Social Snake Oil Still Readily Available...

This was originally posted on March 16 of this year.

However just today I came across two articles on SocialMediaToday.com that speaks to the same issue, so figured it was a good time to re-post my original piece.


Here are the two (one and two) aforementioned articles...

And here's my original post...

I will admit I chose that title because it meets all the requirements of blogging and Google searches, and strictly adheres to the fundamentally imperative despotic doctrine
I will admit I chose that title because it meets all the requirements of blogging and Google searches, and strictly adheres to the fundamentally imperative despotic doctrine that serves as the exemplar of all things Social Media...

Or something like that...

For those of you who don't know, I am a writer, I am in idea instigator, a creation generation specialist...

I am also a rabid devourer of many things. Yes that includes pizza, sandwiches, and essentially all other food consumables not named liver or dill.. PS the latter is my personal Kryptonite.

But my rabidness extends beyond the four basic food groups... And while I do not imbibe alcohol (another story for another time) I am a voracious reader of everything from cereal boxes to road signs to newspapers... you do remember newspapers?

And I am also, dare I say it, a Social Media devotee. It probably stems from my fascination with people; why you and I do what you and I do. People never cease to amaze me, truly.

And people, no matter how much time has passed and how many things have changed, are in many ways, exactly the same as they were 150 years ago.

Stay with me here...

Social Media, in a way, has become the new Snake Oil and there are no shortages of Professor Marvels all at the ready waiting to cure all your Social Media ails.

Before I go on, please understand I do not think ALL those professing to be Social Media experts are Snake Oil Salesmen. On the contrary, I happen to think there are some truly sharp folks out there who "get it"... who understand, as much anyone can at this point, the sheer power that is this truly burgeoning entity called Social Media.

Folks like Chris Brogan, Seth Godin, Jason Falls, Beth Harte, CK Epiphany, Drew McLellan, Joe Bob Hester, Tom Martin, Jay Ehret, and many others that I know I am forgetting.

Point is there are many legitimate Social Media... no, not experts, because I don't think anyone can be classified as an expert because that would imply they know all there is to know and that is simply not possible... I'll just say there are many legitimate savvy Social Media folks out there.

In the 1800s snake oil salesmen just needed a horse and carriage and they could set up shop wherever they wanted, and begin hawking their magic elixirs, promising to cure everything from gout to gonorrhea.

Nowadays, the horse and carriage has been replaced by a URL and a keyboard. Just set up shop and start telling the world how you know Social Media better than anyone else. Never mind the fact that you don't even know what Blog is short for... doesn't matter. You have a website so you MUST be an expert.

For kicks and googles, er giggles, I Googled the term "Social Media Expert" How many hits you think came back?

Half a million?

1 million?

The correct answer is over 9 million. I actually clicked on one of the pages I saw on the first set of hits and found this very spot on piece on how to evaluate a Social Media expert. Check it out, it's very good and very funny... and I know funny.

According to Mashable, a great site by the way and highly recommended, there were nearly 5,000 Social Media experts on Twitter in May, 2009. By the end of the year, the number had grown over 3 times to nearly 16,000.

I can only imagine how high that number is now.

Social Media dominates a lot of the Twitter landscape for sure.

It's everywhere.

Why look, it's even in the Wall St. Journal... I'll share the link to the piece I'm about to reference a little later but I have to share some of the highlights...

The article essentially warns businesses that Social Media is not what it's all cracked up to be.

An excerpt below in BLUE...

"The hype right now exceeds the reality," says Larry Chiagouris, professor of marketing at Pace University's Lubin School of Business.

Last year, social-media adoption by businesses with fewer than 100 employees doubled to 24% from 12%, says a survey released in January of 2,000 U.S. entrepreneurs from the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business and Network Solutions LLC, a Web-services provider in Herndon, Va.

Meanwhile, a separate survey of 500 U.S. small-business owners from the same sponsors found that just 22% made a profit last year from promoting their firms on social media, while 53% said they broke even. What's more, 19% said they actually lost money due to their social-media initiatives.

"It could harm you if you end up inadvertently saying something stupid, offensive or even grammatically incorrect," says Mr. Chiagouris.

Ok, so on the one hand, we have more smaller businesses adopting Social Media as a marketing/advertising tool. Good.

On the other hand, we have these same small businesses claiming their Social Media initiatives, whatever they were... were not effective.

Now I don't know of course any one who participated in these studies but to those businesses who either lost money or broke even, my first question to them would be 'How much time did you invest in them?'

Oh wait, here's something that speaks to that from the same article... Fifty percent of the latter survey's respondents (the ones who say they lost or broke even) say it requires more effort than expected.

'Requires more effort than expected.' Man is that a loaded statement.

Why do I get the feeling these folks all thought they could set up a Twitter & Facebook account and the customers would come running?

Then we had this statement from Larry Chiagouris, professor of marketing at Pace University's Lubin School of Business.

"It could harm you if you end up inadvertently saying something stupid, offensive or even grammatically incorrect."

Now, I don't mean any disrespect toward the good professor but... are you kidding me?

You are a professor of marketing at a university and the best you can come up with is "It could harm you if you end up inadvertently saying something stupid, offensive or even grammatically incorrect."

I think we need to change his title to professor of marketing and Master of the Obvious at Pace University's Lubin School of Business.

Good Lord if there are people out there who run businesses who don't have enough sense to know they shouldn't say something stupid, offensive or grammatically incorrect to their customers, this world's in a lot worse shape than I ever imagined. Oh yeah, here's the link I promised...

'Til next time.

