The Electric Waffle

Vine, recently released by Twitter, is getting a lot of buzz lately — for good and not-so-good reasons. Vine is essentially a video app, currently available for on Apple devices, that allows users to piece together a 6-second video. I’ve been fairly vocal with my opinion about Vine, so I thought I’d share my thoughts.

On the surface, Vine is beautiful. It’s put together very well and the UI is simple and elegant. But, this isn’t Hollywood and looks can’t buy you success.

From a personal standpoint, I like Vine. It allows for snackable content that’s easy to consume…hence why I used the term “snackable,” I guess. Anyhow…we all lead busy lives, so the concept of creating experiences that are easy to consume is brilliant. Consumers want this. This is why Poke and Snapchat have found early adoption. So from a personal standpoint, it’s a neat app.

Neat, however, doesn’t necessarily put “butts in seats.” As someone who’s job it is to monitor and research trends in technology and business, my early indications don’t see Vine translating as a viable business platform. At least not for my organization. Here’s the thing — over the past year or so, there’s been heavy discussion on brands becoming more visual. I agree with this. To an extent. The problem, though, is when video is involved. It’s easy for a novice to capture a decent photo. It’s incredible difficult for a novice to capture a compelling video. As a brand, who is likely dealing with a lean staff, is it worth your time to dedicate a resource to this output? Unless you’re a large international brand, it probably isn’t.

While I don’t see Vine (or any “Instagram for video” service) taking off (the only people using Tout is the professional wrestling organization that invested in it), that’s not to say I don’t see some value in experimenting. For my brand, I could see some use with Vine when it comes to our NASCAR program. I can also see brands using Vine as a teaser for a product launch. However, these all go back to the “neat” aspect of Vine. I’m not quite sure that translates to an action that’s going to drive business. And, ultimately, that’s my goal.

What are your thoughts on Vine?

A week or so ago, I made the remark that from a business standpoint, I would much rather give up Facebook than Twitter. This little revelation has slowly been building in my head over the past 3 months as I analyzed consumer/customer activity on Great Clips’ social platforms. However, from a personal standpoint, I continue to become less interested and see less value on Twitter — something I would have never even thought of saying a mere 6 months ago.

From a brand’s perspective, I could care less about the numbers. While Facebook brings a larger audience, it also brings less valuable conversation — at least for my brand and in my eyes (this is purely my opinion and my opinion only). We’ve heard countless stories about the level of engagement on Facebook and how little interaction consumers are having with brands.  While I continue to see my brand’s engagement grow, it’s still a relatively low ratio in comparison to our potential overall reach. There’s a certain conversation classification happening on Facebook and, for me, it’s not something that’s rewarding for my brand or its community.

Twitter, on the other hand, continues to evolve into a platform that is increasingly giving me more authentic and valuable interactions and conversations. I also believe that it’s a better barometer of topics and conversation pieces my community finds interesting and engaging. Plain and simple: it’s a better tool for driving engagement, conversation and feedback.

The “Twitter over Facebook” thought is something new for me as I’ve typically been a big, big fan of Facebook from a business standpoint. I was giddy about the potential opportunities Facebook could/would provide — commerce being a big one. While it seems I might have missed the boat on f-commerce, or simply been early in my expectation of adoption, I still think there’s viable benefits with Facebook. But if I was forced to use one platform for the next 1-2 years (it’s hard to commit longer in the digital/social space), I’d pick Twitter in a heartbeat.

Now where things get weird is when you ask me the same question, but on a personal level. For the past 2 years, I’ve been very heavy on Twitter. It was proving to be one of the most valuable tools for me to build connections, share content and improve myself as a professional. But, while Twitter was gaining favor on a professional level, the opposite was happening on a personal level. Over the past six months, I’ve become less impressed with Twitter and feel it’s providing less value for me. If you compare it to working out, I’ve reached that plateau level where I’m putting in the work, but I’m not seeing the results. So instead of continuing to run the same route each day, it’s time to change up the routine. It’s time to add a little spice and variety into the workout. In my case, it’s not changing what I’m doing with Twitter, it’s simply doing less with Twitter. The quality of conversations and content simply isn’t there for me anymore. I’ve found other tools and platforms I find more interesting. I’m continuing to find more value and importance on increasing my time on these tools for business purposes than for personal purposes.

The old “fail whale” is staring right at me, and for the first time, I’m not upset that he’s there. What about you? Have you seen a shift in value from certain tools lately?

Please excuse the lack of posting here lately. As my friend Amy Mengel recently wrote, blogging isn’t high priority for me. I could give a list of reasons why, but it simply isn’t something I find as enjoyable as it once was. I work all day, so coming home and blogging is the last thing I want to do. That being said, I do spend a lot of time reading other blogs and a few things have been on my mind lately.

First, I’m tired of the talk around measurement. Chuck Hemann said it best, with a comment that “everyone seems to be a measurement expert now.” He’s spot on. Measurement is the all the rage (and it should be), which means everyone is suddenly an expert on the subject. I’m a numbers geek, so the gathering and analysis of data completely fascinates me. But I’m by no means an expert in measurement. Neither are you, so stop trying.

