attention industry

Stop doing the same presentation.

Social media has built a cottage industry of self promoting pseudo experts. We all hate them. We all hate them to the point where, each one of you is thinking of a specific person who you think I’m talking about. That person? They hate social media douchebag guru ninjas, too.

So, it’s a problem, yes?

I’ve found a simple identifier: if you can hear someone giving the same presentation, the same advice, and the same examples, more than 6 months apart, they are likely terrible at what they do.

They need to stop giving the same presentation.

They are teaching you social media 101, using last year’s assistant profs notes, and a photocopied version of an out of date textbook.

This is a changing space. Rapidly changing. Massively changing.

And while I would never suggest everything new is relevant, even if google shoehorns it into search results at a baffling level, it is usually worth understanding.

Someone who is still stopping at “listen before you talk”, or “it’s about brand love” is still talking about 3 or 4 years ago. When this was still new enough that there wasn’t data. When this was still new enough that you had to convince clients it was important, rather than convincing them that they need more of a strategy than “we need to be on social media”.

The dummies books have been written. Repeatedly. You don’t have to keep preaching the gospel of “I understood twitter in 2008”.

Instead, a few polite suggestions:

Get some f**king data, to back up your assertions.

Stop pretending it’s simple. It’s only simple if you aren’t optimizing it. Expertise isn’t about stopping at simple.

Things are (always) different. Examples more than 6 months old are likely no longer representative of the current platform and community dynamics.

“Entry level” changes. If you’re giving the same ‘how to get started in social’ advice today, that you were giving even a year ago, you’re a fraud. Pick a new scam, please.

You can’t be a revolutionary after the war is won. You’ve either decided to become a productive member of post war society, or you’ve ended up unable to let go of the fight.

So either grow up with the rest of us, or pick a new fight.