The Two Faces of Squidward
Most everyone is familiar with that strange little aquatic fellow Spongebob on the cable TV channel Nickelodeon. In one episode, one of the characters on the show, a squid named appropriately enough Squidward, gets his face injured when SpongeBob accidentally slams the door in his face. Following surgery, Squidward’s noticeably handsome unlike before. Women love him and he gets special attention. After a while things get out of hand, crowds follow him everywhere, take his things, and won’t leave him alone. He begs SpongeBob to help him go back to his original looks and SpongeBob obliges by repeatedly slamming the door in his face but it just makes Squidward more handsome. Finally a shoe falls and accidentally hits Squidward on the head and he is his original self and everyone leaves him alone. Social Media is like Squidward. Everyone talks social media this and social media that. Social Media becomes the best looking thing on the internet. Things get out of hand and you wish it could all go back to the way it was before. I read an article the other day from England, the other side of the pond, which made me think of the ocean, which reminded me of SpongeBob under the sea, hence the Squidward story. It was pointed out that “It’s time to realize that we don’t need to measure every event in terms of what people are doing on Facebook, YouTube or Twitter.” He doesn’t think too highly of some social media experts. He says it’s time to stop treating Social Media as the latest and greatest and realize it’s just a way to communicate and it is now mainstream. I think until nursing homes have their own Facebook groups, our president establishes a Twitter account to keep us updated, and grade-school kids learn how to blog in their web-journalism classes, we need all the updates on new media possible so it can *actually* be mainstream. I do get his point, however. I loved his comparison between social media and drinking in a pub. What a great analogy! When big or little events happen, historically, the locals gathered down at the bar and talked about it. Nowadays, assuming you’re not thirsty, you can use social media to do the same thing. It just means you are not geographically tied down anymore, you don’t have to wait for someone to open up the building and let you in—there’s no innkeeper or gatekeeper, and you can reach many people at once, way more than can fit in ye’ ol’ tavern. I am a social media expert and I am one of its biggest promoters. I rave all the time about social media, not because I think it’s the latest and greatest, but because I think communicating with people is what makes this world a better place and the more people we can communicate with and the faster we do it, the better opportunity to accomplish our mission in life. Social media broadens our universe. It allows us to stay connected in hyper speed. If you see it as a listening tool and a conversation medium it can serve you well. If you see it as a vehicle for promotion, then you’re missing the entire point of the medium. It’s not going away, and Twitter is just the most recent iteration. Think of what the digital natives will eventually come up with to stay connected 5, 10 years out. Hopefully they’ll create some tools that will help better navigate the noise. It’s important to note that there are some who aren’t confused by shiny social media objects, and are helping business, charities and government agencies/politicians to communicate more effectively with their audience. I watched a friend launch a social network website back in 1995 and its members have organized over 30,000 ‘real world’ events since then, they meet up with each other, it totally blends the online and the real world… yet this entire concept seems “new” to those lecturing on social media and how the internet will start to bring people together offline too. Twestivals? Not a new concept - people have been meeting people off the internet since the days of talkers in the late 80s/early 90s. These kids are too young to remember that online social networking has been going on for well over a decade. I can track social media back to the 60’s with discussion forums as the earliest and simplest form of social media. Discussion forums were used for customer support. There’s a lot of work and a few generations that need to fade out before we can accurately assess social media as mainstream. Television is still the dominant method of entertainment (though people are beginning to convert solely to the Hulu and other streaming sites). Advertisers are slowly beginning to realize that there could actually be effective returns through online campaigns. And Twitter is quickly becoming a new and collectively objective way of reporting ‘our’ (the user’s) news. Consider Twitter having little presence accept among the tech geeks just a year ago, and now being embraced by large and small companies alike, including me! This subject is way too important to not cover. It’s still way too new. Facebook might have only been 5 years old, but consider the last two years and how its membership shot up and left Myspace in its trails. I have a new radio feature called the Social Media Micro Show is being featured on KGEO 1230AM Bakersfield as part of a Christian Rock Nascar radio show called Gospel Speedway 7:06am Pacific Saturdays on ESPNBakersfield.com. It’s kind of ironic it’s being featured in a God-based show like this since we are talking about the good and bad of Social media in today’s post. There will always be those who do good and those who do bad. My focus is on evangelizing the power of social media so you can understand those tools and make a difference in your life and the world.