Fellow Minnesotan, Kary Delaria wrote an article on how, for her,  Twitter is becoming less useful. I agree with her broad, overall statement, as Twitter is becoming less useful for me as well. What was once my favorite platform, Twitter is slowly becoming less valuable for me.  I’m simply seeing a lot of repeat content and complaining. It’s sort of like dating and waking up one day and realizing the honeymoon phase is over, and that you’re now bored to death. That’s how I am feeling lately about Twitter. I made a comment on Kary’s post that I believe Twitter is dying. And I stand by the comment. In five years, Twitter will be dead. Yes, I realize that Twitter is evolving and you can make the argument that “Twitter as we know it today will be vastly different in five years.” But honestly, it goes beyond that. Having spent the majority of my career in the financial space, I got to witness the housing crisis first-hand. We (myself and the company I was working for) saw it coming — not nearly to the extent that we’re in now (otherwise I’d be on a private beach drinking vodka right now), but we saw it coming. I see a number of similarities with Twitter…not social media, just Twitter. I honestly think Twitter is about to burst. In the end, a new tool — completely separate from Twitter — will come along and achieve what Twitter is attempting to. The end result will be much more tolerable and profitable for consumers and brands. Twitter is a sinking ship.

This past weekend I had the chance to attend Unsummit for a few hours. Overall, I think last year’s content was a bit better, but there was some decent stuff this year. One of the sessions I attended was around the term social media “expert,” however, it quickly turned into a conversation about social media as a whole. I left extremely frustrated, as the group tried to define what social media is, should it even be called social media, and lastly what companies should be doing with social. The last topic was the most irritating. People, why are we trying to broadly define social? What works for one company may not work for another. That doesn’t mean one is doing it wrong. Social is unique to every business and every consumer. Please, stop trying to silo it into a broad, often incorrect, bucket. And to the person who said Facebook is useless for brands and will likely be gone in a few years…you’re an idiot. Also, only I can make statements about social platforms dying.

I wrote a while back about my fascination with augmented reality. I was a little bullish on AR at the time, but I still think augmented reality is the most powerful and potentially the biggest game changer that we will see…once it hits mainstream. And mainstream is still the problem. While there are a few folks out there doing some amazing things with AR, I think I was probably 12-18 months ahead of where I should have been with my assumptions. Hey, even I make mistakes. Nonetheless, I still remain highly optimistic about the impact AR will have in the near future.

So there you have it. My ramblings and thoughts. I’d ask you to stay tuned for more brilliant insight, but it’ll likely be another month before I post again.

So all the hype on Twitter right now is the debut of Twitter Lists. Basically, Lists is exactly what it says - a grouping of Twitter users created by other Twitter users. Robert Scoble thinks it’s a game changer - I disagree. It’s a neat addition, but it doesn’t add any true value to Twitter.

Like anything with social media, you need to take Lists with a grain of a salt. Despite being made available a short while ago, there is already hundreds, if not thousands, of Lists already created. We’re already seeing the labels of “best lists” and “lists you need to follow”. Like I mentioned, be skeptical of these lists. A lot are ego boosts, people trying to be chummy, cliques, etc. If your goal is to be on a “Top Communicators” list with the likes of Chris Brogan and Brian Solis - nothing against these folks - then Lists will be perfect for you. If you find pleasure by association, then Lists is for you.

Now don’t get me wrong, Lists does have some value - just not as much as the current hype makes it seem. I created a list, mostly to see what the hype is all about, and I will probably use this feature. However, the only value I see in Lists is found in the lists created by those I’ve created a relationship with. Lists created by Lauren Fernandez or David Erickson provide more value for me because I’ve interacted with these people. While being on a list created by Brian Solis would be a great honor, I personally wouldn’t get as much value out of it because I’ve never met or interacted with him.

Here’s the clincher though, at least for me. Lists are suppose to be great for finding valuable people to follow. However, I can already do that by clicking on “following” of anyone I choose. While the Lists feature groups all those people together and allows me to monitor how these users are interacting and using Twitter, it’s not a new or improved feature. It’s more convenience than anything. Not really a “game changer” in my eyes.

Again, this is just my personal opinion. You’ll find people that think Twitter Lists provides great value. And it may for some. However, my personal use of Twitter isn’t to gain popularity, it isn’t to be included on specific people’s lists.  I appreciate the fact that people would find my usage valuable enough to include on a list. In the end though, it doesn’t do anything for me. I’ll probably follow a handful of lists and continue to find valuable people to follow through the same vehicles as I’m using now.

Adam Kmiec posted a link to this graph:



My response, was a link to this graph:



I can’t speak for Adam, but I think both of us were getting at the same thing - don’t buy into all the hype. The “this is hot, that is not” and the “fancy item A is going to make fancy item B obsolete”. With all the hype of Twitter - yes, it is a valuable tool - brands and people seem to be jumping on the bandwagon and have suddenly put on shutters to other tools and resources.

Remember, social media is a complementary tool, not a replacement. Also, social media is not Twitter, it’s not Facebook - it’s much, much more. If you want to be effective in the social space, integration is the key. It’s not rocket science, quit overthinking and quit feeding the hype machine.