Here we go, something else to clutter up your desktop and waste your (or your clients’) valuable time. Just in case you’re not ‘hip’ – ladies and gents – I give you:

http://friendfeed.com/

It’s simple! It’s comversational! It’s open!

It’s just like a hundred other f*cking social media apps. Get a life. Do some work.

What is wrong with this sentence:

“No surprise, by social networking the panel meant the Big Three: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. But it also includes other web 2.0 tools, including blogging and YouTube. In fact, the first question asked of the group was about how a small business can experience the viral video phenomenon a la Susan Boyle, Britain’s overnight singing sensation. The answer: ‘be careful what you wish for’.”

If your answer is ‘nothing’ or ‘not much’ or – heaven help us – ‘actually, that’s quite interesting, I’d like to know more’ then you might find what follows a little dull and probably not to your taste. When I ask what’s wrong with the sentence, of course, I’m not referring to the appalling grammar and syntax (I’d be here all day), or indeed to the fact that it’s breathless, pseudo-tabloid, poorly-informed journalism of the first water.

No, what astounds me is the simply incredible lack of knowledge that is implied both on the part of the panel and the audience (who probably paid to be there). Lest you think that I’ve chosen a particularly naff paragraph, let me share a little more. (Whoever this guy is, I’m sure he’d forgive me for repeating what he said. He’s in no real danger, mind, as this is, after all, the Blog That Nobody Reads.)

“The world of marketing has changed forever” said John Jantsch, who wrote ‘Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide’, during an engagement forum about how social media can transform the way small businesses do business. “There’s no more hunting for customers. It’s about putting informational content out there to be found and to engage in meaningful ways.”

This is so wrong, on so many different levels, that I have difficulty actually getting my head round it. What is he talking about “there’s no more hunting for customers”? This is dangerous, irresponsible tosh which implies that once you’ve got a social media presence, you’re made for life. And all for the price of a bit of ‘informational content’. And “putting it out there to be found” – hey, I’ve been putting this blog (which is arguably considerably more informational and engaging than Mr Jantsch’s sodden meanderings) ‘out there to be found’ for months now and – guess what? – no-one’s found it! No sh*t, Holmes.

But let’s return to the first sentence. People wanting to experience the viral video sensation ‘a la Susan Boyle’. And the answer from the panel? “If your video goes viral, it can hurt you if you’re not prepared to meet demand – if you can’t, you’ve blown it.” No. The only thing you’ll have blown, as an SME trying to make a ‘viral’, is your marketing budget for the next decade. Again, this is frightening, dangerous, irresponsible nonsense. As I’ve said before – viral is something that happens, not something you can plan for. It needs luck and timing, as well as judgement and creativity, and it needs a sponsor (brand or organisation) that is able to use its equity/reputation in a lateral and sometimes “off the wall” fashion, without risking damage. And how many organisations can you think of that can do that? Remember, for ever single example of a truly viral video clip, there are hundreds, if not thousands, that sank traceless.

All of this stuff came out of the US National Small Business Week Conference, and it is genuinely shocking to know that there are so-called serious media professionals recommending Facebook and Twitter to SMEs. SMEs – it’s a fact of life – need to draw customers in and sell stuff, not spend a massive amount of time and effort posting informational content and having meaningful, individual ‘quality’ conversations.

I know this was a conference about social media and thus, unsurprisingly, that was the topic – but nowhere, as far as I can see, did the panel talk about the importance of having a web presence (not expensive) that you can manage yourself (not difficult), on which you can post the stuff that matters to you (not time-consuming). They didn’t talk about enetring a dialogue with your customers through the medium of email and building email databases – don’t post content and wait for people to come to you – draw them in through your web presence (have a ‘for further information’ form) and don’t forget traditional mail-outs and small ads that point people at your web presence and encourage them to register. Bribe them! People who register their details get put into a draw to win a voucher for a restaurant or a shop! Again, I know you’re in the realms of sales promotion and data protection, and that there’s a whole set of rules that go round this – but, trust me on this one, it’s a better use of your time than being a face on the book or a bit of a Twit.

