Remember What Social Media Was Supposed to Be?

Somewhere along the way, social media has morphed into something other than what it was originally intended to be.

Perhaps, most of you like me, can remember when social media was about connecting with friends and family.

(OK, and sharing cute cat pictures too.)

Then business moved in and there was an outcry in some quarters, but, ultimately, most of us grew accustomed to having things pitched at us or being able to interact with vendors.

The Garden of Eden seemed perfect then the serpent slipped in.

Let’s talk about that!

Somewhere along the way, what was meant to be innocent fun became nasty.

Works like trolling, griefing, cyberstalking, and cyberbullying entered our lexicon.

Spamming almost seems innocent by comparison now.

Partisan politics and “fake news” seem to be spreading like a tsunami across the various channels.

What happened?

Good question!

And in one short blogpost, I’m not going to be explain it either.

A couple of hundred years from now, historians, anthropologists, and probably Artificial Intelligence will still be going over the remnants of this debacle.

We can blame the social media channels themselves and we should.

I know that I’ve been a little rough on Zuck lately, but somehow when he set out to establish Facebook in his Harvard dorm room all those years ago, I really don’t thing this is what he intended to create.

After all, all this controversy is probably impeding his study of Chinese.

Nor did any of the other social media channels want to be where they are today.

They’d had their one brief, shining Camelot moment.

Everybody loved them.

They were the darlings of the media.

They were making tons of money.

What could possibly go wrong?

Hubris, perhaps?

They took their eye off the ball and something happened.

But, we the public are responsible too.

We share, or worse create, some of the nonsense that passes for the truth online.

We feed the trolls by getting into endless and pointless arguments online with them.

We believe what we see online without questioning.

Remember the old joke, “If it’s on the Internet then it must be true?”

Well, sadly, it’s no longer a joke folks. 

Pandora’s Box has been opened and it can’t be closed again.

Social media will evolve into something else, hopefully, more mature.

Unfortunately, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

The time has come when we have to ask ourselves, are we part of the problem or the solution?

That’s it for now!

Please check out my 8 step approach for developing a social media program for more ideas on how to use social media.

Also, never forget to reach out to either ask questions or to ask for help from someone like myself! In the meantime, thank you for following and reading my blog.

I look forward to any and all comments that you may have. I will reply to any comments made to this blog post as promptly as I can.

And, remember!

I do this for a living and if I can be of any assistance to either you or your organization, please feel free to call on me. Our initial discussion will be of no charge to you.

I can also be reached at conpsweeney@someddi.com.