After a crazy past few days at the office, I’m finally now sorting through the various articles that pepper my inbox and fill my Twitter feed. I just finished reading this MediaPost article that makes the “profound” announcement that social media is not the “preferred” recommendation source. The article then goes on to say that young adults value (age 18-34) advice from friends and family members over social media and online ads. Duh. The article then says (and if you already read the article I apologize for repeating ) that “oddly” younger consumers believe “search” has more influence over online ads and social media.

I’m not sure where to start in responding to this.

First of all, it annoys me when I see sensational-style headlines such as “Social Media Not Preferred Recommendation Source.” Are there people out there that thought social media WAS the preferred source? Are we, as marketing consultants, telling people it’s a preferred source to clients? If so, shame on us. Social media is a lot of things and is a great marketing tool, but it has a LONG way to go to EVER replace a reference from a friend or family member.

Second, I do not like to see surveys use such blanket categories like “search” or “social media,” especially as search continues to evolve, the lines between the search and social media continue to come closer and closer together. Often, when you “search” on something, the results include forums, message boards, review sites like Yelp, and Twitter content mixed with your traditional brand websites. So, when a young adult says they turn to “search” I’m thinking that they are thinking of it as a mechanism for finding the content they seek, not as content itself. Personally, I usually search on a product first, but make my end decision after reading forums, user reviews, etc. Isn’t that social media?

Which leads me to my 3rd issue with this article… what social media was included in the survey? Did it include forums and message boards, Yelp, etc. or did it just include social media sites like Facebook and Twitter? Social media is more than just Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter (the four sites mentioned in the article). Come on.

Listen, I freely acknowledge that I don’t know the full extent of the survey and am merely responding to what little information I have about the study. But I suppose that is part of the problem too. Don’t publish these types of summary articles without access to more information. There are people out there which include “gurus,” consultants, and clients who will read the title, and skim through the article and then begin spouting this off as breaking news.

That’s dangerous and it does not help those of us who understand how the interactive mix complements the more traditional sources make any progress with educating our clients and peers.

Back to pushing that boulder uphill.

Posted via web from Daily Life Shorts