The National Small Business Week panel did have some sensible stuff to say though – set up your Google Profile. Absolutely – do it, you’d be mad not to. (It’s not social media, mind.) And they also said that one should add social media to one’s existing marketing arsenal – and I think what they meant is ‘don’t focus on social media to the exclusion of everything else’. Don’t ignore social media, but remember you’re likely to get better results from other forms of marketing activity.

But on the whole, reading the write up of this session/discussion was a depressing business. There’s too many people who’ve jumped the social media bandwagon, and now believe themselves somehow qualified to dispense advice to the other group of people who do not understand at all, but are frightened of missing something. And they listen to the advice, and they go off and waste their time. Seriously, how many businesses will go down the pan because their owners are spending too much time/budget on trying to reap an – at best – non-existent social media whirlwind.

But, just so I don’t come across as a churl – here’s some buzzwords to throw in at your next SM session – audioboo, brightkite, maycontain and unhub. New things that look surprisingly like – well, the old things, actually.

Now, as those of you who are avid followers of my blog will know (obviously, there aren’t any avid followers of my blog, this is the original Blog That Nobody Reads, proving, once and for all that, despite all this hype about t’internet being the gateway to the world it is, in reality, wholly possible to launch yourself into cyberspace without anyone, not a single solitary soul, noticing that you have done so) I’ve got a thing about social media. In fact, my aim with this blog was to post and post and post without attracting anyone’s attention. Well, actually, my REAL aim with this blog was to provide some pithy comment on and (who knows?) insight into corporate communications – the good, the bad and the really unpleasant-looking. This may still happen, but, as I said, those of you who are avid followers will know that my REAL aim got de-railed and I found a cause. Yes, the Emperor of Social Media hasnae clothes on and it is my duty (well, it isn’t, but it passes the time) to play the little boy and shout, as loudly as possible, ‘Naked! Naked!’ And there is so much stuff out there, I haven’t even scrtached the surface, remind me to tell you about the American ‘National Small Business Week’ conference and its take on social media (oh, we laughed – well, I did) – but of course, the whole original aim of this blog was NOT to attract anyone’s attention, so shouting as loudly as possible ‘Naked! Naked!’ goes against the whole principle of the thing. So you can see my dilemma. Is it a dichotomy? (Probably not. Note to self, do not use word ‘dichotomy’ without knowing what it means.)

Anyway, this morning I logged on and found that I have failed. People have been viewing my blog. People have been reading the dangerous and subversive anti-social media stuff that I’ve been posting. And, in the most delicious of ironies, someone has been twittering about it, and that tweet or tweets has caused another someone to come and read the dangerous and subversive etc etc.

Yes, dear friends, through the power of social media, the anti-social media lobby has found its voice! I tell you, I love this social media lark.

This is genuinely the most uninspired title that I’ve ever read and it’s here on my blog. The shame. But – hey – it does what it says on the packet and here’s a brief sorta ‘clarification’ post, which came out of an email I received this morning.

Here I’ve been, for some considerable time now – although you’d never know by the number of posts, I am a slowcoach – airing my views on social media and why it’s not everything it’s cracked up to be (without, it might be said, providing any solutions and I promise I’ll come to those soon, just not in this post) and it occured to me that I’ve never drawn the parameters for my views. I’ve never defined what, for me, social media is, and where exactly, for me,  its usefulness begins and ends.

Most importantly, I don’t want anyone to think that in shouting ‘no clothes, no clothes’ at the body of social media, I am implying a disdain for all things digital and netty. I’m not, no way.

I was reminded of this this morning, by an email that talked about (and I’m paraphrasing) permission-based marketing through email being highly powerful. Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. If you’ve managed to get people to give you their email address, and perhaps a few snippets of information about who they are too, then – as long as you don’t abuse it – this is an incredibly potent opportunity. Tailor individual content (and there’s software that’ll manage this for you), intrigue them, give them stuff they need/want and they’re yours for life. Cannot argue with it.

