Cartoon: For a Massive Fee, I'll Show You How to Do It Right
I'm not sure what it is about social media. Here we are in this field that's still emerging/exploding (or "explerging", to use the trademarked term from my upcoming book, premium podcast, and $4,000-a-seat webinar) and constantly morphing. Yet there seems to be this powerful drive to lay down absolute laws about what works and what doesn't.
Blogging? You should be posting twice a day. No, actually that's too often; it abuses people's attention. Wait, actually that's not often enough; other people will eat your lunch. Actually, blogging's dead, so move to Twitter, where you absolutely must follow everyone who follows you, unless you absolutely mustn't, so don't, unless you do. And when they do follow you, sending them an automatic direct message will either lift you into the Twitter elite or damn you to eternal ridicule. Possibly both.
I've fallen prey to this temptation myself, so I say all of this with a certain amount of chagrin. But I hope I'm on the road to reform: embracing my uncertainty, and vacillating with confidence.
(By the way, the title of Chris Brogan's smashing blog post inspired the Neanderthal's line in this cartoon.)
Share
Facebook
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
You are so right, it feels like everytime I start working on something new, it supposedly died the day before and I'm suppose to move on to the next big thing. I'm exhausted. haha
its like when you buy stuff in bestbuy when you reach home its absolete already.
http://blastoffpress.com
http://evolvhealthy.com
yep well i need all of youre opinion peoplestring.com
Hahah.. that is what a consultant is right? they make a living by conning & insulting their clients :P
Oh boy, I am so glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. It seems like everyone has a different opinion. Guess only time will tell who is on the right track.
Fwiw, I've done tons of quality consulting on non-obvious social media matters where clients gained from my experience and insight concentrated into a small number of hours. They gladly paid me hundreds of dollars for each of those hours and neither they nor I are stupid. :)
I'm a designer/developer who is thinking about adding social media consultant to my list of services. For two reasons: 1) I've been using a lot myself and starting to figure out what works, and 2) my clients have been asking for ways to increase traffic.
@Marshall Kirkpatrick
What makes your SM consulting work of higher value than that of other SM consultants, especially considering your high volume of work? Any secrets you could share?
@hj, not presuming to speak for @Marshall, but I'm not sure there are any particular "secrets". I think it's more a question of having something valuable to offer.
Like expertise garnered from a lot of experience actually using these tools, and participating in and animating communities. Like knowledge gleaned from the systematic study of why and how people participate, online and offline. Like a rigorous ongoing personal practice of research and learning about this changing field. Like using every engagement as a chance to test, refine and sometimes reject hypotheses about what works and what doesn't in social media. And like clearly identifying what is grounded in fact and research, and what comes more from intuition and informed conjecture.
From everything I know of Marshall's work, writing and speaking, that's the standard he adheres to.
FWIW, I wrote more about certainty in social media a while ago on the Social Signal blog.
P.S. - Full disclosure: when I'm not cartooning, I'm a social media consultant, too.