2009: Moving Beyond Social Media Whispers

Posted by: Krishna De | Posted on: December 31st, 2008 | 2 Comments | Posted in: Business blogging, Communication, Media strategies, Networking offline, Networking online, Social media, Social Media Ireland, Social networking

This is the fifth guest blog post about social media and online communications predictions for 2009 and our contributor is Tom Murphy.

Tom Murphy There’s an apocryphal story about British soldiers on the front line planning a night-time offensive during the First World War who sent back the message: “send up reinforcements we’re going to advance” to HQ by word of mouth. It eventually arrived as “send up three and four pence we’re going to a dance”, illustrating the dangers of indirect communication and Chinese whispers.

It’s a lesson that might also be applied to the always-on, knee-jerk type of broadcast and response we sometimes see on our favourite social media channels.

A small and rather innocuous personal example took place in Manchester on December 5th 2008 at the Don’t Panic Guide to Social Media event. I am a pragmatic optimist when it comes to social media. I am a strong advocate, but I believe – rightly or wrongly – that we need to avoid the blind adoration of the new new thing and instead we need to build an understanding of how social media along with our traditional tools enable people and organizations to communicate more effectively. It’s sometimes too easy to get carried away, and a sense of perspective is often useful.

Anyway, back to the Chinese whispers.

There were two interesting things that happened during my talk at the event. Firstly, during the mandatory audience poll, I found that well over 75% of the audience were on Twitter – which is staggering and illustrates just how quickly new social media tools are being adopted, and secondly I found out the potential perils of Twitter when making a public speech.

I should point out before I go any further that my delivery typically uses humour and that I am a “long-time” if not prolific Twitter user. When I found out how many people were using it, I made tongue-in-cheek quip about Twitter, which I later found out didn’t go down well with some people Twittering live at the event.

The result was very interesting. Although some of the in-room Twitterers didn’t appreciate my humour, they never raised their concerns in the room during the Q&A, but instead published their distain on the event’s back channel which was dissected in real-time by a global audience – none of whom heard what I actually said – but all of whom felt qualified to provide a critique. It was the perfect illustration of social media whispers.

I had one Twitterer saying to someone (not me) that the only reason that I “hated” Twitter was that Microsoft (my employer) didn’t invent it… (I never said I hated it) Separately I was chastised and told that people “lived” in Twitter and therefore saying anything against Twitter was like saying you “hated where people live”…. I kid you not…. I had people calling me “old-school”… None of these “skilled” observations were based on what I actually said, but that doesn’t seem to matter.

The motto de jour seems to be, don’t let the facts get in the way of a good rant.

I think that there’s an important learning here. Someone once told me that you know when a technology has moved into the mainstream when the industry conferences go away. I think you also know when something has gone mainstream when the users stop taking everything personally. For example if I made a quip about e-mail, there probably wouldn’t have been any feedback – maybe there’s a message there – excuse the pun.

From a personal viewpoint it has caused me to re-think whether it’s advisable to speak publicly on these issues anymore. While the feedback from the audience – who were actually in the room – was incredibly positive (based on evaluations), the fact that something could be taken out of context and distorted around the web is a real issue – for everybody.

Back in 2005 when I took up my current role I thought long and hard about maintaining my blog (which had been running since 2002). I decided that as long as I was clear in terms of the editorial policy of the blog (e.g. marking all entries where I discussed my employer’s products under a category: “He would say that”) then it would be manageable.

But public speaking is a different matter. Humour and irony can all too easily be misconstrued into “Microsoft’s Murphy says….” whether you’re speaking in an official or personal capacity. Manchester was a storm in a teapot, the next time it may be different.

I think this is a pity. Why are people hiding behind keyboards when there’s the opportunity to discuss any perceived issues out in the open? Surely that’s one of the great strengths of social media?

I believe that as we head into 2009 we need to be pragmatic about social media. Rather than being blinded by the shiny new thing, I think we need to realise that while social media and Web 2.0 offers some fantastic means of enabling people to connect, communicate and share information, we should not forget that people also use traditional channels and tools. We all need to take a view of the bigger picture.

In my little world if you are serious about actually engaging with people, then you must use a combination of both approaches built on an actual, real world insight into who your audience is, and where your audience are.

If some people view this as “old school”, then so be it. I personally think it’s pragmatic optimism.

I’ve no doubt that over the next twelve months we will see social media expanding. We’ll probably see new services and tools emerging, and we’ll also continue to see the numbers of people using and participating in social media – from podcasts, to blogs, to networks to Twitter – continuing to grow. Getting more people online and engaged is how we will see social media’s importance rise. But to achieve that we must avoid the “A-lister” or “inner circle mentality” – this is social media after all.

My hope for the next twelve months is that we see the numbers continue to grow accompanied with more calm and reasonable discussion, without the hyperbole. Social media is already a phenomenon, it’s doesn’t need the hype.

ABOUT THE GUEST BLOGGER

Tom Murphy looks after PR and Corporate Social Responsibility for Microsoft in Ireland. He’s been blogging since 2002, uses Twitter (connect with him @tpemurphy) sparingly and has some kind of low key presence on everything from Facebook to FriendFeed, LinkedIn and Plaxo. His personal e-mail is tpemurphy AT hotmail DOT com and you can catch him on Live Messenger with the same address.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

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