Quote of the day: 'Social media is like teen sex'
Every once in a while, you read something on Twitter that's just pitch-perfect, despite (or maybe because of) the microblogging service's 140-character limit.
Today's honor is bestowed upon numbers guru and "Web Analytics: An Hour A Day" author Avinash Kaushik, currently employed as Google's analytics evangelist.
On Monday, he posted a total zinger, framing it as an "OH," or overheard, indicating that he wasn't the one who actually came up with the contents of the Twitter message (or "tweet") but didn't want to openly quote the person who actually said it.
"Social media is like teen sex," Kaushik tweeted. "Everyone wants to do it. No one actually knows how. When finally done, there is surprise it's not better."
Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. (Do you agree? Comment away!)
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
"No one actually knows how" -- not only is sex a natural activity that is hard-wired into our biological makeup as humans and activated at puberty, but many teens (not all) also learn how from older friends/siblings, pornography, etc. It may be -awkward- for some, but I think a majority know how to actually do it. "Surprise it's not better" -- I'd like to see the research that supports this claim. If teens were disappointed at the satisfaction obtained from participating in social media then I doubt we would see record numbers of teens joining and continuing to participate. The same could be said about sex! (This is just my humble opinion!).
Also, who doesn't "know how" to do social media?? It's so easy to create a Facebook/MySpace account and use it. Thousands of people sign up every day, and millions more use it every second. Now that I think about it... I can see parallels between social media and teen sex:
Everyone wants to do it. Everyone knows how to do it or can easily learn. And almost everyone [it seems] IS doing it. And if it were disappointing, we wouldn't see record numbers doing it every day.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/07/teen-pregnancy-rates-risi_n_155966.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7911684.stm
just not well
That "everyone claims to be an expert" seems to represent well the typical American characteristic of thinking too highly of their ability to get things done, hence much of the overconfidence and hype. (Disclaimer: I'm American, and while I eschew egotistic behavior, I imagine I'm guilty of it from time to time.) Conversely, my experience in the said metaphor wasn't that it was sub-par relative to expectations, but rather that everything else that went along with the relationship was hard to deal with. For me, social media is similar: the cost of the desired result in work involved isn't a good tradeoff.
Depending on one's temperament, it may be better to pass over quick gratification for a more mature "user experience" a couple years down the road that may be less emotionally scarring ;-)
I've always known how.
And as I have been delving through blog after blog after blog trying to discover how we can help small businesses to benefit from the power of social media marketing ? the above comments would seem to hit the nail on the head.
Some seem to say that it is worth a small business owner?s time to use social media to get the word out because it?s free, it gets quick results, it?s flexible, it gets easier with time, that it will lead to other valuable sources of traffic, that it builds links with social media and is safer than buying links, that social media users are predictable, that it doesn?t require as much time as we might think, that branding through social media is possible, that links can help your search engine rankings to rise quickly, and it allows you to leverage your existing traffic. And you may just target some visitors. In summary, the word declared is that the future of the internet is social. So be there.
So whether it is Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Twitter, Blogs, consumer review sites, forums, discussion boards, online communities, social book marking sites, social news sites, social music sites and more. Whoo! I just get worn out writing about all these. We are being told to be there.
But the BIG question is this: Where is a small business owner going to get the time to do all of the above? Or do they need to hire a force of writers to get the word out? Or do they need to simply choose a few places on the Internet where they can begin to build relationships on a deeper level and then be positioned as experts in their own field?
These are the many questions being asked by business owners today!
But the biggest question is: Are we as small business owners in the 21st century going to wake up after it?s all over and agree with Avinash, surprised that ?it?s not better??
The dilemma is in the transition, does it remain social? Social media is a clustering phenomenon and one wonders about the desirability of cluster-****s.
- by twit_r March 12, 2009 10:25 AM PDT
- It's just a witty comment, aimed at the masses, who understandably are confused by any value in Twitter beyond a large version of MSN with people you ?don?t? know.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (27 Comments)Nothing more exciting than that ? too much comment here wasting server space