Categories: Articles

Social Media. You're Doing It Wrong.

It’s getting harder and harder to do social media right these days.

There is a collective frustration with brands and organizations playing in the social media space. On one hand, we want brands and organizations to listen to consumers. To be present. To engage and connect in a much more human way. On the other hand, the collective “we” likes to not only judge, but pass judgement. This judgement is never binary, because we all have different thresholds, values and beliefs. What is tongue and cheek to me, is horribly offensive (and taken the wrong way) by you. One another hand (let’s assume you can have three hands), we plead for brands to go silent or not comment, when something major in the world is happening. When things are tough, the last thing people need to see in their feeds is a brand trying to capitalize or monetize the moment. In that instance, we’re asking brands to not say anything, but we’re all adding in our own opinions, statements and rhetoric. With that, we’re saying to brands: don’t be like us. Be corporations. Is that reasonable? Is that social? Isn’t a brand a bunch of human beings – like you and I?

In some instances, it’s obvious that there is something being done in poor taste, but is it always the case?

Yesterday marked the five year anniversary since Osama bin Laden was killed by American soldiers. The CIA decided to live tweet the day, like it was happening in real time, to give everyone a sense of how that historic day truly unfolded. Interesting? Smart? Bad taste? Terrible idea? As you can imagine, there were a myriad of reactions. Andrew Carter of CJAD radio wanted to unpack whether or not this was a bad idea, and why organizations might live tweet anything?

Here is our conversation: CJAD Radio – The Andrew Carter Show - Osama bin Laden was killed by American soldiers five years ago today.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.