"Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it" - Epictetus

Social Media

A Shoe Is Still More Useful Than Whatever You’re Doing

I wrote an entire essay revisiting Social Media marketing in South Africa. I wrote about where it is today (compared to a few years ago), where it should be (or how it’s kinda broken) and how to get there (or how to fix it). As I’ve been able to watch things from a distance. I decided to scrap it because I can sum it up in a few very succinct points. It’s pretty obvious really.

  1. Where is my Nike+ for your brand? An effing shoe (and now other gadgets) give me meaningful data and they make it look pretty too. Surely you can do something to offer value?
  2. I want to have some level of control. Give me access to tools. I can solve my own problems too (probably more efficiently than your call centre or Twitter folk).
  3. It’s not a requirement, but being able to connect and share (but not always) with either people I know or people I should know through shared interests can have value. We all haves egos.
  4. Stop spending good money on dumb shit?!
  5. I don’t want to see another shitty brand Twitter account or Facebook page unless it’s actually useful. And by useful I mean not spewing out how “awesome” your brand is, constantly.

Clearly I decided to rant instead. We’re at a point in time where technology allows us to do way more than ever before (it’s always like that). Yet all I see are brands doing the same old. And yes I’m biased, I want to see more utility and value instead of another customer support channel. </rant>

Mobile Is Driving Social Media

Often when I am engaged in or over hear conversation about social or mobile media, the two are often spoken about separately. It seems as though social media is generally seen as a desktop experience first, with mobile being an afterthought to reach those who are not in front of their desktop.

I remember writing a blog post about 3 and a half years ago asking if social media was mobile (archived when I re-launched my blog). My conclusion was that social media was mobile. Although the experience was basic and less than what we are accustomed to today, almost all of the major “social media” services (Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube, etc) had mobile web versions of their service.