Writers and communicators for hire
Now, dearest blog trotters, I am not one to say ‘I told you so’. Nope. Hold my tongue and never take pleasure in other people’s discomfiture, those are my watchphrases. (Is discomfiture a word? Or a sort of anti-fruit preserve?)
Anyway. I told you so. Oh yes I did.
Here’s the headline – ‘Facebook won’t become e-commerce force, analyst says.’ And here’s the link:
Following my post of yesterday, in which – in the desultory and louche fashion that is my wont and has become such a firm favourite with discerning blog snorkellers worldwide (hey – forget worldwide – GLOBALLY) – I examined the Busy Bees of the Divine’s decision to invest some $450m in the Book of the Face, I have some across simply acres of opinion that – to a greater or lesser extent – agrees with my conclusions.
Now, to say this is unusual would be a masterpiece of understatement, but that notwithstanding, it should also be genuinely concerning for those who are investing their hard-won marketing budgets in ever-more-complex Facebook campaigns. It should also be concerning for large companies whose digital media function is becoming ever-more powerful and starting to grasp at the reins of the whole shooting match.
You see, when even Goldman Sachs Capital Partners (the company’s private equity fund) turns down the opportunity to invest in Facebook – and does so (in part) due the lingering burning sensation that remains from the serious injury it received when the dotcom bubble burst – you have to question the longevity of Mr Zuckerberg’s monster.
And when Facebook falls – and it may already be on shaky ground, given there have been no membership number updates since July (is it possible, whisper it, that people are beginning to sign off?) – what will be left of the social media phenomenon that was going to change the way we communicate? Whither the social media gurus then? Whither the value? Eh?
Anyway – don’t take my word for it – read all about it here. (Thank you, Fortune magazine.)
Proof, if any were needed, that the world is no longer a suitable place for right-thinking people like you and me, blog snorkellers mine, in light of the fact that it has gone completely and utterly hatstand.
Here’s some numbers for you. $500m. $50bn. $2m minimum. Can you tell what it is yet? How about $850m and $10m (or less)?
Well, the first set of figures is what the workers of God (the lovely people at Goldman Sachs) have invested in Facebook (in conjunction with some Russian oligarch), the apparent valuation this puts on Facebook’s business and the amount of liquid lolly you would have to ante up to participate in God’s social media investment vehicle. The second set of figures is what the founder of Bebo sold his company for in 2008, and the amount of money that was paid for it by a venture capitalist in June last year.
Now Bebo, according to Google Trends (March 2010), had around 1.5m unique visitors. Facebook, according to the same Google Trends in the same period, had roughly 210m. At which point, if Bebo is to be valued at $10m (or less), then Facebook would have been worth a maximum $1.5bn. And now it’s worth $50bn.
Absolutely amazing growth. If only one could invest in it. But – hold on – now you can! And all thanks to those super and – by common acknowledgement of the very clever people on Wall Street – very clever people at Goldman Sachs. Fact is, of course, through the miracle of trading stuff of which I wot not, that one has been able to trade in social media ‘shares’ for some time – an option that will no longer be available to one if one throws one’s lot in with God. Along with the option of pulling one’s money out if it all goes tits up before 2013.
So, what is wrong with this picture, people? OK, I know you’re all embarrassed to put your hand up in front of so many people, so I’ll tell you.
I think it is highly likely that Les Travailleurs de Dieu will get this one away. I think it is highly likely that many many investors will put their money into the phenomenon that is social. I think it highly likely that this headlong rush to make money out of the shiny thing will contage (hey, looky here! I made up a new word) and social media that exist on the very boundaries of understanding will become enormously valuable and a new generation of uber-geeks will become – if they sell at the right time – hideously wealthy. I think it highly likely that, despute the recent opportunity to learn from our mistakes, another bubble will expand and burst, leaving far more losers than winners. God – through his Workers – will be, most likely, a winner.
As someone who has some knowledge of these things said to me: “if they float, short them. Short the shit out of them.” Sounds sensible to me.
Anyway – as evidence that you can always find someone to support any argument – here’s a piece that’s probably more rational than my post. Enjoy!
Morning snorkellers.
