Is Anyone Listening to Social Media Anymore?

I feel my current observations beg this question.

Many are discovering the joys of social media, and as more people are pushing out their materials, whether opportunists or conversationalists, I feel like there is more and more pushing happening, than actual listening, are better yet, engaging.

3 Points of Evidence

The Anti-Fan Movement: The brilliant Geoff Livingston alluded to this very issue himself when he recently recently wrote, “Twitter’s incredible growth has caused incredible follower populations and corporate/personal marketing activity. It’s also causing a backlash.” In his full post, he also alludes to three other bloggers who also allude to this same phenomenon. Thus, Livingston decided to take action and therefore installed the “Geoff Livingston Anti-Fan Page.” According Livingston, the anti-fan movement is for those that “…are tired of follower packs, friend counts, and clamours for social media popularity. (and Livingston is not alone in his thoughts…)

Mark Drapeau (aka @cheeky_geeky) shares this observation based on his post, “SXSW? Forget It,” where he reminds us that we biologically can only remember so much mentality. And thus, alluding that the #SXSW tweets alone are so saturated with information by more people using Twitter that it’s hard to follow the backchannel conversation. Drapeau greatly reminds us of the important piece of information that we can’t remember ALL that information. He also reiterated one of my favorite quotes: “It’s not information overload, but filter failure.”

Reverse Networking Effect: This article discusses the “reverse networking effect,” that in sum, describes the process that when new people join, others are motivated to leave. I find this true in myself when it comes to Twitter followers. I used to be so excited to get connected, engage and learn from a new person, and now, follow invites are often pushers, those trying to sell or get me to subscribe that I find myself becoming disheartened to some degree. I strongly encourage reading the article as it gives some good brain food to chew on.

What’s Your Observation?

Okay, I shared with you mine, and some other people’s opinions, what about yours? Do you feel people are still connecting online? Still engaging in that personal, authentic and communal spirit?

flickr photo credit: Orange_Beard

6 thoughts on “Is Anyone Listening to Social Media Anymore?”

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Joseph Jaffe March 18, 2009 at 10:06 am

Great food for thought.

Ironically, I would not have stumbled upon this post if not for your tweet which in of itself was very serendipitous in nature i.e. random view of my current stream of 7,000+ followers which update/scroll so quickly that it’s virtually impossible to get anything but an occasional glance (and in this case, the valuable insight/nugget)

I guess I’ve just learned how to find order from chaos which is resignation that my information flow will always be random and opportunistic 🙂

Alex Post authorMarch 19, 2009 at 9:14 am

@Joseph Honored by your visit, and I’m glad I could be a good nugget. I also appreciate your optimism regarding our information flow. But oh how part of me misses the good ole’ days… lol

Andre Blackman March 19, 2009 at 7:52 pm

You hit the nail on the head here Alex and it’s something I’ve been thinking about for the past few weeks as my Twitter following has increased quite a bit. As I check into see who is actually following me and then in the next few days I don’t hear anything from them. Geoff points out another thing regarding “twitterpacks” – where I do find that there is value in finding other like minded individuals, I often times get people who are selling a health food product. Not really interested in that. All the tools that are sprouting up to aggregate tweets into comfortable, market-research chunks are kind of getting on my nerves. Ah well, so long to the naive and tight knit days of Twitter. Just have to make more of an effort to stay connected with those you want to.

John Koetsier April 29, 2009 at 1:45 pm

Good question. Now what was it that you were talking about?

🙂

Alex Post authorApril 29, 2009 at 5:49 pm

@John

touche… 😉

@Andre

I definitely hear you on Twitter. If people follow me, I always usually try to say something to them to get to know them better if I follow them back, etc. And rarely, rarely is it that I get a response or anything. But I keep doing it…I guess I just like getting to know people and being a social-Twitter-fly. =)

Wend Cooper May 6, 2009 at 10:11 am

Engage, Engage, and then Engage some more. Is this not the advertising mantra of 2009? Well perhaps there is a fine line of engagement. Who will be the one to find it before it’s too late and we’ve all been fully engaged to the point we just tune it All out? Twitter – I have an address just never have found the time nor the value in all that “junk” and then when CNN started its Twitter thing – oh vey – forget about it. FB – good concept – turned way to targeted and commercial – just change your status and watch the ads change. You can go from “Depression Kills” to “Hot Sexy Partners” within seconds.

I mean I get it, consumer engagement has been my biz for 20 years…but it’s overkill now as it’s not about striking the emotional cord – it’s about inundation – overkill – it just becomes something else to tune out – more clutter in the brain – just something to delete – so are we engaging more – or self destructing this incredible platform for engagement by over saturation of meaningless crud – albeit within it a sometimes small spark of intelligence..

Who the heck has the time for all this conversation….?

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SocialButterfly

Exploring the Art + Science of Social Change.

6 thoughts on “Is Anyone Listening to Social Media Anymore?”