Brian loathes the term ‘Social Media Optimization’
Respected Social Media practitioner Brian Oberkirch (who I just wrote about last night) doesn’t like people gaming the system, he says “There Is No Such Thing As Social Media Optimization“. He doesn’t like it because:
- “You are link bait dressed as thought leadership”
- “You focus people on tools & rules instead of talk & understanding“
- “You attempt to homogenize & productize what will really be a series of handmade, one-off engagements“
- “You do ridiculous things like put yourself in Wikipedia to seem more legit“
- “You attempt to ‘black box’ and complicate what should be made transparent, open, abundant“
- “You drag that bullshit practice of SEO into the social media world”
As far as I see it, these are best practices based upon experience to use these tools to their maximum ability, I see nothing wrong with that. That of course, as long as they fall under the premise of being community and customer focused.
I had no idea that this term Social Media Optimization was put into Wikipedia, the line should be drawn if someone is trying to bottle up, label, and brand these community learnings for a quick profit, is someone doing that?
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Again, I love encouraging linkiness, mashups, etc. That’s just smart thinking in a hyperconnected world. It’s the idea that someone is going to be going around with a checklist, like: have we done the SMO? Yep, onward!
That leaves them clueless about actually connecting to people & having real exchanges, and appeals only to the reptilian part of the brain that wants more Google juice.
It’s a distraction, is what I’m saying, I suppose.
Ok, so we agree:
Humans first.
Efficient tools second.