All the best,



Hello my name is Dick...

Apparently my name is NOT Steve but rather Dick...

Here's the deal...

Yesterday I posted my opinion on a story I read on CNN.com re: the danger of parents giving their kids Benadryl. The CNN piece was titled "Drugging kids for parents' relief called abusive"

In the column a woman named Jill Smokler, who blogs under the pseudonym Scary Mommy was quoted and I was taken aback and downright appalled by her comments and I decided to voice my opinion. I realized I was writing on emotion and even made reference to that in my post. And judging from the comments I've received so far, I am the one who has an issue with giving your child a drug for no good reason. So, maybe it's just me...


However at no time, did I resort or stoop to name-calling as apparently Ms. Smokler has done (see above). At least I assume she's referring to yours truly with the aforementioned "dick" reference.

My such loathsome vernacular... but it's ok, I've been called it before and much worse, too. I take it as a badge of honor, even. But hey, that's just me.

Scary Mommy Indeed...

So there I was on Tweet Deck... a common occurrence for sure when I came across a link to this story on CNN.com:

Drugging kids for parents' relief called abusive

My first reaction was 'did we really need such an obvious headline, as if drugging your kids would somehow NOT be offensive?'

But ok, a headline is for attention-grabbing purposes, I get it. And sadly I have heard of other parents doing this sort of thing.

I started to read the article and came across this quote:

"It's not the end of the world. It's certainly better than being pushed to edge, spanking a child or slamming doors or really losing it."

The quote is attributed to a woman named Jill Smokler, who blogs at Scary Mommy, where she takes a frank look at motherhood, as per the CNN piece.

Also from the CNN piece...

Smokler has discussed using Benadryl on kids with her friends and said it could be seen as a way to have "me time" to relax, read a book or have a quiet dinner.

She in fact did try it once...

Smokler gave her daughter, who was then 1 1/2 years old, some Benadryl, expecting her to sleep through the two-hour flight. 

Her plan backfired.

Benadryl, an antihistamine used to relieve irritated eyes, sneezing and a runny nose, had an energizing effect on her daughter. The toddler ran through the aisles, talked as loudly as she could, and jumped up and down on her chair.

"It was worst-case scenario," said Smokler, of Baltimore, Maryland. "This is what I get for trying to dope up my kid."

"It's a selfish act doing that. Sometimes you just need it. It's better than screaming at a kid when all your buttons are being pushed. You need a break; it's a survival mechanism."

Apparently Smokler is not alone, either as I went to her site and found a guest post from someone named Gigi who writes...

"I am currently on vacation. I’m sitting in a hotel room, when I should be at Six Flags, because of rain. This is a time of reflection, for now I can sedate my children with Benadryl quietly capture all of the lessons I have learned on this particular vacation, traveling with my 7 and 5 year olds."

I guess Gigi found it amusing to include a similar message re: drugging your kids but to have the strike through to, you know, show she was just kidding.

More from the CNN.com piece...

"Anytime you're giving a medication for any other purpose other than for what it's explicitly prescribed for, you run the risk of harming your child," said Dr. Shan Yin, a pediatrician.

This year, a Massachusetts woman was sentenced to life in prison after she was found guilty in the death of her 4-year-old daughter, whose blood had a lethal level of a hypertension drug used to sedate children with ADHD. Her husband, who was tried separately, was convicted of first-degree murder, according to CNN affiliate NECN. The prosecutors had argued the father had either given the pills or ordered his wife to do so to silence the child.

In a 2005 case, a Montana day care owner was convicted of killing a 1-year-old after giving a fatal dose of cough medicine to put the child to sleep.

###

Where the hell do I begin?

Oh yeah, to Jill Smokler and those like you...

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!!

How dare you? How dare you subject your children to a drug they do not need for the sole purpose of appeasing you?!?!?!?!

Well you had a hard day with the kids. Well boo-freakin-boo...

We (my wife and I) have two kids and there are absolutely days, moments, etc where they drive you absolutely crazy but guess what? that's part of the job of being a parent!!! You take the good. You take the bad.

There are some days I really don't know how my wife does it... I work full time and the kids are either in school or these days of course, home for summer vacation.

I cannot tell you how appalling this all is... Apparently Jill and others don't consider being a parent a very important job. Apparently they're more interested in their own comfort.

Ok, I admit I wrote this post on emotion...

Did I go too far? Did I go far enough? Please chime in...

Here's the full CNN.com story and if you're interested, here's a picture of Jill Smokler with her kids...

Your ARE and ARI out of line...

Quick, what's yours and your customers ARE and ARI?

Don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about... 

You Aggregate Response Engager and Aggregate Response Indicator and the lifeblood of your online existence. My God, what is wrong with you?

Now a good ARE and ARI are 1,300 and 9,000 respectively and mine are currently hovering around 1,250 and 8,500, give or take.

To figure out your ARE and ARI just take the average number of people who view your website and/or blog on a given day and multiply it by 33.76576. Don't ask me, just do it.

Now take that number and divide it by the number of Twitter followers you have then round up to the nearest 10.

That will give you your ARE. To get your ARI, take your ARE and add in the number of social media sites you belong to and times that number by 100.

And there you go...

So don't just sit there. get to it!

'Til next time.

Oh wait, forgot one thing...I made this whole thing up.

Why?

Well for one reason, it was fun. And for another, it was a LOT of fun.

How many people starting freaking out wondering if their ARE and ARI were sufficient in today's Social Media Statistical Bullshit world we live in where formulas and algorithms rule the day and where social is anything but?

Domo arigato Mr. Roboto...