Not Buzzed Yet

Last week I while in my Gmail I got a notice of being buzzed. Buzz? What in the name of social media is Buzz? As it turns out Buzz is the Google attempt at to best Twitter and Facebook at their simplistic and yet effective tools at community conversations aka social media. I have still not gotten a hang of Buzz and over the next few weeks I make an effort to get a hang of it.

But this new tool got me thinking. Are we now screaming at each other because we have access to many social media tools? Has our interconnectedness gotten too intimate? What is the fallout of this connectedness and what will be the first signs that our social media binge has reached the early stage of intoxication-buzz. Every day, week and month births a new set of tools that aggregate, disaggregate, arrange or rearrange how we talk to our friends, neighbors, enemies, stakeholders, and oh yes the almighty customer. We are shouting, yelling, screaming all in the name of staying connected. As the shrill and frenzy reach a feverish pitch it will behoove us to ask the following questions:

·     But why do we want to be connected?

·     Why do individual want to be connected?

·     Why do businesses want to be connected?

Everything I have seen suggests that for the individual it is an innate need-which centuries of evolution created a need we cannot explain. On the other hand, businesses would like to take advantage of the need to sell services, products, elicit brand loyalty all in hopes of making a buck. The more things change the more they stay the same. The notion that frequency is one of the most powerful tools in marketing has reasserted itself in the supposed new paradigm of connectedness. If they see it enough they will buy it or buy into it. So now instead of reaching my audience, customer, or stakeholder with billboard, print and broadcast, we are going to reach them through Twitter,Facebook, YouTube and Buzz aka WOM(word of mouth).

Every day I see the same data parsed in different ways to suggest that this trend, phenomena, evolution of social media is marching to the rhythm of indefatigable exuberance. Is it and when do we know it has ran its course? Right before the dotcom bubble tumble, there was a data point that seemed to dog all presentation, formed the underpinning of all ideas, need for capital and dreams of untold wealth-the number of people on the internet was doubling every other day(can't quite remember). It turns out that nobody can pinpoint how that data point was aggregated. Today, I look at some of the data and the extrapolations and wonder whether we have not arrived at the same place again. There are some data points and ideas that have proven to be true irrespective of what is going on at anytime and they can be summed up as follows:

·     Impeccable customer service

·     Great products or services that the customer needs or wants

·     Excellent customer service

The above will always trump any buzz, social media outreach or word of mouth campaign or otherwise. Next week will birth another new tool, and by then I will buzzed beyond the legal limit for driving this passing thought.

 

 

Posted via web from Social Hut