Net Prophet 2010 – Social Media: The side effects (By Richard Mulholland)

Richard Mulholland is the founder of Missing Link, a specialist conference and presentation strategy company, and co-owner of Thunk! SA’s first perspective lab. Rich’s dynamic way of thinking took him from rigging lights at rock concerts to telling CEOs what and how they should present. A renowned speaker, strategist, creative thinker and capitalist punk, Rich is the guy you hire to make your presentation or conference rock. He also has a deep hatred for pretentious biogs, of which his is a fine example.

“Using Twitter for chit-chat is like having a conversation via megaphone.“

A summary of Richard’s presentation:

• In South Africa, we don’t have a lot of access to buying products, but we can download almost anything.
• The side effects of social media are vast:

1. May steal your attention: When it comes to content, your number objective should be to retain, not repeat.
2. May cause excessive loudness: Using Twitter for chit-chat is like having a conversation via megaphone.
3. May kill conversation: Best description from Simon Dingle – “Social media has increased the depth to which a head can be inserted into an arse. Astonishing.” Note: 140 characters does not make a conversation.
4. May lead us to over-estimate the importance of ‘now’: The best stories take time to unfold.
5. Could cause an elevated (sense of) self-importance: Twitter follower counts have become more important than actual impact – it is not a social network, it is an information sharing network.
6. Could make you believe that people actually care.
7. Privacy…. It’s gone! The recent Facebook privacy scandal illustrates this perfectly.

• Conclusion: So what is the antidote? People are the network, everything else is a tool.  (Think about what you would do in real life?) Network agnostic social score: Give an indication of the value that you add, rather than how many people follow you.

Tags: net prophet

Category: Net Prophet 2010