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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Clubhouse Arrives on Android, FB’s Group Accelerator Program, Gen Z Likes Influencers

Happy Monday, y’all! Some big social media tech news this week as we are already in the middle of May. Summer is around the corner!

 

The wait is finally over for Android users, Clubhouse is here. It looks like it’s being rolled out to US users first, with the rest of the world getting it soon. This may actually get me back on Clubhouse. An influx of new users will bring new perspectives and it will be interesting to see how this impacts the quality and type of rooms, as well as the overall experience. Plus, it will be curious to see how this impacts download numbers.  I suspect this won’t have the impact it would have if this had been launched for Android a couple of months ago when Clubhouse was white hot. The buzz has cooled considerably toward Clubhouse, so this could give them another shot in the arm, or be much ado about nothing. We’ll find out soon enough.

 

Following Clubhouse’s lead, Facebook is putting more support behind its accelerator program for groups. From Facebook: “Selected community leaders will spend five months learning from experts, coaches and a customized curriculum so they can organize and strengthen their community to work better together. Participants will then spend three months executing their initiatives. They will collaborate with advocates and leaders in the community space and work with the Facebook team to bring their ideas to life.” Selected admins will receive training and mentorship, funding, and access to new products and features before they go live.

 

I’m a bit surprised that millennials aren’t following more influencers on social media. This study found that 28% of 16-23 year olds follow at least one influencer on social media, and 23% of 24-37 year olds do. The same report found that the main reasons we use social media are: “keeping in touch with family and friends (50%), filling spare time (37%) and reading news stories (36%).”

 

So that’s it for another Monday’s Marketing Minute. Another big content week on tap here, posts every day through Friday.  Hope you have a wonderful week, thanks so much for reading!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Clubhouse and Facebook’s New Social Audio Apps, IG Hides Likes, Which Countries Use Social Media the Most

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope you’re ready for a great and productive week. Here’a few marketing and digital stories that caught my eye…

 

Clubhouse is inching closer to launching an Android version of its social audio app. This news comes as Facebook began beta testing its own social audio app called Hotline. I think social audio makes more sense as an additional functionality added to current platforms versus a standalone app.  I’m really excited to see what this functionality could look like integrated into LinkedIn, for example. I also think Clubhouse’s ability to build and retain loyalty with its top creators will be a huge factor in its long-term viability.

 

I am always in favor of hiding vanity metrics from social media sites. This post perfectly explains why. Years ago, a study was done into what determines popularity. Thousands of teens were selected and they listened to dozens of songs by new artists. These were songs that none of the respondents had heard before. The teens were broken into multiple groups. The first group listened to each song, then at the end they were asked to rate the song, and they were given an option to download the song if they liked it.

Another group was asked to listen to the same songs and rate them, but this group had the ratings and number of downloads shown from the first group. What the researchers found was that the songs that were rated the highest with the most downloads, were more popular.  Then for the third group, the ratings and number of downloads were not only shown, but the songs were also ranked according to both rating and number of downloads. Researchers found that when the ratings and download numbers were added, the most popular songs were downloaded at an even higher clip.

What this shows, in my mind, is that we are lazy. We let other people decide what’s interesting or worth our time, rather than judging a piece of content on its own merits. We scan for number of Likes or comments or RTs and use those numbers to quickly judge the value of content. This is why I am in favor of any move to hide such vanity metrics on social media.

 

Think the United States is the top country in the world for time spent on social media?  You would be wrong, the US doesn’t even crack the Top 10!  People in the Philippines spend just over 4 hours (yikes!) a day on social media. The average American spends about half that time on social media.

