social media

Social Media is Social – So Why Closed Comments?

Take a look at the phrase “social media” – what would your response be if you were asked its literal meaning?

The most obvious answer would be media that is social – whether that’s participating in an online group, sharing your views on a topic or leaving a comment on a blog, offering your opinion and insight. So why do so many proponents of social media come across as anything but social?

I’m mainly talking about blogs that either have closed comments, or require you to register with the site to leave a comment. Maybe it’s just me, but personally I feel that takes away the whole social aspect of social media.

My take on social media is that it’s a combination of different tools and communities, all coming together to offer an invaluable and co-operative journey with online friends. Even business social media is more about how businesses can reach their customers effectively and pro-actively, therefore building a loyal online database that ensures the company’s growth and sustainability.

So why potentially ruin this new world by sticking with the old cliquish approach of invite-only commenting?

I know that it’s down to personal choice as to whether you allow comments on your blog or not – after all, one of the negative sides of the blogosphere (at least in the early days) has been the puerile comments that are often left.

(Although thanks to the likes of BackType, the quality of blog comments should hopefully improve to a consistent level of maturity along the lines of those found on the leading social media blogs).

But isn’t this what comment filters are for? Having the option to approve all comment posts before publication eliminates (or at the very least, greatly reduces) playground-level comments.

Perhaps the blogs that have closed comments or require membership to post a response do so in the belief that it helps build their own specific community. This seems plausible, since the majority of blogs that I’ve come across with closed or member comments only do seem to be of the business variety.

I can’t help but feel that they’re missing out, though. Sure, a members-only comment option may encourage a number of people to sign up so that they can join in the discussion. Yet at the same time, you can pretty much guarantee this is a far smaller number than the amount of commentators you’d get with an open comment policy.

And if you don’t know what your readers are really thinking, aren’t you missing the whole point of building your brand and voice through the social media medium? Doesn’t seem like good business to me…

What do you think? Does it matter if comments are closed? Do you feel the need to share your opinion on something you’ve just read, or are you more interested in what’s being said as opposed to what you want to say? I’d be interested on your views.

Why High Profile Bloggers and Social Media Consultants Will Survive the Economic Downturn

There’s been a lot said recently about blogging, and in particular high profile bloggers and social media consultants. A recent article by leading technology blog ReadWriteWeb looked at how much the top bloggers and blogging consultants were earning, while Mich over at Social Media and the CIA broke it down into three easy chunks of average earnings.

What’s interesting about the second piece is that Mich raises the question whether the “consultant bloggers” who make the top tier earnings could soon be extinct, due to the current economic climate. While it’s certainly a valid point, I don’t think there is a worry that outsourced consultants are heading toward extinction.

Many of the most successful companies know the value of an outsourced or freelance consultant, both from a knowledge and cost-effective point of view. Consultants can look at a business’s approach from an unbiased angle and therefore without the blinkered view that someone that’s put sweat and blood into the company would naturally have.

This ensures that any weak points that may have been glossed over can be addressed, in turn strengthening the company and helping it toward future success and growth. Yes, consultancy fees can be high, but the rewards are more than worth it.

Outsourcing also offers a proven way to keep costs down. While there may be the initial cost of hiring the consultant in the first place, this is only for a small amount of time – look at the problem, make suggestions, and move on. Compare this to continuing to make costly errors due to a biased or unqualified approach.

Nowhere is this more true than in the burgeoning social media scene. Businesses are slowly but surely becoming aware that they need a social media presence to keep up with (or stay ahead of) their competitors. Having a poorly thought-out social media strategy can be worse than not having one at all.

This is where social media consultants will continue to succeed and offer a valuable service. The very nature of social media means that today’s buzz can be tomorrow’s roadkill – having someone on your team that understands the medium and works with it is a necessity. Just because Jack in accounts has a Facebook profile does not mean he’s a social media expert.

