Social Media Douchebags

I have to ask this - what the fuck does social media actually mean? Given that most of the parrots harping this are probably completely unaware of basic tenets of sociology, it still doesn't seem that much of a stretch to understand that all media is social, by its very nature. It's an empty phrase devoid of any meaningful content and too vague to be useful in describing or categorizing anything specific. Perfect fodder for people who want to spend their so-called work days looking like an imbecile on Facebook, Twitter, et al, pretending to be doing marketing or research... they are the social media douchebags (see also new media douchebags).

Does their behavior on Twitter correlate to how they act in real life? If this were the case, we would see them awkwardly staking out parties and gallery openings listening for people mentioning certain topics of interest. Let's say an imaginary artist called Tina is talking to her friend about "digital curation" (I don't know why they're talking about that, it's just an example). The douchebag walking past overhears their particular pet term said out-loud, and immediately shoves his way in front of Tina and tries to join the conversation without invitation or introduction. Some of you may be nodding in agreement that the douchebags do actually behave like this in person, but it doesn't happen often in New Zealand, where people are usually fairly mild mannered.

If you're new to Twitter, you're probably more focused on following people that you know in person, and this pattern of behavior might seem a little strange. What the douchebags are actually doing is using something like Tweetscan to monitor the global river of tweets (aka the "firehose" - the real-time stream of every public tweet posted to Twitter), looking for specific key words. The douchebag sits at the end of this stream, blindly following anyone who mentions the key words. The only difference between douchebags and spammers is that the spammers will indiscriminately follow anyone, wheras the douchebags are following people who mention whatever topic they're obsessed with.

A sure way to spot this trend is if you post something to Twitter, and then immediately notice a bunch of random people starting to follow you. I get it most often when I mention programming related terms, even though I'm usually doing it in a misanthropic and foul-mouthed way that has little or no relevance or humor to anyone who doesn't know me and what I do. People have been noticing this pattern of behavior increasing remarkably in the past 2-3 months on Twitter. Particular key words to watch out for are usually internet trend buzzwords - "cloud computing", "social media" are two of the most noxious.

The douchebags in this case, are so-called "social media experts", "experts" only because they once listened to Guy Kawasaki for an hour at some conference, or maybe shook Scoble's hand while he was still working for Microsoft. Most of them can't even claim that much. Their "expert" advice consists of thousands of isomorphic blog posts of dribbling linkbait like "how to use [X] for social marketing", and "10 reasons why your company should be on [Y]". Give me a break. Internet marketing is fucking easy. All you have to do is present something of tangible value, well branded as a product or service, and use the online and offline channels that make most sense for your audience. That's all. The problem isn't the marketing or "being out of touch with social media", it's companies offering something of real value in the first place.

A related phenomenon, is the subsumption of Twitter into corporate marketing and customer service tactics. If you diss a brand or product, or complain about something Company X did in an obvious way (by mentioning specific key words), do not be surprised to see a little @Reply pop up from Company X. These responses range from surprisingly genuine, gracious, and helpful, to dismissive and incredulous.

It's amazing how so many douchebags are so caught up in their little marketing drone world that upon discovering something like Twitter, they reflexively attempt to shove their square peg into whatever hole they can find, no matter how badly it fits, and then clumsily thrust repeatedly, until they are humiliated and booed off, or until they get bored and something newer and shinier comes along.