Between folks suggesting that you don’t need a social media expert—Why we don’t need social media experts—and the fact although lots of people have heard of Twitter only a mere few use it—Research Shows Most Americans Don’t Use Twitter—you might think that we’ve been spiking our social media kool-aid with something. I’d say you’re right.
I have no doubt that social media is changing how we create and absorb media. Nor do I have any doubt that this is a good thing. What I think we’ve over done is the depth to which social media has integrated with society. Or maybe what is more correct is how society understands how all the pieces fit together. Consider that in the last 20 years we’ve gone from the Internet being something that only a few people had access to and where AOL and Compuserve were walled gardens of their own to nearly ubiquitous Internet access. In the meantime, the technologies to leverage this vast computer network have exploded in number. I don’t think it’s surprising that there is confusion when talking about the Internet vs the Web vs Facebook and then toss in RSS and social media … really there are so many overlapping and intersecting parts I’m surprised those of us who use the tools every day can keep them all straight.
The gist of the title of this post boils down to: yeah we’re getting there, but regardless of how many celebrities are on Twitter (or leaving or saying that Twitter is so yesterday), I think most people are only now getting accustomed to having the Internet everywhere. I don’t think anyone can say that they have a handle on where everything is now, much less where it’s going. While I thought about the “we don’t need social media experts” post, came to realize that what we need more are people who understand people and how technology relates to their everyday lives. I think saying “this is how we’re going to help your business leverage social media” is just looking at part of the problem. No, we don’t need people to teach us how to be social. We’ve been social for a long, long time. What we need to learn is how technology or service x will help get job y done.
It isn’t about Twitter or Facebook or blogs or any of the parts of social media. It’s helping trickle down the knowledge of how media is changing and how it affects you in real life. And you know, I think for a lot of people, social media doesn’t affect them much at all.
Maybe that’s the real reality check.
