{"id":1184,"date":"2010-11-20T08:25:12","date_gmt":"2010-11-20T13:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adam-jackson.net\/blog\/?p=1184"},"modified":"2010-11-20T08:25:12","modified_gmt":"2010-11-20T13:25:12","slug":"can-we-stop-fighting-about-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2010\/11\/20\/can-we-stop-fighting-about-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2605 Can We Stop Fighting about Social Media?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"My<\/a>
Taken at the Las Vegas Hilton, Blogworld Las Vegas 2009<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Maybe writing this will get me kicked off the island. I don\u2019t really care. I registered a LiveJournal account in 1999 and posted my first blog post. I joined Twitter when it was still full of early adopters and techies. I remember signing up for Facebook the day it became, \u201cavailable to all outside of colleges\u201d and I was one of the first 50 people in the world to strap a camera to my head and live stream my life 24\/7 and take advice, tasks and have conversations with people via SMS as my phone number was posted on the website of my stream. I moved to SF in 2008 to hang out with people like me. I didn’t move there to learn more, attend panels and become an expert. I just didn’t have anyone who knew about tech in Florida to hang out with. That’s really the simplistic reason for moving to SF.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been at this for a very long time. It wasn\u2019t called \u201csocial media\u201d. I think my parents called it, \u201cdicking around on the internet.\u201d Either way, none of this is new to me. I made my first dollar from social media at the age of 15 upon selling my first banner ad on a tech blog. It was a laptop bag company in SF and I\u2019m still great friends with the owner.<\/p>\n

I hope readers of this blog will forgive me for uttering the words \u201csocial media\u201d in this space. This is a rare occurrence. Hell, my most commonly used categories are life, ideas and rants. No where in this blog do you see a tag or category for Twitter, Facebook or social media and I like it that way.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m too busy doing it to talk about it.<\/p>\n

I am not an expert despite being called that all of the time. I am not a master of social media. I don\u2019t know what the hell I\u2019m doing but what I do know, I apply. I apply it each and every day. The ideas I propose and execute on don\u2019t always work out but, since 2007, I\u2019ve been making a full-time living from social media. I\u2019ve started a Twitter on-demand community management service that is still in operation working with startups. I work full time for a global navigation company leading and being involved in many of our online community initiatives. I\u2019ve \u201ccoached\u201d quite a few startups and entrepreneurs and have had great results.<\/p>\n

What I haven\u2019t done is sell myself to anyone. I\u2019ve never called someone up or talked about it on my blog so I can achieve SEO for \u201csocial media\u201d and be discovered by a company needing my services. Each client I\u2019ve had was referred to me by a friend and the only clients I ever lost were companies that went under after failing to secure more funding.<\/p>\n

A blog post like this<\/a> really pisses me off. Of course, that blog is linking to this book<\/a> which can be had for $16.95 on Amazon. Be sure to pick up the author’s book *sarcasm*.<\/p>\n

Someone took time to write a post explaining how we should behave, act and conduct ourselves in social media. I get it. Some of these made sense to me but they really just reminded me why I stopped being involved in social media officially on my blog and on Twitter and in day to day conversations. The one thing I attend each year is Blogworld and I do that to hang out with my friends. I learn things but I\u2019ve never been a fan of listening to what someone else learned while doing social media. I like forging my own path and don\u2019t have the time or patience to teach you these lessons. Learn them for yourself. Why are you listening to me blabber on about it?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the issue. Why aren\u2019t we doing?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a hypocrite. I did try to do the whole preachy thing, the whole instructor thing and sell myself to conferences as a speaker. I tried it but realized that I was scratching my own back with \u201ctactics and principles\u201d instead of actually contributing and disseminating knowledge to a group. They should have saved their $500 + airfare and spent those 3 days at home trying and failing on their own.<\/p>\n

There was a viral stealth startup that popped up in SF. The name of that startup was \u201cpheltup<\/a>\u201d There were stickers, tweets, blog posts and rumors of funding and talk of what this company could be about. They even had a fake launch party and a fake \u201cbeta signup\u201d. It was never a real company but the persons behind this made us all believe it.<\/p>\n

I have a task for you. If you don\u2019t have any clients, do that. Start a fake company and market the hell out of it. I want you to get a post on Mashable about this amazing new company and, when you do that, you\u2019ve made it. You sold the Internet on a company that doesn\u2019t exist. Congrats. Now we can talk business. Now you can do this social media thing.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t pay to listen to us talk about social media. Don\u2019t read books. Don\u2019t read mashable. Just do it! Just go out and do it.<\/p>\n

