Festivus: Airing of Social Media Grievances

By
Elliot Volkman
 – December 23, 2011Posted in: Blog, Features

Happy Festivus everyone! Rather than the traditional airing of grievances this year shall be the 5 social media grievances.

This year has been filled with some major worldly events such as the end of two infamous dictators, the loss of a prominent nerd, some terrible acts of nature (not counting the DC quake), world-wide protests and revolutions, and countless other occurances; however, today is a day for joy, grievances, and feats of strength!

During our annual Festivus feast we traditionally air our grievances, and this year there are quite a few things to gripe about when it comes to social media:

Five: Paper.li

I don’t quite understand why I get included in your latest edition of super awesome cat wrestlers daily on Paper.li, but I suppose it’s nice. However, I don’t really see a point to sharing these with those that were included, especially when novice Twitter users may think it is an amazing thing only to find it’s just an automated collection of tweets that may share a similar keyword. Some of them are useful, but we have Flipboard for that!

Four: Social Media Bandwagons


Every time one of the major social media sites updates their user interface, adds a prominent feature (not those that affect privacy) or change their logo there is an expected public outcry because of their latest change. Like all things related to the word change, people often fear it at first, and it requires the bandwagon for them to finally accept it. At the rate we are going we can almost use a Jump to Conclusions mat and come up with the same expected responses.

Three: One-Way Communication

This one is quite simple and needs very little explanation. It is the company, the individual, the brand who frequently spews out a stream of one-way communication while utilizing social media. The goal of social media is to be social. Write that down.

Two: Unfriendly Competition

Social media is about being social, right? So why would we go out of our ways to discredit or harm someone in our space when they have differing opinions? It happens quite frequently and seems to be missing the point of the field. Social Media is changing quite frequently, there are thousands, if not millions of different ways to communicate and spread a message, so why would a single point be correct over the other? When it comes down to it networking and relationships still hold the most clout over the numbers that are attached to someones name, whether that be followers, likes, subscribers, or the other arbitrary popularity contests that are associated with us. Personally I would be happier following a person with 10 Twitter followers than being barraged by a companies account with 10,000 followers and all they do is spew marketing content.

Recently someone (no need to say who.) had attempted to apply arbitrary numbers to me as a sign of my experience in the community management field while wielding an anonymous account. When that person was revealed they quickly turned away from the negative stream of communication to that of a civil one. It just comes to show that people are still not realizing that relationships, networking, and the way we speak in a public forum can still be attributed to our professionalism.

One: Gurus – Rockstars – Ninjas


If you’ve dabbled in reading some personal blogs and insights on social media one common trend you will find among us is that we hate the term guru (ninja’s, rockstars and experts too). When it comes down to it social media is still in its infancy and clearly growing. Just this past year Google+ launched, LinkedIn started to make their discussions a bit more interaction, Facebook launched TimeLine, and Twitter released a major overhaul.

If one is to be an expert of something such as social media usually there is some sort of backing of experience, but with these constant changes can anyone truly claim to be a guru, swami, uber awesome cat wielding master of the social media night? Some of us have extensive backgrounds with communication, so attribute that to us rather than putting us in a category with self-proclaimed experts.

Seriously Ninja’s and social media don’t even make sense. One is completely public, the other lurks in the shadows.

A few from Social Media Club DC Twitter Friends

Tell us your social media grievances in the comments below and get featured in a Social Media Club DC post!

Social Media in 2011

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About the Author

I am a Communications Marketing Specialist for GovWin, a social media addict, the founder of a communications consulting firm that offers free assistance to the world, and dedicated to empowering everyone.