What “One thing” annoys me about social media?

I had the privilege of speaking to a great group of marketing leaders from the Sr. Marketing & Operations Roundtable (MM&O) of SMPS in Seattle this week at the offices of KPFF Engineering.  Generally my audiences are their bosses – the CEOs and Business Owners of companies and organizations.  But today, I got to speak to them.

I have to admit, I wasn’t sure how well my message would go over based on some of my past experience with marketing leaders – especially those who choose not to accept social media as a legitimate marketing approach.  This group was different.  They were receptive, open minded, and anxious to learn more about what I was seeing in the area of social media – today and in the future.  I have to personally thank John Roth from Versaire Group for introducing me to the group and arranging for our discussion.

After I had spoken for a little over an hour and we were having a lively discussion about the material, someone in the back of the room, Debbie Lematta from AIA Washington raised her hand and asked what I thought was a GREAT QUESTION and one I wish got asked more often, “What “one thing’ really annoys you, someone living and working in social media every day, more than anything else?” I didn’t have to think very long, unfortunately…because the answer is in front of all of us every day. It’s simply one word…

NOISE – from people claiming to be “social media experts” and companies missing the opportunity to use social media the way it was intended.  After talking to thousands of leaders and hearing how they are using it, over 70% of the people are using social media in a way that creates a tremendous amount of “noise” – more and more every day.  Noise, simply defined, is “volumes of self-promoting, non-helpful information their audience didn’t really need to know – making it all about them.”  Unfortunately, this overshadows those who are truly  trying to HELP their audience and share valuable insights, perspectives, and content.  Turning down the noise would change everyone’s view about social media and bring a lot more value to their business.

CEOs, Business Owners, and Business Leaders tell me when they go onto the social networks, all they see is a bunch of “worthless comments that add no value to them and simply take up their time, causing them to be more and more frustrated.”  When marketing, social media “experts”, and others using social media to communicate understand the core value in social media is the PULL factor, not just 365 more channels to PUSH their messages through, it will be an amazing place to find, interact, share, and engage with others and truly get the ROI social media has to offer.

That was my answer and the audience unanimously agreed – NOISE is a primary reason many stay away or don’t “engage” in using social media.  Right now it takes work and time to find the right content on a consistent basis, but it can be done and there are many people sharing great content if you know where to look.  If everyone just asked a simple question before sharing, “Is this going to HELP my particular audience,” we would be on the right track and would significantly reduce the noise factor.  After all, people still vote with their wallets so if companies expect to get any “votes” they better start campaigning differently…

Thanks again to the MM&O group and John for giving me this opportunity to have some fun at 7am in the morning!