Adversity doesn’t create character, it reveals it.
I had my first exposure to what could be called a ‘social network’ when I joined Prodigy.net in 1991 I have two main memories of being a Prodigy member:
- The users were insanely nice and courteous
- There were very few users
I remember there being many message boards and forums, organized by interests. Some of these had decent activity, others had little to none. But if a forum had posts, there were friendly and civil discussions to read and join. As I said, it was a wonderful environment, and I had no qualms about reaching out directly to users and it was quite common to share a physical address with members and continue conversations via mail.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about those online conversations some 30 years ago, the civil tone as a stark contrast to the toxicity that many social media sites swim in these days.
The Rise of the Shame Culture
In theory, 2020 should have been social media’s finest hour. Never before have we needed to have conversation, communication. Never before have we needed to listen to each other, to understand each other, to learn from each other. So at a time when we all needed to listen to each other and understand each other, instead these social media tools are being used by many to shame others. If you don’t hold a certain opinion, you are being shamed for it. If you don’t hold a certain opinion on a certain issue, you are told to unfollow that person.
I’ve disconnected from probably 25% of my online network simply because these people were being judgmental assholes. And we are talking people I have been connected to for years, some over a decade. But all it took were a few hot-button issues, and suddenly these people turned into tyrants. And they used social media to do it. Many of these same people have advised clients to NOT do the very things they were doing every day on Twitter and Facebook.
Why is This Social Media’s Fault?
It’s easy to look at what’s happening on social media sites right now and say that you can’t blame the tools, you have to blame the people using the tools. I can’t completely agree with that. The reality is that social media sites aren’t built to facilitate conversations, they are built to facilitate engagement.
Let’s look at Twitter. I’m a bit of an outlier, in that I started using Twitter back in the social media stone ages of 2007. If you talk to any long-time Twitter user that joined prior to 2010, they will tell you that Twitter was a completely different environment ‘back then’. Organic conversations that were CIVIL sprung up like kudzu in the South in the Summer. If a day went by where you didn’t get sucked into at least one engrossing 30-minute conversation on Twitter, then you probably didn’t get on Twitter that day.
So what changed? The celebs discovered Twitter:
And those of us that had been using Twitter before they arrived began to notice something: Literally every silly thing these celebs tweeted got hundreds, even thousands of Likes and Retweets! And they gained thousands of followers every day! If you’re using Twitter every day and you only have 237 followers and nothing you tweet seems to get a Like or Retweet, well it’s natural to envy the huge engagement numbers the celebs were getting!
Which often led to a change in behavior. Many Twitter users stopped focusing on engrossing conversations, and started trying to drive higher levels of engagement.
The Birth of the ‘Twitterbyte’
I was speaking at a conference in 2008, and at one point found myself chatting with my fellow presenters. One of the speakers had come up with what they felt was a brilliant idea that they had to share. The speaker remarked how as the audience was tweeting out our talks, they would condense our ideas into 140 characters or ‘Twitterbytes’, So on the fly, this speaker had bought that domain name. But this story is a great example of how we, as content creators, were working within the parameters of the Twitter platform. We were trying to distill complex ideas down into 140 chars so they would be easily memorable and…drive engagement.
As Twitter’s growth exploded, the sheer volume of tweets went through the roof as well. It made it increasingly hard for each individual tweet to stand out. So again, content creators adapted. They started working on how to make their tweets stand out in a stream where dozens of new tweets are coming in every second. So of the changes were innocent enough, like simply adding a picture or a link.
But somewhere along the way, we all figured out a basic truth of social media: If you say something inflammatory, it’s more likely to have higher engagement. Everyone stops to watch the trainwreck. If you are yelling, people will pay attention. So again, user behavior adjusted. Yelling and being outrageous resulted in higher engagement levels.
Notice that we continue to get further and further away from the one thing that made social media so appealing from the start: The power of organic, civil conversations.
