As 2011 winds down, it’s time for me to reflect on the state of my social media world in 2011.
Things that I thought I knew about social media in 2011:
1) That I knew what I was talking about
Just because I might know more about social media than the average person, it didn’t preclude most corporate heads to assume that they knew just as much about social, if not more, than I did. Can you say bite your tongue?
2) That the whole ROI thing would have sorted itself out by now
We’re getting closer, more and more corporations seem to now understand that you need to associate some type of KPI to a social initiative, which is a start in the direction of measurement; but you still had the camps of “you can’t make money from social media” to “let’s just grow our audiences across all social platforms and call it a win”. Ugh!
3) People would trust what I know and do as I advise
I found out in 2011 that although people would nod their heads in agreement when we’re in the conference room, once I was gone- the silos reemerged, the battle lines were redrawn, the skeptics reappeared and the notion that a consultant was not necessary reared its ugly head-and thus the follow up discussions were slow to evolve. Can you say self doubt?
4) We had gotten over being enamored with the quantity of friends, followers, fans and likes
Some have and some have not and we’ll leave it at that. It’s a blog post in and of itself.
5) Corporations were ready to be transparent in 2011
They’re ready as long as they have their social media policies in place. Even then, after the policies are in place, there’s transparency and then there’s “their” definition of being transparent-on their terms, and not the terms of the masses. It’s actually a start.
6) That the “new guard” would be saying something different
New social media faces and new social media names talking and preaching about things we talked about 4 years ago. Where is the disconnect? Is the customer not getting it? Or is the consultant not listening? Or are we still not there yet? Do we want them to repeat what we have been preaching? Maybe so.
7) That the “old guard” would have evolved
Old faces and familiar names talking about the same things we talked about 4 years ago. Is nothing new? Or do people just not get it? Or is it uncorrelated wisdom? Do we need to start teaching SM 201 and 301?
8) That FB would get to 1billion users in 2011
This is going to happen but I am starting to see little tiny micro-cracks in the Facebook brand. Can you say Facebook Burnout, Blowback or Billion?
9) That Twitter would be making money by now
Well they sorta are making money and they are rolling out custom pages for brands. Does that count as truly making money? No. The problem? Would you pay 5 bucks a month to use Twitter? No. Would you pay to advertise on Twitter? No. That’s my point. I think I might have predicted in 2009 that Twitter would be making money by now as well…Le Sigh
10) That 2011 would be the year that corporations would be ready to adopt social media both internally and externally
Ha! Just because I got in to the boardroom and we were talking about it, didn’t mean it was going to be happening anytime soon. Of course I thought 2010 was going to be the year as well. Can you say mad silos?
11) Brands knew what they were doing on Twitter.
Last time I checked, brands are still using Twitter as a push style vehicle for marketing and selling product. Some have gotten creative, but most are of the Tweet with a link with no conversation camp….Does it work? Let’s ask them? Oh wait we can’t because all they do is tweet links and sales. Is there an alternative? Sure there is, don’t do it in 2012.
12) Google Buzz would be around.
Silly me to think that Google Buzz was viable. Actually it wasn’t. Neither was Sidewiki or Wave either. What’s the over/under on Google Plus survival? 2 years?
How do my “things I thought I knew compare with yours? Let’s share.