 

So that’s it for this week’s Monday Marketing Minute! Are you subscribed to my newsletter Backstage Pass? Every Friday, I give you tips and advice on how you can create happy customers that drive real business growth. I also profile how brands are doing just that. Add your email to the banner below and click Subscribe!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Clubhouse to Launch Creator Accelerator Program, Facebook to Enter Social Audio Space

Happy Monday! Welcome to the first full week of Spring! I hope you have a busy and prosperous week ahead, here’s some digital and marketing stories I noticed the last few days:

 

So two of the biggest questions everyone is asking about Clubhouse are “Is it going to last?’ and ‘Will it be acquired?” We may have gotten a hint at the answers to both when Clubhouse recently announced it’s Creator Accelerator Program. I absolutely love this idea. What Clubhouse is going to do, is take a select number of its room hosts, and give them the tools and support they need to accelerate the growth of their rooms and clubs. Everything from audio equipment to working with brands to secure sponsorships and speakers, to compensation. Moves like this will absolutely drive loyalty for Clubhouse, and it’s not lost on me that other social media sites could have made similar moves to support its content creators in those early years, and didn’t. This will resonate with users and could signal that Clubhouse is building something that will last, and that the founders want to keep as a standalone platform.

PS: I talked in-depth about the current ‘creator economy’ that we are entering in last Friday’s issue of my Backstage Pass newsletter. If you want to subscribe, click here!

https://twitter.com/joinClubhouse/status/1373680825049391105

 

After some speculation that Facebook might want to acquire Clubhouse, it now seems that ‘The Social Network’ is planning on building its own social audio functionality into its platform. Now, going back to what we just discussed with Clubhouse’s Creator Accelerator Program, consider that Facebook wants to give you the ability to create a similar Clubhouse-style room, on Facebook. If you are a Clubhouse user who has a room and/or club on Clubhouse, and you are in Clubhouse’s Creator Accelerator Program, will you now be interested in also building a new social audio community on Facebook?  Probably not. You would probably devote your time to building your platform on Clubhouse, especially since Clubhouse would be using its Creator Accelerator Program to support your growth. This is an important point: Facebook and Twitter can copy the social audio functionality. but if Clubhouse is doing a better job of SUPPORTING its creators, guess who will likely win?

 

This really seems like a bad idea waiting to happen.  Facebook is considering a version of Instagram just for kids under 13. Instagram blocks kids under 13 from using its site, but the site also notes that some kids are able to get on the site anyway. So the rationale is, let’s make it easier for them to get on, but only have them interact with other kids their ages, and not adults. Parents and privacy groups will be watching this story very closely, as they should.

 

So that’s this Monday’s Marketing Minute. I hope you have a wonderful week, be sure to check out #ContentCircus tomorrow night on Twitter starting at 7pm Central, and look for Backstage Pass to hit your email this Friday morning (if you are subscribed!). And I’m thinking there will be another post up here either tomorrow or Weds, so keep an eye out for that as well!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Facebook vs Australia, Why Millennials Buy, Spend Emails on Friday

Happy Monday, and welcome to ‘The Week When Things Started to Get Back to Semi-Normal!’  I can finally see the ground again, almost all the snow is gone. I hope my friends in Texas are staying to dig out as well, I’m hearing good reports. Let’s hope last week was winter’s last gasp, and the warmer Spring temps will start this week!  Let’s dive into the news!

 

This will be a fascinating case study. Australia recently passed a series of laws governing the sharing of news content saying that Facebook and Google would have to share its revenue generated from sharing and distributing links to news content via its platforms. Australia is said to be making this move to help local publishers, especially print media. Google is apparently willing to go along with this, but Facebook will not. As a result, Facebook has BLOCKED the sharing of all news content in Australia. It will be fascinating to see who caves on this first; If it’s Facebook, that will simply encourage other countries to make similar moves. If it’s Australia, that means Facebook will have even more advertising leverage. I suspect Facebook has drawn a digital line in the sand here and will hold out as long as they can.

 

Insights from eMarketer into what prompts millennials to make a purchase. It’s interesting that the top factor is free shipping, but the second one is coupons and discounts. The reality for eCommerce sites is that customers now expect free shipping. I think even to the point that it’s worth adding free shipping even if you have to raise prices slightly to cover the cost. Since the expectation is there for free shipping, when many customers get to the checkout and see there is even a $7.95 shipping charge added, it can kill the purchase right there. When it comes to ecommerce, focus on adding convenience (free shipping, easy returns) and it will increase purchases and revenue.

