As a followup to my recent rant about faith-based arguments, I grappling for a better label for a social media proponent. Aside from the obvious consultant label (self deprecating barb), I came up with the idea of replacing “social media evangelist” with “social media pragmatist”.
Imagine what Twitter would be like if people spent more time admitting that some social media were not adding much business value. Conversations could be less opinion based and more factual. We wouldn’t have to hear the same old tired stories about the hype spot of the day or that crummy low margin etailer who everyone loves because its CEO tweets alot. We could get down to discussing business transformation and measurable outcomes. Boring things like sales, leads and net promoter scores could become the only meaningful metrics.
One can only dream…
I think these conversations definitely exist. You just have to find them. Do I participate in all of them? Heck no. I’m 24, trying to promote myself and actively recruiting clients. I’m going to brand myself essentially as an SM Expert…because that’s what sells. I refuse to use the title though.
It’s tough because when one builds that kind of an audience…your reception to more fact heavy/case study heavy posts definitely decreases. I try to mix it up…but you can’t cater to your audience to much. You have to make them think.
Thank you for writing this – I couldn’t agree more. I think the recession has extended and exacerbated this problem: everybody working on a product or website feels threatened by a lack of capital, resources, and security, and feels a strong compulsion to “always be doing something”. Do I really need 35 Tweets in a single day from a ‘media evangelist’ who marks up Wordpress blogs with fancy CSS? Wouldn’t just one do?