Think about this for a minute: How would the way you use Facebook and Twitter change if you had no idea how many Likes a Facebook update received, or how many RTs a tweet on Twitter had received? I suspect you would spend more time actually reading the content and paying closer attention to what was said in order to decide if it was worth your time. I saw this coming years ago and began arguing that social media sites should remove all public engagement metrics. Don’t tell me how many friends or followers someone has, don’t tell me how many Likes or RTs their content gets, don’t tell me how many comments it has. FORCE me to judge the content’s value on the content itself, not on engagement metrics, which can easily be inflated.
Are Blogs Also Social Media? Should They Go Away As Well?
I’ve always had a problem with classifying blogs as being social media. Yes, I get that in simple terms, it probably makes sense to call blogs social media. But I’ve never really felt comfortable with the description. I think the reason why, is that blogs are a space that YOU control. And they are a place where you have the ability to clearly and completely explain your opinions. Whereas social media sites are geared toward engagement, blogs are geared toward conversations. Think of the mess it would be if I tried to take this same post, and put it on Twitter. I’d have to create a thread of probably 50+ tweets that would end up being a jumbled mess that most people would never read all of. A few tweets would get some engagement and shares, the majority would be ignored.
We need less engagement-driven content, and more conversations. I’ve reached a point where I would be fine if Facebook and Twitter went away today. But don’t take my blogs, don’t take my conversations. That’s what we need. We need more opinions, we need less shame, we need more humility, we need fewer closed minds.
At one point, social media was offered as the solution to our problems. Now it IS the problem. And we need to solve it.
You nailed it Mack! “The reality is that social media sites aren’t built to facilitate conversations…”. They are perfectly designed to create the results we are seeing. Always thankful to learn from you.
Thanks Mike! I remember years ago when Twitter took away our ability to see when someone we follow replied to someone we don’t follow, they clarified that Twitter was never intended to be a conversation platform, it was supposed to be a broadcast platform. Over time, users have adapted to that end and their behavior is pushed in that direction as new features are introduced.
Social media sites should be less about cage matches, and more like your front porch. Works in Iowa, can work on social media!
I second that! I started on Twitter back in 2008 or 9 where the social norm was civility in your posts. I actually met people on Twitter that have become friends in the real world. That doesn’t happen today.Twitter is now a cacophony of noise most of which is negative or self-promoting.I loved Twitter and social media back then. I’d watch my feed during the day between patients chiming in when relevant. Now I deligate it. That’s a very sad commentary. I still love writing my beloved blog but real comments are so rare that I’ve disabled that feature. mack, I have followed you since I started in social media and once again you’ve come through with sincerity and wisdom thank you.
Thank you Cynthia! I like how you are linking what’s happening to social media and how it impacts blogs. The engagement has left blogs and has gone to social media. And the QUALITY of those engagements is far less IMO than it would be if it were on a blog.
I guess it’s be careful what you wish for. I remember when people started flocking to Facebook and Twitter, some worried it might result in people commenting on your blog post on FB and Twitter, instead of on the blog. Others said simply having a conversation was what’s important, regardless of where it happens. I’m not sure I agree with that, the quality of discussions seems to be much better on blogs, but unfortunately much rarer, as you pointed out.
Well said, and Prodigy is a great example. Sometimes I talk about how I was on social media before there _was_ social media. BBS discussions were much more fruitful than most social media interactions are now. I think the big difference was that back then, you had to want to do it. Connecting to a BBS wasn’t hard, but it required some knowledge and a modem.
Even Twitter was “hard” in the beginning because the 128 character limit (including links) made you think about what you wanted to say. In fact, the reason I started blogging was that micro-blogging (Twitter) sometimes wasn’t enough for what I was trying to share.
Social is so easy that anyone can do it, so everyone does do it, and lots of folks try to game it. I’m looking for the next frontier where it takes a little effort to participate. Maybe we can call it IRL.
Ah yes, remember BBSes as well. We do need the ‘next frontier’, I know sites like Gab are trying to position themselves as the ‘free speech’ alternative to Twitter, which I don’t think is addressing the core problem of Twitter. I think you hit on part of it, everyone can easily join and participate in Twitter. That can be good, that can be bad. I remember how dramatically the user experience changed on AOL when it went from hourly charges to $25 a month unlimited, and I bet you do too.