Yesterday, you may recall, I stuck up a much-viewed and widely-discussed (I am almost certain that it probably was) post – Social Media In The Workplace – The Debate Rageth On – in which I set out my (by now pretty ragged from overuse) stall of arguments as to why allowing employees access to social media during working hours is not, on the whole, a Good Thing.
This was in response to a post on stopblocking.org (do the clickety-doo here) which – unfortunately – I found (and still find) a little too glib and easy for my taste. Anyway, long story short – as I guess was to be expected – the author of the post (one Shel Holtz) has reacted in kind (see, here!) in which he has, quite kindly, actually, put me straight on a number of my points. Again, right-thinking blog snorkellers mine, you may wish to don the mental equivalent of a welding mask before viewing his (lengthy) sounding off, but it does highlight at least one thing. You’re social, or you’re not. The whole debate over its usefulness has become so widespread and heated that there is no choice but to choose sides. Choose wisely, young padawan.
Anyway, Shel also had a bit of a twat about my post. He described it as thinking from the medieval era. Which, in turn, got me thinking. Would it not be fair to say that today’s many-too-many of social media strategists and specialists and gurus and advisers are, in reality, little different from the mendicant monks that would trudge the filthy by-ways and low roads of the 16th century, looking for the gullible and lazy, to whom to sell their fake and worthless relics? ‘Look here, lumpen peasant with your interesting diseases, shiny thing make it all better.’ ‘Be certain of your passage to heaven with this splinter from the one, true media – sorry – cross!’
Wasn’t that time one of mountebanks and charlatans, dissimulation and deceit? Rather than being medieval myself, I rather think I’m trying to prevent those who wish to get all medieval on our asses.
It’s been a long time, gentle readers, since I came across something that deserves an award for its icky, sticky, company hippy nature, its inherent stupidity and intellectual laziness and its truly horrible smug and self-satisfied tone. But today is the day – it chills my very soul to introduce this, the Stop Blocking website and it disheartens me even further to link to this, a piece entitled ‘Demolishing Barclays Communications’ Blocking Argument Point-by-Point’.
Now, for this post to make sense to you, you’re going to have to do the clickety-dickety and read the article. You may wish to have a bucket and a towel handy while you do so and also to warn anyone in the immediate vicinity that your anguished howling is nothing to be alarmed about. Unless it goes on for longer than – say – thirty minutes, in which case it may be the onset of PTSD.
In brief, this is a continuation of the battle between two diametrically opposed viewpoints – that employees in the workplace should have no access to social networks during work hours whatsoever (which I do not believe to be a workable solution to the insidious eville of social) and that employees should be free to do what they want, when they want, simply girdled with a loose set of suggestions and guidelines. Which, as a solution to the problem of social media in a corporate context (and it is a problem, mark my words) is also a nasty pile of cattle droppings. In a nutshell, it’s the Corporate Nazi vs Company Hippy debate, which I have posted about before.
Thing is, the Company Hippy arguments for social media, used here, are the same ones that have been trotted out since social media began. And they didn’t make sense then, and they don’t make sense now. On top of that, here they are dusted with the icing of ‘research’ and ‘example’ – and we all know how easy it is to find support for an argument. Any argument. (Don’t make me give you specifics.)
Here’s just a few idiocies:
All of this is hopelessly Utopian – the ideals of an imaginary world where everyone is nice, contented, loyal and trustworthy. Well, here’s the wake-up call. They’re not, and you need to bear that in mind when thinking about social media use in the workplace.
The solution, however (and it’s the one point on which I vaguely coincide with Stop Blocking) is not to shut down employee access to the internet. You see, it’s the internet that is (or can be) a useful corporate tool, it’s the internet which – as much as I still think this is a sucky argument – ‘resets concentration’ – not social media. Social media is wasteful and vainglorious. The internet is (partly) full of useful information, commentary and viewpoint. Social media is full of weak-minded individuals who honestly believe that what they do and think is of interest to others (see Twitter).
How can you do it? Some companies have a couple of open-access machines in their public areas, for employees to use when they’re on breaks and time spent on these machines is (obviously) monitored by other employees – much like smokers on smoking breaks, internet users will be kept honest by their peers. Other companies make internet access a privilege, granted to those who’ve achieved – promotion, sales targets, whatever – although this is obviously a little elitist. Others allow internet access, but block social media sites – possibly the best of the options.
