The Ugly Side of Social Media

If you’re familiar with group development models then you know that there is an evolutionary aspect to the process of people getting together. My favorite group development model is the Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing model because I can relate to those stages in the groups that I am a part of, as well as see it in everyday life. sidenote ~ this model is especially apparent when watching celebreality television.

With all the talk about social media snake oil, these days, it appears that social media is smack dab in the middle of the storming phase of the group development model. This Olivier Blanchard post contesting the way that the International Social Media Association has gone about establishing themselves as a certifying body illustrates the storm rather nicely, shout out to Greg Matthews for hipping me to it today.

What’s Great About Social Media Storming

Other than the fact that I truly believe all groups must go through a storming phase in order to have any chance of getting down to norming and finally performing, here are some things that make the social media snake oil storm worth following:

naming names Justin Kownacki has done an awesome job of calling “marketers” out for their questionable practices. However, for the most part, when people talk about social media snake oil they’re talking about the nameless, faceless social media snake oil salesmen out there right now. Much like the Boogeyman, the Tooth Fairy, and Chuck Norris, social media snake oil salesmen appear to be mythical creatures hellbent on ruining social media for the rest of us… Nobody has actually seen one or knows what one looks like, though.

accountability How can anybody call somebody else inferior and not claim to be superior in the process? That is an awesome conundrum about the storming phase of social media. It’s not cool to proclaim expertise in the field of social media, because nobody can be an expert, because it’s just too new and constantly changing. Claim to be an expert or a guru and standby for flames. So how is this humanly possible? It may not take an expert to know what fraud looks like, but it does take some assemblance of expertise to feel confident enough to call another person out. Especially if that someone happens to be a mythical creature.

concern for the customer The main reason social media snake oil salesmen are bad seems to be that they have the uncanny ability of locating naive Fortune 500 companies, effortlessly navigating through countless meetings, processes and reviews in order to out pitch individuals with better social media track records, and sign fat, incentive laden contracts only to not deliver on the promises that they made, and ultimately give social media a bad name.

Seriously?

When Will It Be Over?

Nobody knows the answer to that one, as the storming phase of any group’s development only ends when the norming phase begins. The thing that I think everyone needs to remember is that this is normal, or at least not unique to social media. Pretty much every career path I’ve ever looked into had separate factions with differing schools of thought. Friction is a necessary ingredient to progress and the only way that a group of people can transcend into achieving their full potential together.

As with any other discipline, I think that there is plenty of room for experts and snake oil salesmen alike in the realm of social media. After all, you can’t have good if you don’t know what bad is…