Of course, social media is maturing and there will be some applications and sites that simply disappear. You could day that once the medium reaches its zenith, there’ll be no more need for the guys who are currently leading the social media consultancy field. However, the strength of leaders in fields is that they can adapt and move with the flow.

When social media reaches its peak – which it is sure to do – there will be a new form of interactive medium for everyone to get to grips with, both personally and professionally. The guys that are heading social media now will more than likely be the guys at the forefront of whatever’s next. This is where their worth will come in, and keep them from becoming extinct.

Nobody wants to see people lose their jobs at any time – unfortunately it’s a sad and simple fact that this will happen in the current climate. The forward-thinking businesses will see that continuing to use an outsourced consultant can help them keep the damage down to a minimum, while advising on how to start the path back to profitability and re-employment.

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Is Social Media Already Over?

In a nutshell, no – social media is not already over. It is, however, most definitely over-saturated.

Look at the bottom of this post – you’ll see the nice little Share/Save icon, as well as footer options to share this post with your friends on Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Stumbleupon and Delicious (and please do feel free to forward this on – always appreciated!) 🙂

Hover your mouse over the Share/Save icon and it opens up a whole host of other social media sites where you can submit this post to, should you so desire. Go one step further and click on the small downward arrow near the bottom of the Share/Save list. This offers even more social media sites to share this post with – well over 100, in fact.

This is too much (and a reminder to myself to edit the amount of Share This options). Who in their right mind would join 100+ social media sites? I think I may be on about 10 or so and even that feels a little too much, although I do use each end every one of the sites I’m on.

Mention social media and it’s pretty much guaranteed that these names will come out: Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Technorati, Mixx and Reddit. Yahoo Buzz is becoming more popular while newcomers to the scene like BackType and MeeID are starting to build up a nice head of steam.

But what about the others that make up this 100+ list? Have you heard of Pusha, or Gravee, or Yoolink? How about Twiddla or Taggly? Apart from having names that George Lucas might use in his next movie, the abundance of these social media sites are what’s causing people to be wary about stepping into the social media pool in the first place.

Look back through the ages and it’s clear that the most successful products or services were the ones with the fewest choices – VHS or Betamax video tape, Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo, cable or satellite TV and so on.

While there’s no doubting that social media offers a wonderful opportunity to truly open up the world to everyone for the first time ever, it’s also apparent that there needs to be a reining in of the services available. Yes, choice is great but not at the expense of scaring everybody away through confusion.

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The True Meaning of Social Media

So, social media. It can be pretty confusing, right? After all, one person tells you one thing about it while another person tells you the complete opposite not 5 minutes later. And then the day after, you have someone else telling you it’s something in-between the previous two explanations! No wonder social media is so confusing. So what does it mean?

To be honest, social media is exactly what you want it to be. You want it to be a way of finding cool and interesting websites that you would never have found before? Sign up to Stumbleupon. You want to know what blogs are popular? Get yourself a Technorati account. History of all the comments you’ve ever left? Backtype. And the list goes on.

For me, however, the true meaning of social media can be found in the way that people who would normally be business competitors offer support, knowledge and different expertise to those who need it.

I’ll give you an example. On my Twitter account, I’m probably connected to around 40 or so people from the PR and copywriting industry, whether it’s through me following them or them following me (or both, even). Now, in the “normal” business world, they would be competitors so you’d think the last thing we would want to do is help the other out.

Yet instead, Twitter sees any request for help or advice answered almost immediately, and often with information that would offer a distinct advantage if kept private. Now to me, that’s social media at its finest.

Yes, we’re all in business and we all want to succeed, but gone is the “at all costs” attitude of the last decade and beyond. With the Internet opening up a whole new world of commerce and potential customers, there really is enough to go round for everyone. And people are realizing that.

Not only that, but people are also encouraging others to succeed and offering up the tools with which to push for that success. You can’t get much more of a truer meaning of social than that, media or otherwise. Perhaps we should get the leaders of the world into social media? After all, they could use all the help they can get.