 

So it turns out I was accidentally ahead of the curve in launching Backstage Pass on Friday! It seems emails sent on Friday have the best engagement! Those sent on Tuesday have the worst, which surprises me a bit.

 

Speaking of my newsletter, I’d love for you to subscribe! It hits your inbox every Friday with a deep dive into the marketing, digital and content strategy advice and inspiration you need. And it’s pretty indepth, which is why it’s delivered on Friday, so you have all weekend to ruminate over the (hopeful) pearls of wisdom! You can check out last week’s issue here, or subscribe by clicking the image below!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: US Adults’ Digital Usage Up, Facebook DAU Down, Clubhouse’s ‘Oprah’ Moment?

Happy Monday, y’all! I hope you’re ready for an amazing week as we say goodbye to January and launch into February! Here’s a few stories I noticed to get your week off in the right track:

 

eMarketer has found that US adults spent an extra hour with digital content in 2020. Now my first thought was, workers that typically commute to work stayed at home in 2020, so they gained back an hour of time right there. This is all about understanding and focusing on the changes in your customer and client lives as more of them are now working from home. This, and all indications point toward an increased appetite for digital content, and that creates opportunities for your company, if you know how to leverage them.

 

Ironically, as the above eMarketer study finds that US adults are spending more time with digital content, comes this story from Social Media Today that found that Facebook’s number of Daily Active Users in the US was actually DOWN in 2020. Count me in that group, over the last few years I’ve gone from checking Facebook a couple times a day, to now maybe checking a couple of times a week. Most of the time I now spend with Facebook is with Facebook Groups that are devoted to marketing and business. I think we will see core user usage metrics fall or stagnate for both Facebook and Twitter in 2021.

 

My timeline this morning was all abuzz with Elon Musk popping into Clubhouse. Probably 75% of the tweets in my home feed were about this. When celebs use a social media platform, it brings a lot of extra eyes to it, and Musk’s popularity is white hot right now, and that will definitely benefit Clubhouse.

 

That’s it for this week’s Monday’s Marketing Minute! Hope you have a wonderful week and don’t forget to check out #ContentCircus tomorrow night on Twitter at 7pm Central! This week we will be discussing How to Create Buyer Personas For Your Content Marketing Strategy! It will be a great discussion on a very valuable topic! Tomorrow post will be on the same topic, so see you back here in 24 hours!

 

Oh wait…let’s do one more! I thought this story from The Hustle about the illicit trade for the world’s most expensive fish was interesting, but click through and check out the photos of the fish.  Yeah, I know, $300,000 for a fish is completely bonkers, but look at those colors! The fish themselves are absolutely gorgeous!

 

Ok I’m done, see you tomorrow!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Big Facebook Lawsuit, Radio Revival, Twitch/Wendy’s Team-Up

Happy Monday, y’all! I hope everyone is having a wonderful December and is getting ready for Christmas and the Holidays! On a personal note, I wanted to thank all of you for your support since I ‘re-launched’ this blog in late August. All of us have dealt with adversity this year, and 2020 was already off to a slow start for me before covid hit. I was forced to take a step back and refocus on how I managed my social connections as well as the content I create, and to what end. I’m starting to get the content focus dialed in, and have begun to see the bounce-back in engagement I was hoping for. Your support is what continues to make that possible, and I greatly appreciate it!  Let’s jump into this week’s news!

 

The FTC and 46 states have sued Facebook. In short, they want Instagram and WhatsApp to be split from Facebook, and also put any future acquisitions Facebook makes over $10M to be subject to certain restrictions. This is by far the biggest legal threat Facebook has faced to date. I don’t want to sound like I’m beating a dead horse, but regardless of who our president is on January 20th, 2021, big social media sites will come under increasing legal and regulatory scrutiny. If your company is actively creating content on social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you need to keep one eye on these developing stories, as they could have a massive impact on your digital content strategies in 2021 and beyond.

