Wherein our intrepid hero infiltrates a global network and poses as a native to determine the suitability of online social media in driving marketing tactics.  Subtitled for your enjoyment in Web 1.0.

I've had a Facebook page for a while now, ever since I wanted to check up on some people I used to know and discovered they were on it.  But in order to find out more gossip about them I had to log in and make them my 'friend'[1].  OK, fine.  

I quickly learned that not only were they then aware of my existence, but that for better or worse this put me back in contact with them.  I filled out my fb[2] page profile and pretended to use it as anyone else would, blending into my surroundings.  Unfortunately, my surroundings were filled with people I actually knew and got a kick out of 'friending'[3].

Eventually I created a page for my business to see if it would bring in any new work.  I'll skip to the end for those of you already glazing over and just say no, it didn't.  The only people who cared were the ones I was already in contact with regularly, but this was just another good way to stay in touch.

Bored with this new social media frontier, I attempted to scale Mt. Twitter.  For those of you with the glazed eyes, Twitter is like Facebook only without substance.  You type 140 characters at a time, and people who 'follow'[4] you can see what you typed.  Sort of like a giant unregulated and highly intermittent party line.  

"Get off my lawn!" you say.  Believe me, your lawn is the last place I want to be.  I don't even want to be on my lawn right now.

There's been a revolution of sorts lately, with 'social media consultants'[5] telling companies that they have to 'leverage their business 2.0 assets'[7] to 'achieve two-way communication'[8] with their 'market potential'.  Whatever that is.  What these people tell you to do is get a blog, get a Facebook page, get a Twitter account and start interacting.  

The problem with this is that even though you've achieved and leveraged your potential, you're not generating any business.  They tell you to put links to your Facebook page and your Twitter account on your home page, and yet the point of those endeavors was to bring traffic TO YOUR SITE in the first place.  What's going on here?

The truth is that it only makes sense if your demographic includes random strangers on the internet.  If you are a well-established company then you will allow your web-savvy users to communicate with you in a way that is convenient to them.  If you're Nike, you're just saturating your market channels with your very presence, which is good for advertising and customer relations, but not really building traffic to your site.  But if you're a small local business then it's probably not worth it unless you think it's funny.  Just remember, the number of followers you have is almost meaningless if they didn't seek you out in the first place.

The proper way to approach online communication is from the other direction; if you do research and discover that your market is spending a lot of time on Facebook throwing virtual snowballs at each other[9] then it behooves you to go there and find them.  This is the point at which you think about hiring a social media consultant[10] to manage your social networking efforts.  Start a blog if you want to drive more traffic to your site looking for your particular brand of expertise.  Have your consultant update your Facebook page with events you attend.

But if they ever tell you that you need a MySpace page, mumble something about 'bricks and mortar'[11] and run the other way.  That place is just a wasteland of vapid animated graphics and stalkers.[12]

[1] 'Friend' is in quotes because they were in fact not a friend at all, but there's no option for 'person I used to know and am currently curious about how screwed up they are now.'

[2] fb is slanglish[3] for 'Facebook'.

[3] A word I made up. 

[4] 'Friending' is what you do when you make a friend.  We used to call that 'meeting' but that sort of jargon is so Web 1.0..

[5] These would be your 'followers'.  Your every whim is their command.  Mostly they just ignore you unless you know them already or are stunningly famous.

[6] This is slangrish for 'the recently unemployed'.

[7] Business 2.0?  Really?  I'm not making that up.  I'm not that funny.

[8] As opposed to 'top-down' communication

[9] You can also throw Emperor Palpatines.

[10] I am not a social media consultant.

[11] Slangrish for 'my house', which is the place behind your lawn.

[12] Don't forget to follow me on twitter.  And tell 'em who sent ya.