What is essential, however, is a good, solid, draconian Use of Social Media Policy and an internal communication plan to make sure that no-one can claim ignorance of it. Needless to say, this Policy should outline clearly how an employee may represent the company or brand online and in social media – what is acceptable and what is not – and, most importantly, make it clear that it applies 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Enforce it rigorously, because there’s nothing like a public hanging to make people understand that you are – and it is – serious.
‘Despite the fact blogs (sic) no longer have a lot of social media sex appeal’ – no, not my words, but the first line of this tremendously fine post about blogging in a corporate context.
Yes, you should be blogging, for all the reasons set out here. No, I am not going to paraphrase it for you, you lazy bunch of blog snorkelling butterflies, do the hot clickety and read it for yourself.
All I would add is that to be truly effective, you’ve got to get the tone of voice right and be consistent. This means that you cannot let anyone in your organisation blog on your behalf without due process, monitoring, control and boiling in oil of transgressors. Sorry, but that’s the way it is if you are to avoid the one-way street to the village of Serious Cock-Up on Thames.
I am sure, as promised in the post, the next blog (post) (which will ‘address some of the key ingredients for a successful company blog’ ) will cover all this obvious stuff.
Hey, blog snorkellers – whassup?
Just a quick one – yesterday’s rant about a certain global PR concern and its lack of control over its own blog (social media + no control = the chocolate cupcake of cock-up) – well, two things.
First – they’ve not taken the offending post down. They must have seen me linking to it, they probably read my comments – a bit of action here, people, please. Actually – bugger off – don’t take it down, it wasn’t a bad post. Just edit bits of it. And you know which bits I mean. Go on – do it now.
Second – a further post on the same blog. Now this is genuine genius. Brilliant. Honestly.
Tell me – would it be too difficult to hook up Author 1 with Author 2? My feeling is that everyone would benefit.
And, as I’m not exactly overburdened with spare time myself right this instant, I’ll get straight to the point, dearest blog snorkellers.
Regular snorkellers of this blog will know where I stand. (What’s that? ‘Just to the right of Genghis Khan’? See me afterwards, Blog Snorkeller Minor.) Social media, while not exactly evil (in themselves), are much overrated and are certainly no great shakes in the big MacDonald’s Happy Meal that is marketing and communications. But they are potentially dangerous – which is why I have always advocated tight controls on, and careful monitoring of, their use in a corporate context. There is, sweet reader, massive potential for you and your brand to be sitting, waiting, at home for Mr Fuckup to call.
My other pet bugbear (I breed domesticated bugbears – small, furry, friendly and – if you keep them well fed – they won’t eat your children) is the lack of real talent in PR. Enthusiasm maybe, talent, not so much. And the appalling lack of basic skills. This has always been the case mind, but, for god’s sake, if you can’t write, what are you doing here?
So imagine my delight when I come across this.
Oh yes, people, a blog on behalf of a big PR agency. And they’ve let some hapless staffer loose ‘as part of the foodie contingent of the H&K blogging bunch’. And she can’t write – “Although the initial instinct is that there can be nothing less festive than a pot noodle, it begs to differ that the mere intrigue of such a flavour will generate sales on its own.”
So – it’s a twofer! I’ve got a PR person who – while undoubtedly enthusiastic – is in need of some training, and I’ve found it through the medium of social! (Well, a blog is social media, isn’t it?)
Serious questions, mind. Who’s moderating the H&K blog, why didn’t they spot this and why doesn’t the company have a more stringent policy in place? Far, far worse – this is a global communications company. They’re supposed to be good at this shit. Much reputational damage on the wold, I’d say.
(I really do hope I’ve haven’t left any typos in this. Now really would not be the time.)
Content is the new strategy, blog snorkellers mine. By which I mean, of course, that it is the latest concept to have a achieved a truly global misunderstanding of what it means, what it stands for and what it does.
For my entire working life – and I’ve posted about this before – I have marvelled at the business world’s complete inability to agree on a common definition of strategy and thus, as a consequence, its complete failure to produce anything of any value to anyone. I’m sure I am not alone when I say that I cannot remember the amount of times I have been confronted with the mantra – objectives, strategy, tactics – and the amount of times that the three terms have been interpreted in different ways. As I understand it, the concept of ‘strategy’ is what business is predicated on – how, therefore and for the love of god, has anyone ever managed to get anything done, given that strategy turns out to be a meaningless construct, created, I can only surmise, to give consultants something with which to justify their enormous fees. (Mind, I shouldn’t really complain as I, too, have had my share of enormous fees generated on the back of fuck all.)
