Social technology is being devalued by labels and sophomoric uses being
applied by most of today’s users. It is also being devalued by the
current pricing of “social media” products and services offered by early adopters claiming to be “social media” experts and guru’s.
Lets put things into context. Devaluation
is a reduction in the value of a something with respect to its initial
or potential value. In common modern usage, it specifically implies an
official lowering of the economic value perceived by the market. The
opposite of devaluation is called revaluation. Revaluation
means a rise of a the price of services or products which is usually
created by the markets perception of new value created. Revaluation is
usually created by the introduction of new knowledge or innovation
created by or from the previously devalued product or service.
A market that doesn’t understand the value of something or “how” to
create value with something usually demands to understand the ROI from
something. Trying to understand ROI from something without
understanding how to create value with something is shortsighted. Sound familiar?
Social media is getting a lot of attention, maybe the wrong attention.
Much of the online and off line media is positioning “social media” as
another marketing channel and their usage reflects their beliefs.
Everyone is talking about the ROI from social media or trying to define
it. Most metrics and examples are all tied to a response from marketing
and advertising messaging using social media. While applicable to those
vertical uses organizations are missing the larger value that can and
should be created and captured. By narrowing the markets view and use
of the relevant technology the value is being limited rather than
expanded. In other words devalued.
The Revaluation Of Social Media
McKinsey Consulting looks at social technology as more than social media. As the premier management consulting firm in the world they view “social technology” as a significant enhancement to collaboration and communication processes. An enhancement that changes everything a business does, not just marketing and advertising. How much can be saved from improving communications and collaboration?
Raising the quality of these interactions is largely uncharted
territory. Taking a systematic view, however, helps bring some of the
key issues into focus. Our research suggests that improvements depend
upon getting a better fix on who actually is doing the collaborating
within companies, as well as understanding the details of how that
interactive work is done. Just as important is deciding how to support
interactions with technology—in particular, Web 2.0 tools such as
social networks, wikis, and video. There is potential for sizeable gains from even modest improvements. Our survey research shows that at least 20 percent and as much as 50 percent of collaborative activity results in wasted effort.
And the sources of this waste—including poorly planned meetings,
unproductive travel time, and the rising tide of redundant e-mail
communications, just to name a few—are many and growing in
knowledge-intense industries.
To put this in better perspective consider what happens when
organizations use social media solely as a advertising and marketing
channels. They are likely to initially get the markets attention and in
doing so increase the cost of responding to said attention. Worse, the
market takes notice then criticizes the brand or organization for
terrible service, poor customer relations or “spamming” the market.
Worse yet is that the organizations employee attitudes reflected in
their online conversations produce a negative sentiment about the
organization. These incidents are happening everywhere because
organizations do not think systemically about social technology. Rather
they think about marketing and advertising. A big difference.
ROI is driven by efficiency, effectiveness and innovation.
Communications and collaboration creates efficiency, effectiveness and
innovation. ROI is an end result of doing things right and doing the
right things. Measuring the wrong things and measuring them
wrong doesn’t create a return on anything. It’s time to create a
revaluation of this thing being called social media.
What say you?