 

On of the themes I’ve been covering the last few months is how customer behavior has changed as a result of more people spending more time at home as a result of dealing with covid. This has even impacted radio, as people stopped commuting as much to work, audiences for terrestrial AM and FM radio slipped. Nielsen has found that radio listeners have now returned to 97% of pre-pandemic levels. But I don’t think that means we are all going back to our daily commutes to work. What I suspect it means is that some of us are still working from home, but we’ve changed our behavior to start listening to the radio at home. Apps like Tune-In make it very easy to listen to our favorite radio stations from home. So I suspect that once we are completely past the disruptions that the pandemic has caused to our workflows, that we will see radio listener numbers actually higher than they were prior to the pandemic.

 

Man, these kids on Twitch are making a boatload of money! I’ve written before about how Twitch streamers are expert content creators, and the site’s popularity was already growing by leaps and bounds. But so many of us being stuck at home more often during 2020 was perfect timing for Twitch, and the site has taken off like a rocket this year. Companies have been jumping on the bandwagon and sponsoring the most popular streamers. Recently I got an email from Wendy’s talking about a promotion they are doing with different Twitch streamers. It really makes great sense; these streamers often stream for 6-8 hours a day, and their subscribers are paying attention to those streams for hours. So it’s a perfect chance for a savvy company like Wendy’s to promote a service the streamers and audience will need; food!

Hope you have a wonderful week, see you back here tomorrow!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Social Media’s Uncertain Future

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope everyone is having a wonderful week and ready for Halloween! Here’s a few news stories that caught my eye over the last few days:

 

And it appears that the government crackdown on big tech and social media has begun. The DOJ has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google. At the heart of this is the DOJ’s claim that Google takes the profits from its products and ad revenue, and then funnels them back into locking in exclusive agreements to offer its search engine and browser products. I saw one tweet that claimed that 15-20% of Apple’s global profits come from an exclusive agreement with Google to offer its search engine as the default on its devices! Immediately after the election, look for the CEOs of Twitter and Facebook to be hauled back before the Senate, which will mostly be a lot of hot air and pontificating from politicians, but some actual legislative action could eventually arise. As I’ve been saying for over a year now, the day of reckoning for social media is coming, I’d view Google, Twitter and Facebook as a short-term play, not a long-term one.

 

I’ve made no secret of the fact that my time spent on Facebook has decreased dramatically the last couple of years. At one time I was checking in multiple times a day, now I check the site once or twice a week. But while I see very little value on the site now, their Groups are one of the few bright spots. Building on their popularity, Facebook is testing a new concept called Neighborhoods, which would seem to be Groups organized around geographic area. I think this is a great idea and will be very popular. This would be a great way to discuss issues that affect a particular community, such as finding the proper polling location to vote in an election, or how to deal with coming weather issues. A rare smart move for Facebook.

 

And just because we all need a few laughs right now…

Have a great week, y’all! See everyone tomorrow!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Users Don’t Trust Facebook, How Covid Has Changed Shopper Behavior

Welcome to the start of another great week! Thanks for reading, on Wednesday my Movies and Marketing post will feature the movie with the greatest product placement of all-time (what do you think it is?), and on Thursday I’ll do a special post recapping what happened here in the month of September after relaunching my blog. Happy to see the stats are looking pretty good, and I’ll dive into that more on Thursday.

Now, let’s jump into the news!

 

eMarketer had some interesting research into which social platforms are the most and least trusted. eMarketer states that it is measuring trust as “the confidence users have in a social media platform to protect their information and provide a safe environment for them to create and engage with content.”

LinkedIn and Pinterest ranked at the top in first and second, while Twitter and Facebook ranked at the bottom in seventh and ninth. I think there’s two issues at play here, the first is privacy concerns and how comfortable users are in letting these platforms handle their data. But that’s not the only area, because LinkedIn ranked first, even though the platform has had security breaches in the past. So the trust factor also incorporates the actual environment and user experience on these platforms. This is what really hurts Twitter and Facebook, in my opinion.  These sites simply have toxic environments. Users argue and insult each other constantly, and neither site has developed an effective or consistent way to monitor and police content. LinkedIn has much user interaction, but its far more professional and business-oriented in nature. Pinterest is focused heavily on the content (pins and boards), not the user interaction.

