Recently, it seems like every time something noteworthy happens, we not only read about the incident, but also how people are reacting to the incident via social media. It should come as no surprise that the latest cause of Facebook and Twitter frenzies is the swine flu. According to Mashable, 10,000 tweets are posted each hour that mention the virus. When I think about 166 people writing about swine flu every second (not to mention what’s on Facebook), it makes my head spin. Are these people actually adding anything substantive to the issue?
It started to make a bit more sense when I saw Gartner’s Hype Cycle graph (also pasted below). At this point, I see Twitter moving from “technological trigger” to “peak of inflated expectations,” while Facebook is probably at the peak. As we rise towards the peak and start to turn the corner from it, there will inevitably be a lot of internet clutter. This post about social media “racket” compares email and social networking to the hype cycle graph. Email has already gone through the hype cycle and now rests fairly comfortably at the “plateau of productivity,” while most social media tools are still on the steep incline.
One social media tool that is a bit further ahead of others is blogs. According to a new report from the National Association of College Admissions (NACAC) called Reaching the Wired Generation: How Social Media is Changing College Admission, blogging is the most common form of social media in the admissions office. By now many people who started blogs and weren’t committed enough to keep up have dropped out (also starting to happen with Twitter) and they’re getting less and less coverage from the media. Blogs that do stay are increasing their readership and starting to cement their positions. In short- blogs are becoming stable.
One of the byproducts of the hype cycle is clutter- people are using the technology just to use it, with little thought as to the value (think of email chain letters circa 1997). Just as we have to sort through our inboxes and apply filters to find the information relevant to us, we also have to learn to sort through social media clutter. As social media evolves, tools will come out to help us better manage our networks and friends. But what will social media look like as it approaches the plateau of the cycle and the dust settles?
As if understanding Web 2.0 weren’t difficult enough, Web 3.0 sounds even more complicated. Internet and social media experts see Web 3.0 as a “smart web” in which information is delivered in context- in other words; websites will recognize your online identity and deliver content accordingly. Instead of a corporate website, it’s predicted that companies will build their sites around the communities that use their product since peer-to-peer recommendations are the more effective form of marketing. If this is where social media is eventually headed, how should does this affect your social media plan?
As is often the case, it seems like small, calculated steps are the way to go. The post on social media clutter sites the Skittles debacle, (which I also wrote about a few weeks ago) as an example of whatnot to do. It didn’t appear that Skittles had a good strategy, as they just rushed to adopt all of the popular social media tools. Although the company got a lot of exposure, it hasn’t lasted in the long run. On the other hand, a company like Ford may not necessarily generate the mass amounts of attention that Skittles got, but it actually has a community built around the brand.
To avoid experiencing the severe ups and downs that the hype cycle graph shows, your brand’s use of new technology should be slow and steady with your team always asking “why?” before anything new is implemented.
Gartner’s Hype Cycle Graph
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