The point of social media is to connect and share. The medium seems very powerful. (I can say whatever I want to as many people as I want.) It also seems very democratic. (No one can drown anyone else by talking louder.) The combination of power and democracy gives participants the feeling that they are now part of a second enlightenment. All opinions matter. All opinions are equal. Everyone is accepting.

At least, that is the feeling you get.

The fact is that Twitter, Facebook, Myspace are all fads at the moment. If these mediums are around in another 10 years or even 5 years, then we can call them established channels. However, I wonder if these mediums will go dead eventually.

Regarding the accepting feeling, some opinions should not be accepted. Some people should be denounced when they voice a particular opinion because some ideas are just factually incorrect or morally objectionable. Moreover, some people should be criticized for not fact checking, for being a mouthpiece of an extreme movement, or for speaking before thinking through their ideas. If Wikipedia articles have been accused of all these errors,which have been edited by a group of people, why should we think an individual would be more accurate, balanced, or thoughtful? Why should we think a crowd of people would be any of these as well? In fact, the history of the internet has proven this trend.

While plenty of people flame on the internet, most people do not know how to thoughtfully criticize. So social media often becomes polarized to either loving or hating something. You can see this kind of rating system on icanhascheezburger.com. When people start thinking in these kinds of terms, all for or all against, objectivity becomes lost. People are no longer opinion holders. They are voters for two opposed parties; either you vote for me or against me. You are for change or against it. You are for the war in Iraq or against. When in reality, these are false dichotomies. Granted this occurs in other mediums as well, but social media is more prone to this extremism because of its viral nature.

Regarding the democratic feeling, let’s just say that all opinions should not be made equal. Some people do know more about a subject than others, but with social media, knowledge doesn’t necessarily get people to listen to you. The only way to be listened to is to be popular. As a result, fame, not conversation, often is the driving force behind many who join social media. Thus, knowledge of the topic comes second to how many people you can get to follow you or friend you. So for those who are not on social media, they are labeled as unconnected or some other pejorative term. This kind of thinking creates a sort of group narcissism. If you don’t get on, you don’t matter; you don’t exist.

Also, the topics on social media are somewhat narcissistic. The most popular topic on Twitter is Twitter. People using social media a lot start talking about social media mostly. Why? It’s what they spend most of their time on, and thus, it is what they know the most about. Thus, the medium ceases to become a medium and becomes message and eventually becomes the meaning. If you find yourself Twittering about Twitter because it’s Twitter, you’ve probably lost the point of the medium altogether.

Regarding the feeling of power, truth be told, Twitter and Facebook have the ability to let you communicate with a lot of people. However, it is still up to individual people taking advantage of it. If you don’t understand how to use it properly, you might as well stand up in a crowd in the Big Apple and start spewing out whatever comes to mind because that is how people are listening to your message on Twitter.

If you are using this for business purposes, you must realize a few things. This power is not the same as the power of TV or radio or Web 1.0. On those mediums, the message is made and then broadcasted. You need to do a bit of work to make a perfect message and then you simply need to get it in front of people. Often this involves a lot of money. Social media is great because you really can’t pay people to broadcast your message, so the message needs to be inherently valuable. But here’s the dig. Since you no longer pay money to get your message out, you must pay for it in time. Consequently, social media can drain the time spent on your core business. Thus, you need to throttle how much time you spend on social media. For instance, if you spend a third of your working hours on social media, I doubt that the investment into social media will pay off as much as your time is worth.

In fact, I’ll go even further by saying that social media does not pay off for every business. If your business is designed to be trendy, fashion for instance, it is worth getting into Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. If you sell industrial supplies, I would say get on just LinkedIn and find some online forum for your industry. In the words of the Little Mermaid, you “want to be where the people are.” You need to be where other people of your trade congregate together because that is where you make the right connections. For instance, I have yet to see very many accountants on Twitter, but I know of several marketers who are because social media is inherently valuable to marketers.

Now on the positive side, the real strength of all social media is to maintain existing connections. Social media keeps you in the loop with what is happening among the people you know. While social media can create good friendships, it is nearly impossible to make those friendships meaningful if you never meet in person. Moreover, the strength of the connection between people who meet on social media is similar to the strength of the connection made with a person you sit next to on the next flight you have. Sure, you’ll talk for two hours on the flight, but will you ever try to keep up with that person again? Probably not.

With all of that now said, understand that I’m on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and I’m not wanting everyone to drop social media. Social media is great for connecting and even better for re-connecting people. Messages do get sent around. Dreams are accomplished. However, I want people to take an honest look at why they do what they do. Social media right now is a fad. Fads are not for everyone. You simply need to ask yourself the hard questions: Which social media option from the menu is best for me? Are any of them?

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