months.
- Smaller, local magazines start covering the technology or type of marketing (business magazine or not).
- When particular people I know sign up. We’ve all got these people. You know you’ve got one. That person who knows next to nothing about this stuff but somehow pops up on your friend request/follow screen.
- When small business owners who have been content with their current marketing methods for a while now suddenly become interested in this “new” framework.
- When the “fear of the unknown” or the “fear of repercussions” is no longer present for a mass number of individuals.
Obviously, social media qualifies for all five of those. That’s because it’s old news. But that doesn’t make it worthless. Not at all. It just means that social media is now in a self-contained innovation cycle. You can’t just do a “blogger program” where you lease your newest camera to prominent bloggers for them to use because Nikon already did that. Likewise, you can’t just put out a video with the intent of it becoming viral without some serious planning, because everyone almost everyone has already tried that. You can absolutely use social media effectively. You just need to innovate within it. But you can also stay ahead of the game and innovate or look to see what the new, risk-filled trends are.
2 Responses to “Social Media Is Old News, Right?”
Love, love this post. The new economy is based around this - that we have to be constantly innovating and changing and adapting.
By Rebecca on Aug 8, 2008
Thanks, Rebecca!
I couldn’t agree more with your sentiment. With all the pushes in marketing and other components of business, what the potential success will ultimately boil down to is whether a company has chosen to be one that continually innovates and adapts to the market.
It makes sense, if you ask me. In order to be a healthy, mature individual, isn’t the same thing asked of us?
By Nathan Snell on Aug 8, 2008