I don’t make it a big secret that I’m not a fan of Facebook. Yet I don’t let the hype about the site get me down too much. That’s because I know it won’t be around forever — at least not in its current dominant role. You know how they say we can learn a lot from history. Well, that goes beyond war and politics. We can learn a lot about social media from its (brief) history as well. And that history shows a common social media lifecycle — one that I see Facebook already taking part in.
This isn’t an anti-Facebook post though. They’re just the largest current example of a social media site that seems to be going through this process. So let’s talk about it, where Facebook seems to be, and where some other big social media players are right now.
The Social Media Lifecycle: What it Applies To
I think it’s important to note that this social media lifecycle doesn’t apply to all social media properties equally. Not only will there always be exceptions to the rule, but this is something I’ve mostly observed from social media sites that start out with a niche focus and move into more general appeal. Those that stick to being niche social networks might not all be immune, but they do seem to go through the process much more slowly if at all. So, for example, this observation of a possible social media lifecycle would apply to sites like Myspace, Facebook, and Digg. However, we’ll mention a few that started out more generalized as well including Squidoo and StumbleUpon. [click to continue…]
digg,
facebook,
myspace,
social media lifecycle,
squidoo,
stumbleupon,
Twitter
Credit: BigStockPhoto.com
A few days ago freelance writer Laura Spencer (@TXWriter) tweeted a link to a Mashable post. The hyped up headline read “Facebook Now Controls 41% of Social Media Traffic.” Before I even read the post my gut screamed “Bullshit!” It often does that. My gut is rather talented at sniffing out shady statistics. It must be that past life in PR where we all learn that statistics can say just about anything we want them to if we twist them enough (my disgust of that attitude makes me hypersensitive to them now).
Then I did read the article. What I found was baffling (okay, it wasn’t really — it was about what I expected):
- Charts with no reference points related to the supposed trends shown
- Assumptions about people jumping from one site to another without any real evidence to back that up (and data charts right in the post that contradicted the claim)
- Other statistical claims that didn’t jive with the “relative” charts shown in the post
- Big social media sites being completely left out of the comparison
- Whole niches of social media completely left out of the comparison
- Sites that probably shouldn’t have been included but were
- A huge social media site included in the first set of stats suddenly disappeared from later ones
Yikes. I bet you’re wondering why I haven’t linked you to the post yet. That’s because it seems to have gone “Poof!” Vanished into thin air it did. Because of that I won’t pull the actual charts to show you the problems (doesn’t seem right to publish their charts when they’ve pulled them — especially when it wasn’t even clear in the post if they belonged to Mashable or were Comscore charts taken somewhat out of context). However, I do want to highlight something from the cached version which illustrates my biggest problem of all: [click to continue…]
facebook,
mashable,
myspace,
statistics,
youtube
Credit: BigStockPhoto.com
Spam. Eww. Who wants it, right? Unfortunately spam isn’t confined to email inboxes. It’s rampant in the world of social media. These days spam comes in all shapes and sizes, from entire blogs that are spam to itty bitty tweet spam. If you’re serious about using social media marketing to promote your business, you can’t afford to be labeled a social media spammer.
That “spammer” label can be a hard thing to shake. The thing is, you might earn the title completely unintentionally. What you consider innocent might be viewed very differently by the people you’re trying to reach through your social media marketing efforts. [click to continue…]
comment spam,
foursquare,
link spam,
myspace,
social media,
social media spam,
spam,
tweet spam,
Twitter,
twitter spam
Why Spamming Social Media Won’t Get You Very Far
By Jennifer Mattern on April 5, 2010
Credit: BigStockPhoto.com
Spam. Eww. Who wants it, right? Unfortunately spam isn’t confined to email inboxes. It’s rampant in the world of social media. These days spam comes in all shapes and sizes, from entire blogs that are spam to itty bitty tweet spam. If you’re serious about using social media marketing to promote your business, you can’t afford to be labeled a social media spammer.
That “spammer” label can be a hard thing to shake. The thing is, you might earn the title completely unintentionally. What you consider innocent might be viewed very differently by the people you’re trying to reach through your social media marketing efforts. [click to continue…]
comment spam, foursquare, link spam, myspace, social media, social media spam, spam, tweet spam, Twitter, twitter spam
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