Why are advertising social networks so dysfunctional?

1. Why do the vast majority of the people in these networks end up as lurkers? Most of the people in our network do not actively or consistently participate.

2. Why don’t these networks attract more people from our business? Social networks attract just a minuscule fraction of the entire population of the people working in our industry.

3. Why do only a few people out of the total population have anything to say? We are in the communication business, why don’t we know how to communicate with each other?

4. Why do only a few people out of the total population actively post or comment on other people’s posts or profiles? There are thousands of members, but only a few posts with a few comments.

5. Why do only a few people out of the total population make friends or network in a social network of their peers?

6. Why do only a few people out of the total population stay, while most just stop by for a while, then move on, or rarely check in from time to time?

7. Real life operates one way, and virtual life operates another, why is that? For example, in real life when you say hi to someone, or welcome someone, or make the first move to speak with someone, they will usually respond to you. Not true here. People will often avoid contact in a social network after they have been approached. So why do they come to a social network in the first place?

8. Are most of the people in our business really that boring, or have nothing to say?

9. Are most of the people in our business really that shy or rude?

10. Are most of the people in our business really that unfriendly towards each other, envious of each other, intimidated by each other, not care about each other, or are afraid of each other?

11. Are most of the people in our business really that fucked up?

(Help me out here folks, please. I can’t figure this out??????????)

Tags: adgabber, advertising, dysfunctional-social-networks

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Buddy 'Friendly' Wachenheimer on June 16, 2009 at 8:32am

The advertising business and those in it need to learn how to BEND....
The palm tree bends, but it won't break. Monsoon storms and hurricanes can snap most trees under the pressure of the winds but not the palm tree. It will bend all the way to the ground, even for long periods of time, yet when the storm is over it will stand back up again - stronger than before. The palm actually grows stronger every time it must bend under the pressure of a storm.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Buddy 'Friendly' Wachenheimer on June 16, 2009 at 8:57am

I believe at Bunker Hill, the British band played, "The World Turned UpSideDown".

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Paul Ashby on June 16, 2009 at 10:28am

The Palm tree analogy is neat but a littler misleading I fear. In my opinion one of the sufferings that advertising is undergoing is best summed up by the little story "The answer is a 30 second TV commercial - now what's your problem"? this greeted a prospective Client as he entered a new agency.
According to Ad Age to day TV is nearly as dead as the newspaper industry...in my opinion Ad agencies have to adopt a new attitude towards commercial communication once they do that then their problems will be solved!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by J.S. Gilbert on June 16, 2009 at 11:17am

Just as when tv came into being, the radio died. Everything has its place. Billboards and other outdoor advertising allegedly died years ago. Some clients are better sutied with one approach and others with something else. Perhaps its just as simple as the unswerving faith in "advertising" has been shaken or perhaps that clietns are tired of agencies peddling what the agency wants as opposed to what makes the best sense for the client. Are the days of the oh too fashionably thin, overpaid Eurpopean commercial director dead? Or has he just been replaced by something else equally as shallow and unecessary.

For criminy sakes, Charlie the Tuna can get it right, why can't we. "Starkist wants tunas that taste good".

All this talk about communication? Reading these posts, it's quite a bit of pontification and often duplicitous. Oh, I forgot, there's self-published books that need to be sold, before the wifey screams "Get this crap out of my Garage."

Thos of you reading ahead, will see my comment about the whole "putting a bow on it thing", that was before this drivel was thrown up here.

I will be ignoring any more notifications about new posts here. This horse hasn't just bean beaten, it's been bludgeoned, even if there's one or two more book sales that may come out of it.

Permalink Reply by Buddy 'Friendly' Wachenheimer on June 16, 2009 at 2:06pm

...and what might that new magic attitude be (that solves all of our problems), Paul?

Let me have a double dip in the sugar cone.

Permalink Reply by tobin on June 10, 2009 at 11:28pm

Buddy

Name some social networks that are healthy happy productive places

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Buddy 'Friendly' Wachenheimer on June 11, 2009 at 8:30am

There are none!

The only social network I know of that is healthy, happy, and productive...is my own real world one. We're happenin', big time.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Paul Ashby on June 12, 2009 at 1:50pm

Moving onwards...ever onwards let me try this on you: As any marketing critic will tell you, usually through gritted teeth, the Social Media/Twitter Syndrome is typical of what's going on right now across the marketing/advertising world. "Give the majority what it wants" is now the overriding mantra in all the media, especially on TV. It far outweighs notions of excellence, innovation or adventure. Experts are ridiculed as elitist or "out of touch". Teenage bloggers get as much attention and respect as learned scholars. Quality is counted only in ratings or box-office takings. A kiddy just out of University has as much authority as Editors on the subject of media and its suitability as an advertising medium. We have far too many Chiefs and almost no Indians - well of any value that is!!
Far more than the financial meltdown, or the rise and rise of China, the decline and fall of the marketing/advertising expert in public esteem strikes me as the most significant aspect in which the 21st century thus far differs from the 20th. Fifty years ago, people generally felt that only by specializing —' fragmenting business, cultural and intellectual life into a million sub-sects of a thousand different disciplines — could humanity keep tabs on an increasingly mind-boggling world. The days when a reasonably bright, curious adult could grasp and contextualise every new complexity in science, culture, politics, exploration and medicine as well as marketing and advertising were thought long past. Hence the phrase "Renaissance Man". The only way that humanity could progress, it was believed, was leadership by experts.
How radically that has changed! The internee has been the prime driving force, spreading the pathetic illusion that all knowledge (and therefore all wisdom) is accessible to everybody. But it's not the only one. Almost as strong is the new belief that everyone's opinion, on every subject, is equally valid — whether that opinion is well informed or crassly ignorant. Deference to authority is dead, even where that authority is based on a lifetime of marketing or advertising experience. If everyone's opinion is equally valid why should I waste my time interacting with other people's opinions...I am always right so screw them...All!