“The main reason for [companies not admitting dearth of Social Media skills] is personal technologies have outpaced business technology for the first time in a generation,” Keith Privette replied to me. Great observation- so key. Instead of consumers having second exposure after businesses have understood and implemented a new product or service, consumers have the essential dibs, the first right of refusal: they have chosen to popularize Social Media because of how innately useful, effective, and egalitarian (in the sense of a meritocracy) it is.
As you’ve read, I’ve been curious lately about where it’s all heading. In the next ten years, what will be the ultimate nuanced importance and overt importance of knowing that ten Facebook posts per day a real SM presence do not make? Working in Social Media is difficult in a different way than is, say, the field of law, because at least in the legal field, someone can respectfully/realistically aspire to – and one day actually be seen as – a guru. (Pardon my use of the word.) In an emerging field such as ours, it is difficult for someone to appreciate that seasoned, experienced SM strategists do base their expertise on learnable concepts. Those concepts, however, change everyday and that’s why SM gurudom is (and wonderfully so) like nailing jello to the wall.
If we think about how young the consumer internet actually is, (maybe 15 years?), and we think about the rate of growth during that time, it makes it very difficult for anyone to guess what will happen more than 2 years into the future.
What we can do is to accept the fact the growth won’t be slowing down and then develop strategies designed around keeping up the pace in the race.
Came across this relevant clip today too… Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel try to explain what the internet and email are way back in 1994…
http://gizmodo.com/5746613/back-in-1994-people-had-no-idea-what-the-internet-was
@Kendrick That clip is excellent. Is it wrong to mock them? I was just asking my friend @BunnyMcintosh about this when she posted the meme… I probably sounded equally 14% as ignorant in 2008 asking my friends what Twitter was. However, I am pretty sure that even in 1994, in elementary school, I was asking Jeeves plenty.
Your point is a great reminder, though. Predictions are audacious. At least, very specific ones are… It is safe to say the likelihood of reverting to Motorola pagers is low.
Update- Katie’s comeback:
Brian Solis and Katie Couric: Turns out Couric Understands Social Media
That’s respectable.