Anyhoo, dear followers, I digress. Content, you see, in this age of digitalisticity, has become the new strategy. Everyone’s talking about ‘content’ – by which they mean (broadly speaking) the holy grail of nebulous shite which, once posted on t’interweb will, miraculously provoke the ‘big conversation’ and, equally miraculously, sell some branded nonsense. The problem, however, is that no-one knows what ‘content’ actually is – and, trust me, spending too much time thinking about it will result in a ‘Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ moment, because it doesn’t really exist. Content is really (and very simply) all the stuff you probably had before – video, brochures, boilerplates, messages, Q&A, position statements – all the stuff that you needed to communicate effectively, and which simply needs to be re-packaged (or not) for the medium.
Problem is that somewhere along the line, as the hysteria around social media built, it was decided that ‘content’ was something that was more than the sum, or the essence, of what already existed and was, in fact a completely new thing. (The closest I can get to it is Unobtainium in ‘Avatar’ and we know what a distasteful pile of greying, unwashed y-fronts that was.) It’s a new medium, said the snake-oil salesmen, corporate hippies and purveyors of digital voodoo, and therefore it needs a new type of ‘content’. And so the concept of ‘content’ passed into modern folklore – and became something that everyone had heard about and no-one understood. Special delivery – another set of undergarments for the Emperor!
(Of course, I’m actually behind the curve with this diatribe because, just as the smarter amongst us are finally beginning to realise that social media are not new media, but simply the old media delivered differently, and that the rules by which we played with old media are the same rules by which we must play with new media, and that Twitter is not, in actual fact, a good message delivery system, so those same smarter amongst us are also realising that social media cannot be leveraged as sales and marketing tools. And thus the concept of miracle ‘content’ is redundant before it even got on the job.)
Anyway – here is some content. This is the sort of content that makes the internet go round. Or square. Or long and thin and squiggly. Whatever shape the internet is. This is the sort of content that defines content. Some may find it funny. Others stupid. But I think we can all agree that it is ‘content’.
And no, I do not now wish to rush out and buy a cat. No matter what brand of cat.
It is hard to type, blog snorkellers mine, with your head in your hands and your eyes clouded by roiling waves of despair.
What gives, the more solicitous of you (I am sure) will want to know. Well, since you asked, it’s this. ‘This’, for those of you who have an issue wid da clickety-boo and don’t want their screen cluttered up with too many windows (oooo – we might lose track of what’s open and be surprised later and that would NEVER do), is a link to Metro, a UK-based free morning paper. A bit gossipy, a bit sensational, maybe even a little lightweight – but influential, no doubt. I don’t know what the circulation is (and if you’re that interested, you can go find out for yourselves) but it’s a lot. No-one turns down a free paper.
(Apart from fusty old codgers who insist on paying for The Thunderer. Oh, and social workers who couldn’t live without their morning lean-to-the-left from The Guardian. And, of course, Middle England, which wouldn’t be Middle England without being constantly whipped into a frenzy of mindless bigotry, casual racism and general outrage by the super, soaraway Daily Mail. Apart from them.)
Anyway – and the link to Metro’s website doesn’t do any sort of justice to the full horror of this – this morning’s front page feature was all about Facebook reaching 500m users. And lots of little ‘factoids’ (26m users in Britain – that’s a third of the population!) and some mealy-mouthed motherhood statements from the boy-demon, Mark Zuckerberg.
C’mon, bloggy people – what’s wrong with this picture?
If you don’t believe me – or if you simply want to marvel at the random fuckwittery that is the bulk of Facebook, have a quick shufti at this. This is Failbook. Mostly shit, occasionally jaw-droppingly, buttock-clenchingly awful.
Anyway, the good news is that this undoubtedly heralds the start of the silly season. Yes, dear communications specialists everywhere, it is time to kick back, dust off the really stupid ideas that wouldn’t stand a chance at any other time of the year, and get filling those empty column inches!
Good luck to you all!
thewordmonger 