Email: What Market Demand is there for “Social Media”?

Dear Master Malstrom,

 

Have you noticed that all the talk of “social media” in business rarely revolves around the market? Some industries don’t view us as paying customers anymore. As an example, NPR today had a guest speaker who criticized reporters for rushing to print stories about Sam Bacile before realizing that no such man existed. He complained at length about the sorry state of journalism today — before suggesting that, with “the rise of social media” (oh, that phrase!), consumers would increasingly be the fact-checkers for journalists. Phrased another way, customers will produce the news they pay for. Is this just journalistic hubris, or is something else occurring?

 

If users wanted to pay for forum access or facebook, they would. There is no successful business model to sell “social media” access to customers. Everyone knows that the revenue flows from advertisers. Do so many companies maintain forums for their fanbases out of charity? Why do some businesses pay to advertise to customers who are surely already aware of their products?

 

This is why Nintendo’s Miiverse scares me. When Nintendo produces games, we are their customers. When Nintendo produces “social media,” we are the customers. The HD Twins already treat gamers in this way — or else Sony provides free Playstation Network access out of goodwill. Consider any facet of the hardcore experience of consoles and, at some point, you will find a point where the hardcore were manipulated as products to be paid for. When Nintendo brings “social media” into its console, how is it treating us any differently? The relationship between a buyer and a seller changes when the buyer is just another product to buy. Such a relationship can’t continue forever. Herbert Stein’s Law says that “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”

 

I wonder what causes an entire industry to disregard customers. Is this Christensen’s posit that business leaders are only taught about how to compete in Red Oceans, or is something else occurring?Christensen is about disruption. Red Ocean isn’t disruption. It is Blue Ocean. Blue Ocean and Innovator’s Dilemma are two separate works by two separate authors.

I know Facebook’s mission is to remove anonymity from the Internet (which is reason enough for me to hate it).

The reason why you see all this social media being jammed into everything has nothing to do with market demand. It has everything to do with marketing. Marketers are hot to trot about facebook and twitter. They see social media as a fantastic way to market. Most importantly, they are trying to turn YOU into their unknown marketer.

Here is an example. Before Diablo 3 came out, they had a talent calculator. Of course, such a thing was worthless since no one could know how the abilities actually were until they were played in the game. At the bottom of the calculator was a link to post your talent calculator on your Facebook page. Blizzard wanted you to excitedly make a talent build and then place it on your Facebook page to share to your friends. You were Blizzard’s pawn to get other people excited about Diablo 3. It is so ridiculous that every news page today has a ‘Share on your Facebook page’ or ‘Twitter us to your friends’.

Of course, Nintendo wants their Wii U connected to every smartphone, Facebook, Myspace, Mybutt, and every other social media. They see it as free viral marketing by yourself when you talk to people from your Wii U.

I’d like to punish companies that do this by turning social media against them. When they have a link to share on facebook, share it but only do so in the negative light. If we can make social media more painful for companies to use, they will stop  using it.

Mii-verse is, of course, another pipeline for Nintendo marketing. However, it is a walled approach to keep out competitor marketers. On your usual gaming message forum that is swarming with viral marketers, much of the legitimate feedback to gaming gets mixed in with viral marketers.

Mii-verse is more of an attack against competitors’ viral marketers. When a new Nintendo game comes out, viral marketers (except the Nintendo kinds) won’t be present on Mii-verse. In the gaming forum, the Nintendo game will be ripped to shreds by the viral marketers. Nintendo sees Mii-verse as solving many problems.

I would love to be a fly on the wall when Nintendo realizes that the ‘ripping to shreds’ will come mostly from Nintendo fans and not from the competitors’ viral marketers. Viral marketers don’t have the passion to hate. Nintendo fans do. Mii-verse could be ten times worse than the typical gaming message forum.