Trash Talking in the Social Media World

smx.gifYesterday afternoon I attended SMX’s panel on People-powered search. It featured Jason Calacanis, from Mahalo, who (once again) seemed to tick everyone off.

I do love controversy, don’t get me wrong, I believe it’s good for debate. Keeps the conversation moving and challenges people’s conceptions. What I don’t believe is trashing something to make you and your company look better, but it happens all the time.

Think about TV ads. “Tired of those trashbags that are IMPOSSIBLE to tie? Buy our bags with built in drawstrings!” Or the “their burgers are put under a heat lamp, ours are made fresh to order!”

The tactic is the same. In order to get the person spending the money to buy from me rather than you, I diss what you have to offer.

I see this happen a lot in the Social Media monetizing world. Two of the favorite things to attack are SEO experts and PR firms. One of my favorites are the “but we’re a social media firm, we understand social media, unlike traditional firms.” Okay, that’s great, but HOW do you understand social media? WHAT do you understand? And do you really have that much hate for traditional firms?

emo_kid_color_variant_02_by_sabisaotome.jpegFor a long time the model in cyberspace was “to succeed you must be a hater.” Much like emo kids who hate mainstream music, new media “celebs” were all whining about everything. It’s really tiring to remember who hates what and when. Lets change the focus. Lets celebrate what we can offer without tearing down the other guy.

Unless, of course, you want to be seen as the emo guy in the corner who hates everything. Then, more power to you.

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This post was written by admin

April 23, 2008 | Filed Under SEO, SMX, Search Technology, TSmith

4 Comments 

Comments

4 Responses to “Trash Talking in the Social Media World”

  1. n.sputnik » How Open Source and Social Media are going to Eat SEOs’ Lunches on April 23rd, 2008 4:19 pm

    [...] Thus, the knee-jerk reaction to Jason Calicanis’s rhetoric that SEO is a dying or bad strategy. Yes, let’s admit that Jason loves to agitate people by rubbing strategy decay into SEO’s faces, bad Jason ;) . No one is going to tell an SEO that they are not giving value to their clients using SEO techniques. It just that the tactics they are using need to evolve. [...]

  2. Jessica Hasson on April 28th, 2008 12:08 pm

    Isn’t trash-talking also another tactic used to raise awareness of one self? For example, by mentioning Jason Calicanis and joining in the trash-talking, you yourself become known by the circle of people that follow this.
    Prime example would be 1938 Media, Shel Israel Puppet show…

  3. regina ando on August 23rd, 2008 12:45 am

    tnx……….

  4. Tom on May 6th, 2009 1:52 pm

    It’s a form of comparison. It’s not hate. It’s comparing oneself to something else and showing an opinion that one thing is better than another. Sure it’s negative, it has to be.

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