Anyone that really knows me would say one of two things:<\/p>\n

A)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Adam is a freaking genius and is leading the way in social media and strategy. TomTom is lucky to have him.<\/p>\n

B)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Adam is a total fake who just hangs out in social media to drink with the cool kids. He has some basic skills from doing it for so long but he\u2019s selling stuff a freshman college communications drop out could show you for $50 or a large pizza from Domino\u2019s<\/p>\n

Heh.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll admit there was a time when I got caught up in my own bullshit. SF & social media & tech rubbed off on me. There are folks who do what I do who aren\u2019t full of themselves. They\u2019re out there but most of them aren\u2019t at conferences and most of them aren\u2019t writing books. Most of them are doing it. A few people I know commented on that blog post I wrote above. Sorry but I was too busy doing social media to find and comment on that post. I only found it after someone emailed it to me.<\/p>\n

There are others like me who do attend events and speak and hang out with other marketing people but they mostly hang out just to have fun and then they go home and actually do something with what they learned. They leverage the business cards, they execute and they grow.<\/p>\n

If you think reading Seth\u2019s or Chris\u2019 or Brian\u2019s or Pete\u2019s or any other expert\u2019s blog will help you, it won\u2019t. These are talented guys. They\u2019re doing something right and they know their shit.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t apply to the guys I listed above but if you\u2019re reading someone\u2019s blog who makes over 50% of their yearly income on talking about social media, I wouldn\u2019t trust them. I want YOU to make a majority of your salary doing it before I\u2019ll care what you have to say. I think this is fair. \u201cYeah, I have a welding company but don\u2019t actually weld anymore. I did it for 2 years and now I travel the world talking about it. Buy my book.\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t plumbing. This is social media and it changes every week.<\/p>\n

Every week you spend talking about tactics you used last year is another week your tactics become obsolete.<\/p>\n

If someone has questions for me, I\u2019ll answer those questions but constantly express how guilty I feel talking about stuff that worked for one client in one industry with a very specific set of users. This formula won\u2019t work for you.<\/p>\n

Hollywood and Silicon Valley are both ignoring the fact that they\u2019re both playing the same game. Nor-cal & So-cal, PHP & Botox, Zuckerberg & Spielberg. They\u2019re exact mirrors of each other. So, if you\u2019re offended by this post and you\u2019re in social media or tech, I\u2019ll give you the example as it pertains to Hollywood.<\/p>\n

There are directors who make hits and there are directors who don\u2019t. There are men who talk about this screenplay that sucked and there\u2019s the man who took it and made it into a top grossing film. There are agents who drive a Porsche and those that drive a beater but get things done for their clients and there are diets that work and ones that don\u2019t. That\u2019s Hollywood. Silicon Valley has the same problem.<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s a problem entirely. I\u2019d simply say that we really need to stop talking about it. Can we please just call SXSW and Blogworld a networking opportunity? Can we please stop justifying tech events as learning experiences? Is it possible for us to simply do our jobs, grow, learn, evolve and create and save the day for the companies we work with and then hang out with people who do the same thing? I just wanna have a beer with the guy who tweets for AT&T and talk about random things. We can share stories perhaps but paying $500 to hear him talk to me on a panel or buying his $19.95 digital download called, \u201call about Twitter\u201d is just ludicrous.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to file this one under rant and then I\u2019m going to read a few tech blogs, drink some beer and wake up tomorrow as someone who lives social media and not someone that spends all day on blogs and on Twitter complaining about fakes and phonies and assholes. I\u2019m just going to make my boss happy. Isn\u2019t that what we\u2019re all trying to do?<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t forget why we\u2019re here. We all share a common goal. Stop focusing on everyone else, look in a mirror and make yourself better. I\u2019m tired of the finger pointing. I\u2019m tired of the fighting.<\/p>\n

Thanks, as always, for reading. Have a great day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maybe writing this will get me kicked off the island. I don\u2019t really care. I registered a LiveJournal…\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-rants","category-social-media","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-j6","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":752,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2009\/12\/30\/another-los-angeles-trip-is-behind-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":1184,"position":0},"title":"\u2605 Another Los Angeles Trip is Behind Me","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"December 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"It's pretty clear that I find myself traveling more and usually I'm putting less emphasis or excitement on these little trips. 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