Likewise – have you got a web presence? Probably – hey, what am I thinking – definitely! Is it any good? Hmmm? Are you certain it’s any good? If you can’t answer that last question, please drop everything you are doing and get on and do something about it. Work night and day until your web presence is the very best it can be, You don’t need me to tell you how to do this, and – no – it doesn’t have to be very costly. (Incidentally, my web presence is not everything I’d like it to be, thus I’m something of a hypocrite, but I’ll plead poverty and an unsuitable skillset for this state of affairs, and apologise. I will sort it out.) If you have a great web presence, full of interesting stuff that appeals to your target audience, then you may – if you’re lucky – build a community around your product, service or organisation. Your e-marketing dovetails with this.

However – and here’s the big however – the community that you may build if you’re very careful (very, very careful indeed) is made up of people who understand what they’re dealing with (a ‘commercial’ enterprise) and willingly sign up for it. This is the end goal of a digital media strategy.

The term ‘social media strategy’ implies that one can do the same thing through social media and this is where I personally draw the line. The people who sign up to be become part of social media networks are neither expecting nor – most importantly – do they want  to deal with a ‘commercial’ enterprise. There’s no denying that some brands/organisations/products HAVE gate-crashed these worlds, but I’d hazard it’s more by luck that judgement. For every videoclip or flash game that’s gone viral there are hundreds and thousands that have sunk without a trace taking the marketing budget with them.

Social media is not (necessarily) digital media – that’s my point for today. I fully support digital marketing and communications and investment in same – I don’t think one should expend too much effort on social media. If it happens, great – but don’t go chasing the impossible dream.

Got into an (online) debate with a guy in Australia, who runs a company called eNova Communications, providing PR/Media services for the health fitness and wellbeing industries – with the aim of assisting emerging brands in understanding and utilising the power of Social Media and Social Networks (combined with traditonal marketing) to build tribes. (I am paraphrasing.)

I gave him my usual spiel – social media: massive hype, limited reach, no control – and he responded by saying ‘it’s the quality, not the quantity…..the conversation, not just the medium.”

(This was after I’d pointed out that, in terms of users and reach, the following statistics speak for themselves – LinkedIn 12m users per calendar month, Plaxo 4m, Twitter 10m and Facebook with 75m registered users – of which I am one, but I’ve never used it.)

Which made me think – and I’ll throw it out there – what’s better (in terms of brand-building, reputation enhancement and sales promotion), is it a quality conversation with very few people, or quantity communication with millions?

Clearly, if your aims ARE brand, reputation and sales and you want to achieve against those aims, then quantity communication is the way forward. Quality conversation with the few – which is highly desirable and undoubtedly of value – is something you do in your spare time when you’re not (metaphorically speaking) shouting your message from the rooftops. Except, of course, in times of issue or crisis, when your quality conversation can become the keystone of your containment campaign. But if you keep your eye on the ball and do things by the book, then your times of issue and crisis should be few and far between. (Cross fingers and touch wood.)

The point here is – and it’s nicely illustrated by eNova’s ‘mission’ (‘build tribes’) – is that far too many people seem to believe that social media and social networks are/can/will/have replacing/replace/replaced all the other forms of marketing and communication that have gone before.

Who needs print ads and media relations when you’ve got a ‘tribe’. I honestly believe – and it scares the living sh*t out of me – that there are people out there who, in their mind’s eye, see their brand/organisation’s ‘tribe’ sweeping down from the hills, carrying all before them on a wave of social network, word-of-blog evangelism.

Hello! They won’t. ‘Tribes’ don’t exist – or rather they do, but they’re not created by commercial marketing. If they can be harnessed, it will always be but briefly, and they will only stand in line if the reward is compelling enough – and even then, you never know when they will turn and bite you – seemingly for no reason. This much is obvious.

Oh yes – one more thing. Now the word ‘tribe’ is out there in the blogosphere, recognised as a ‘marketing term’ – no social networketeer worth his or her salt will want to be part of one. Yes, my friends, in trying to harness the power of social media and social networks, those very same networks have helped destroy your chances of doing so.

It’s just SO Alanis Morissette – don’t you think?