Opinion is not Information - Why Social is Not the Answer You're Looking For

Lee Odden in his excellent presentation War of Words: Myth-Busting Social Media, SEO & Content Marketing has a slide that shows Pete Cashmore stating "Social is on the verge of solving all search problems". 

As a Information Professional with a quarter of a century of experience, I think my reaction to those words looked something like this:

And it came to me in one fell swoop WHY social is not the answer to search at all.


Opinion is not information - Social is not search. Information is nor knowledge - Search is not research.

Let's look at a common scenario to explore the difference.

You want to take a short vacation. You ask your friends for ideas. One suggests Las Vegas. Now, if you like spectacle, elaborate shows, gambling, theme hotels, this is a terrific idea. What if you hate those things? Not so good an idea. 

You asked for an opinion - you received an opinion. It may be relevant to you. It may be as irrelevant as possible, if your friends ideas are about their desires, as indeed, I have found with the above question. People tend to suggest the kinds of vacations that would appeal to them, whether or not they know your tastes.

Now you need to book that room, one friend went to one site, got a one price, another friend got a different price, one bought a package and has no idea about the cost of the hotel. You asked for information - you received data.

Social search can answer some, but not all the questions you have. When you need information, opinion and data points will only confuse the issue. 

Your friends are great when you need an opinion. Social Search will be great when you need an opinion. But when you're running a business, you don't need opinion, you need information. Information professionals take information and turn it into knowledge you need to make critical business decisions. 

How Social Media Sent Me To Japan

I often see requests for case studies on how businesses use Social Media effectively. I offer up a recent experience I personally had as an example. I want to be as honest as I can about this - there is a trick in this story. I'll tell you the trick at the bottom of the article.

I write another blog, Okazu. It's a blog attached to my avocation, the promotion, creation and publication of Japanese comics. To be very specific, I promote, create, publish and review Japanese comics and animation with lesbian themes. I state this only so you can understand how small the niche I'm positioned in is. My blog is the oldest in the world on the topic and I bring a fairly unique perspective to the issue.

There is a series of novels from Japan that are pretty popular there and mostly all but unheard of here in the West. Recently, a live-action movie was made of the first of these novels. Of course I wanted to go see it, but didn't expect to be able to.

I was on Twitter, discussing it with a friend from Japan. He originally emailed me because of my blog. We've stayed in touch by Twitter and email.

My friend let me know that he had purchased one of the commemorative tickets to the movie for me, so I could get the extras that came with them. Of course I thanked him and immediately started to look up prices for flights. My friend was in a particularly silly mood that night - everything I posted on Twitter, he relayed again, in Japanese. I commented that I would come for the movie, but that flights were more expensive than I was comfortable with. Actually, what I said involved the phrase "highway robbery." He cheerfully translated that I felt the airfares were too high. And then he started to tease me - if only one of your fans would fly you to Japan to see the movie! I posted back that I would certainly go, if someone flew me over...

...and a fan of mine tweeted that she would sponsor me.

Which is how, not two months later, I was able to stand on line in Osaka, Japan and see that movie.

I am not joking about any of this, or making any part of it up. But I did say there was a trick.

The trick is...the story starts almost nine years ago.

Nine years ago I started Okazu. I have been posting reviews, news, opinion pieces, discussions guest columns there for nine years. For nine years, I've been building a readership, a following, a fan base and, for good or bad, a reputation.

The trick here is that Social Media is about building relationships and developing them over time. I met both my Japanese friend and my benefactor a few years ago and we have communicated through email, Facebook, Twitter, sometimes phone, ever since.

This is not an overnight success story - it's not a story about ROI. This is a story about how Social Media really works.

P.S. - The movie was excellent. (^_^)b

ArtsCAP Keynote Tonight

I hope I'll see you tonight at ArtsCAP's Electronic Media Bootcamp in Asbury Park, NJ. I'll be providing the keynote speech - and hopefully a fresh perspective!

Social Media Without Delusion at ArtsCAP on 1/26

I'll be presenting the keynote speech at ArtsCAP's Electronic Media Bootcamp on January 26th in AsburyPark. I'll be talking about the Three Dimensions of Social Media.

In the meantime, here's my presentation from AsburyPop on "Social Media Without Delusion"



Thanks to Laura Gesin for putting this up on the VoxPop site and to John Kaplow for asking me to be part of this exciting ArtsCAP event!