- “I will never hire a ‘social media expert,’” writes Peter Shankman in a much commented-on post that’s been tearing up the Twitter charts in the past few days. “Social media, by itself, will not help you,” writes the social media entrepreneur.
- Social media strategist Alan Wolk writes a column defending those gurus, whoever they are.
- Ricky Engelberg, Nike’s Global Digital Innovation Director calls the “Like” button the most valuable thing on the Internet. A billion cat videos beg to differ.
- If allowing people to Like your products and therefore lead others to them is valuable, it isn’t yet that valuable in the mundane make-some-bucks way. As Peter Yared at VentureBeat puts it, “Most products have too short a shelf life to accumulate many Likes. In addition, very few people are clicking Like on a product since it is broadcast to all of their friends, and instead are using the ‘email to a friend’ feature so they can ask a select set of people if they like an item. Email is really making Facebook miserable when it comes to e-commerce.”
- If people avoid Liking companies’ products, it might also be because they’re not really that into what companies have on offer. According to a recent study by IBM, companies mostly think people want to be friends with their brands, but what they really want is a good deal: “… a majority of consumers say the top reasons they interact with companies via social sites are to receive discounts and make purchases, but companies rank those as the least likely reasons customers will follow them.”
- All that social media probably is taking up valuable time that could otherwise be spent at the proverbial watercooler or perhaps even working–as PC World puts it, Social networks distract at work. Seriously.
[Image: Stallio/flickr]