Maybe it needs to be a bit ‘harder’ to participate on these sites. Or maybe you have to work harder to see results. That would probably eliminate a lot of the people that are just there to take from the site rather than contribute as well.
Seems we’ve forgotten about the “social” part of social media to focus on only the incredible loudness or quietness of being. And I miss it.
You nailed it. Thanks Mack!!
I’ve deleted and have unfollowed more people in the past month than I have in the past 10 years. Mack, I had this conversation with someone the other day and it goes like this:
Me: Would You consider me pretty knowledgeable about social media?
Her; I would consider you an expert
Me: Ok then listen to me carefully, stay off of social media and find a new way to communicate with people. Social has become a cesspool of hate, misinformation and no respect for the freedom of speech. Social is broken.
Her: Seriously, but that’s how you make a living.
Me: Yea, but I’m done. Social’s moment in the sun has sailed and is gone forever.
To your point Mack, we’re both from the same moment in time. I’m not going to wax poetic about the good ole days but I just don’t recognize the platforms anymore…and brands aren’t helping themselves by trying to portray themselves as sympathetic to any of the things that have transpired over the last 4 months…
YES!!! Absolutely get where you are coming from, Marc. I’ve been doing the same thing with my clients, move communications back to channels you own and have more control over, like blogs and newsletters. All it takes is one moron on Twitter claiming your company did something it didn’t, and suddenly #BoycottMarcsClient is born.
Brands don’t need the grief anymore than we do. Your job is to give your client the best advice you can, and that’s what you are doing. Good for you!
Mack, I’ve been writing about social media for years, advising that it isn’t the be-all-and-end-all in marketing channels. People tend to use the “flavor of the month” marketing tactics without digging into tangeable results. And, studies tend to show how marketers are using channels rather than which are the most effective and reach strategic objectives.
Good article!
Agreed, Elaine, too many companies just jump on FB/Twitter/Instagram instead of picking the tools that work best for them. Just checking off boxes is not the best strategy.
Mack, Thank you for making sense of what I have been feeling. I am so hungry for those old days of conversation, learning, being curious, and collaborating with others who were interested in the same. I’m in, Sir…what’s next?
Hi Michelle! Hmmmm…so you said hungry and that could tie into a food analogy. It seems like we are all talking about wanting to have more meaningful interactions on social media. Maybe more conversations, and fewer snippy soundbytes. Less focus on content to drive engagement metrics, more focus on content that drives learning and understanding.
Back to food, this almost seems like convincing people to eat healthy, when they love junk food! So it’s about changing behavior, and in order to do that, we need to understand either the benefits of doing so, the potential damage from not changing our behavior, or both.
I’ll have to think on this some more, but I like where you are going with this…
I think you hit on part of it, everyone can easily join and participate in Twitter. That can be good, that can be bad. I remember how dramatically the user experience changed on AOL when it went from hourly charges to $25 a month unlimited, and I bet you do too.
I do, and you are exactly right, the user experience on AOL completely changed when unlimited access was introduced. Up till that point, you got something like 10-20 hours a month for $25. I remember rationing out my time, thinking I almost had an hour a day I could spend on AOL. Every minute I spent on AOL was deliberate, if I wasn’t doing something, I logged off.
When it switched to unlimited, everyone could spend all day on AOL if they wanted, and I’m sure many people did. The user experience absolutely degraded.
Same thing happened on Twitter around 2010 or so when the site began to get mainstream attention. Those of us who had been on Twitter since it’s launch had built a community, we had created our own user experience. Then when the floodgates opened you had everyone coming in that had no experience using Twitter and had no idea what the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to use Twitter was. You had celebs then marketers coming and using the platform for broadcasting and self-promotion, where most of us before this point had used it for communication and networking. They peed in our pool, so to speak.
At the same time, we have to control our own user experience. In the last few weeks I’ve unfollowed probably 25-33% of my network on Twitter. My timeline is much less toxic, there’s much less judgement, much less virtue-signaling. There’s also less activity, but I’ll take that trade-off at this point.