 

I’ve been a big fan of the work BazaarVoice does as well as its timely research studies ever since I spoke at its headquarters a few years ago and got to spend some time with the management team. I look forward to their research studies and they have a new one on how shopper behavior is changing as a result of covid. Among the key takeaways, shoppers are becoming more comfortable with the idea of doing more in-store shopping, but want to see stores taking greater measures to ensure safety for shoppers. Honestly, I think this could be the big area where we could see a lasting improvement for the health of shoppers. Let’s be honest, prior to this year, whenever you went to a grocery store, you grab a buggy that’s been touched by who knows how many strangers that same day and who knows what germs are on that buggy. If retailers simply make a better effort to clean their buggies and offer hand sanitizer at store entrances, those changes alone would greatly reduce the change of shoppers catching a cold or other germs while shopping. Very simple changes can and should be made by stores to help promote a more healthy environment for in-store shopping.

 

And for you Pinterest fans, Search Engine Journal has a rundown of a ton of new features the site has rolled out for creators.  And yes, I do spend some time on Pinterest, have actually spent quite a bit of time there the last few weeks.  It’s fun to poke around and look for inspiration and just focus on the content!

Hope you have a fantastic Monday, see you in 24 hours!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: DOJ Targets Google, Twitch Thriving Under Lockdown, Burgers in the Sky

Happy Labor Day, y’all! Hope you had a great holiday weekend and are as ready for Fall as I am! The weather here has been about 10 degrees cooler than normal for the last couple weeks and looks to continue this for the rest of the month. Bring on Fall!

 

It’s been fascinating to watch how consumer behavior has changed during 2020 as we are all spending a lot more time at home. This is also altering how we consume content and the types of content we consume. This actually factored heavily into my decision to double-down on blogging, I think you will see more people spending more time reading and consuming blog content for the rest of this year and into 2021.

Another content source that’s thriving in 2020 is video-game streaming platform Twitch.

I’ve written about how content creators are leveraging Twitch in the past and will have more on this later in the week.

On a bit of a surprising note, the amount of time we are spending listening to podcasts is down slightly in 2020:

https://twitter.com/Claire_Harris82/status/1299678670622085121

This is actually quite revealing. At first blush, you would think podcast listening would go up as we are spending more time at home. But the fact that it will go down suggests that most of us listen to podcasts while driving to work.  The fact that eMarketer is projecting a rebound for podcast listening by 2022 helps support this thought.

What’s the key takeaway? If you are looking to start a podcast, 2021 could be the right to, as more of us return to offices for work, and the daily drive to and from work becomes a thing again.

 

One of the emerging stories I’ve been following the last couple of years is how the big tech/social media giants are increasingly making questionable moves from a censorship and free speech standpoint. I’ve talked before about how Twitter is confusing many of its users with inconsistent application of content policing, but sites like Facebook and YouTube have made similar moves. The reality is that as long as humans are policing content on social media sites, they need to be able to check their own internal biases toward that content, and apply rules evenly to all users. If they cannot, and a culture of bias is allowed to grow and fester at these companies, that can lead to an environment where users either leave, or worse.  I think we will see all big social media sites have few users in 5 years than they do now.

 

I love this. Burger King will be redesigning its restaurants to create more contactless options for food delivery, but also will be moving the kitchen and dining areas OVER the drive thru lanes! I think this is very innovative, Burger King is betting on the fact that people will continue to want contactless options for food payment and delivery after we move past covid, but they are also factoring in that when we do fully reopen, many will want to get out more, and putting the dining area over the drive thru lanes helps create a unique experience for dine-in customers. This will no doubt improve the mood of customers that dine in, which will also improve the mood of the BK workers.  I love this and I would be surprised if we didn’t see other fast food chains try to copy this design.

 

Hope everyone has a great Labor Day, see y’all tomorrow!

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Social Media is Toxic, Broken, and it Needs to Go Away

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.