At Spring Creek Group, we love case studies. They are the easiest way to explain to clients (and future clients) why social media is important and such an influential way to start actual online conversations. So imagine our pleasure when we were able to turn the case study microscope upon ourselves, after an unexpected opportunity was thrust upon us by someone we have never met.
The situation: As a leading Social Media agency, Spring Creek Group is sometimes asked to comment on industry events or trends. Our CEO, Clay McDaniel, is our appointed spokesperson. It's usually a good opportunity for him to comment in an established media publication, part of the "mainstream media" if you will.
#0000cc" target="_blank" href="http://www.dmnews.com/Could-social-networks-replace-e-mail/article/120427/">Clay's recent post at DMNewsincluded the phrase, "We're all spending plenty of time in our social network accounts,"a fairly innocuous phrase that nevertheless set the social media wildfires ablaze. Over at#0000cc" target="_blank" href="http://bly.com/blog/general/were-all-spending-time-in-social-networking/"> Bly.com, professional copywriter Bob Bly took particular offense with the word "all" and provided the following response,
Now Bob Bly is an established copywriter, and technically he is right. In a strictly literal sense, the use of extreme words such as "all,""never," or "no time" should rarely be used. But instead of arguing semantics, let's follow the social media train, which is far much more interesting. Unlike a read-only advertisement, this conversation doesn't end with Bly's criticism on his blog. And if there's any form of online media more conversational than the actual blog post, it's the post's comment thread, where Clay gets criticized once again, from a poster named Brian who complains,"I for one spend NO time on the social network sites — Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn — where I have accounts. So Clay is wrong....There are very few instances where "all"— which in Clay's statement is synonymous with "everyone"— can be safely used."
"That's the general problem with the Social Networking crowd. They surround themselves with each other, so it appears to them that everyone is doing it. And once you think that everyone is doing something that thing suddenly seems to be really important."The complainer has taken Bly's specific technical argument and taken a broader brush to slam social media professionals in general. This is the fear of big corporations, who are scared of social media because of what a random blogger or commenter might say about their product. Advertising is positive, while social media invites criticism. And that rightly frightens people who are managing marketing campaigns for lousy products. But marketers sometimes forget that when someone who doesn't fully understand your product criticizes it, you are just as likely to have an evangelist come to defend you with a much stronger and relevant argument. Such is the case here, where a champion of Social Media pops up and politely criticizes Bob Bly for being out of touch with today's environment. #0000cc" target="_blank" href="http://bymichaelforeman.com/2008/11/09/bob-bly-and-antisocial-media/">Michael Foreman writes on his blog (which includes a trackback to Bly.com),
...If you follow (Bly's) blog, you know he hails from a time before web 2.0. He's skeptical of social media trends...So why have accounts on Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn if you never check them?... I think a little old school bias shows through his statement. Even big business and law enforcement are turning to sites like Twitter for feedback and communications. And the last election demonstrates the raw power of social networking. (See MoveOn.org, and more recently Change.gov, Obama's new transition site.) No, you don't need to be plugged-in 24/7, or get a Facebook account because it's 'cool' as one comment on the post suggested. But we live in an age of paperless newspapers, iPhone apps, viral marketing, cloud computing and an increasingly mobile workforce. It's good to log in every now and then."So let's track this:
- Clay McDaniel contributes to an article on DMNews.com.
- Bob Bly criticizes the article and writes disparagingly about Clay Daniel (sic).
- Clay is then both attacked and defended by Bly.com readers.
- A thoughtful response is posted at ByMichaelForeman.com, who judging by his blog, may be the most interesting read out of all of us.
- And then of course the story comes full circle back to the Spring Creek Group blog.