Tag: linkedin

Is the social media business model dying?

Have the social media companies reached their peak?

Is the social media business model dead?

The frenzied rush to release new features such as Facebook’s latest changes, along with Google’s updates to their Plus platform, may be the first indication the big social media business model is broken.

Driving the adoption of social media services has been the value they add to people’s lives; MySpace was a great place to share interests like bands and music, Facebook’s is to hear what was happening with their families and friends, LinkedIn is for displaying our professional background and Twitter keeps track on what’s happening in the world.

Now the social media services want to be something else, Facebook wants to become “a platform for human storytelling” where you’ll share your story with friends and friends of friends (not to mention the friends of your mad cousin in Milwaukee) while Google+ wants to become an “identity service”.

The fundamental problem for social media services is their sky high valuations require them squeezing more information and value out of time poor users by adding the features on other platforms; so Facebook tries to become Twitter while Google+ desperately tries to ape Facebook and Quora.

Adopting other services’ features is not necessarily what the users want or need; you may be happy to follow a Reuters or New York Times journalist on Twitter for breaking news but you, and them, are probably not particularly keen on being Facebook friends or professionally associated on LinkedIn.

If it turns out we don’t want to share a timeline of our lives with the entire world but just know how our relatives or old school friends in another city are doing, then the underpinnings of the social media giants value may not be worth the billions of dollars we currently believe.

This isn’t to say social media services themselves aren’t going away, it could just be that the grandiose dreams of the online tycoons where they become an identity service or a mini-Internet are just a classic case of overreach.

For Google and Salesforce, whose core businesses aren’t in social media, this could be merely an expensive distraction, but for those businesses like Facebook it could be that Myspace’s failure was the indicator that making money out of people’s friendships isn’t quite the money maker some people think.

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Re-evaluating social media

How are you using social media services in your personal and business life?

We often forget the Internet as we know it is less than thirty years old and many of the social media tools we use have been around for less than five.

In such a new field, we’re all learning and experimenting which means some tools become essential while others are recognised as yesterday’s shiny toys.

As the depth of the name wars and the related privacy issues become apparent, it’s worthwhile re-evaluating how we use these services. Here’s how I’m now using some of the online social media platforms.

Foursquare

I quite like Foursquare, the idea of knowing which friends are nearby when you’re out on the town is great. But as someone who has a dismal social life, it was wasted on me.

The gamification angle is interesting, but the privacy implications of the service make me uneasy. I’ve stopped checking in and will probably close down my account pretty soon.

Empire Avenue

As a sociological experiment on the rampant egos and deep insecurities of the social media community, Empire Avenue is wonderful. Otherwise, it’s just another spammy online application trying to harvest personal information – I came, I saw, I decided life was too short.

Quora

On first glance, Quora looked good, but the changing of posts by moderators concerned me, the cliqueiness of users was the killer and I closed my account. I suspect Google Plus will kill this platform.

Google Plus

Apart from being a Quora killer and having some interesting collaboration feature, there doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason to use Google Plus instead of Facebook.

While it’s in its early days, I’m finding it less than compelling while Eric Schmidt’s claim it is an identity service rather than a social media platform deeply unsettles me and makes me less likely to engage in conversations on the service.

Facebook

When Facebook first became available I was intrigued as able to connect with relatives along with past and present friends always struck me as being one of the Internet’s killer apps. As various business features evolved, it was clear Facebook was a serious online tool.

The problem with Facebook has been the way strangers become friends, not to mention how acquaintances and relatives have a habit of posting private things you don’t particularly care to know about, along with the wave of invites to games and applications that come and go.

Overall, I’ve been using Facebook for business purposes rather than sharing private information for nearly two years now. That works, but it isn’t the intended use and I’m probably not getting the maximum benefit although I am preserving some modest degree of privacy.

Linkedin

As a means to establish your professional credibility, LinkedIn is unbeatable. For those with a lot of time, the various professional LinkedIn groups can be a valuable way to show your industry knowledge.

One thing that surprises me is how many people notice your status changes so it is certainly a good way of keeping your business network up to date with what you are doing.

The concern with LinkedIn is similar to Facebook and Google Plus in that there’s a lot of market intelligence being gathered on our professional networks and the recent attempt to ‘enhance’ social advertising around our online personas does not fill me with confidence that LinkedIn is the best platform to be displaying our professional abilities.

Twitter

I’ve had a turbulent relationship with Twitter and it took me three attempts to really see the point. I’m still careful about what I post and who I follow.

However Twitter has become my main news source and I find it keeps me ahead of the major media outlets. For this reason alone, Twitter has become the social media service I use the most.

What occurs to me in writing this is that these social media tools are really about listening, not talking or marketing. Perhaps that is the point we’re missing in the noise generated by these services, that listening is where the real power lies in these online platforms.

The six tools I’ve listed are just a small subset of a massive range of social media services, I’d be interested in hearing which ones you find useful and why.

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