The proliferation of tools, techniques and new models for doing business with social has made the practice of staying ahead of the curve an absolute necessity. This isn't newsworthy by itself, after all every technology that adds value to businesses will put pressure on companies and agencies to execute.
The danger with social? Technology no longer dies. The tool or social network will continue to work as long as it has hosting available to keep the lights on. The resource just becomes outdated or ineffective based on the rise and fall of important metrics.
Therefore, take an honest look at yourself and the tools that you have been using. Have you explored other options? What kind of research have you done to look at the future of your industry? Are you becoming increasingly frustrated by a lack of results?
Answering these questions will be quite informative about yourself. I'm betting a lot of people explore one thing find that it meets their needs and continuously use it. Even if a better option exists.
The basic cycle for adoption looks something like this:
1. Explore. Find the tool you are looking for.
2. Question. Does this tool actually do what you want it to do? How does it fit into your daily life?
3. Examine. Are there any weaknesses with this approach? What do critics say?
4. Experiment.
5. Use. Implement and use the tool to its full potential.
6. Repeat. Not happy with the results? Try again.
The faster you realize that social media is largely a toolkit? The easier it will be for you to understand, implement and augment your current abilities.
The biggest hurdle? Complacency. You need to rely on a variety of metrics, thoughts and ideas to move forward. You can't choose just one.
I've largely dropped media from my dialogue (despite the categorization of this post) from a reason. Social is eventually going to encompass all aspects of business.
The easiest way to get up to speed is simply to crowdsource with other readers: What tools have you found to be useful or obsolete?
This basically is my plea to people to stop paying attention to Technorati which is a miserable way to measure blog authority. Check out Post Rank or Quarkbase, both offer far more relevant information about authority.
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tagged as Obsolescence in marketing, obsolete marketing techniques, obsolete social tools, social marketing metrics, social marketing tools, social media tools
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What do use as the indicators that a given tool is headed towards obsolescence? It seems like it's important to always have a diverse toolkit, so the loss of any particular tool won't be seriously damaging.
If the data is accurate or not is the most common indicator. The second is layout, intuitive feel and usefulness of the data provided.
If it measures outdated metrics? Probably a good time to leave as well.
Thanks for the informative post, Stuart. In my own point of view, surviving the corporate rat race requires more than a strong drive for business and a feasible entrepreneurial plan — it requires, most of all, innovation, to deal with all the obstacles along the way without having to quit.
Great post as people jump in because they hear everyone else is doing it, do not get the immediate results/instant gratification and abandon ship. The reality is that the toolkit might just need to be evaluated. Complacency is another factor – they know how to use the tool and are not willing to explore something new.
thanks for pointing out the basic cycle of adoption – think sometimes we forget to Repeat.
Suzanne
CoTweet is a great tool I have used to manage my company's Twitter account. I like the adoption cycle you outlined and think many people are afraid of experimenting because they don't want to look bad if they don't utilize social media the “right way”.
CoTweet is a great tool I have used to manage my company's Twitter account. I like the adoption cycle you outlined and think many people are afraid of experimenting because they don't want to look bad if they don't utilize social media the “right way”.
CoTweet is a great tool I have used to manage my company's Twitter account. I like the adoption cycle you outlined and think many people are afraid of experimenting because they don't want to look bad if they don't utilize social media the “right way”.
CoTweet is a great tool I have used to manage my company's Twitter account. I like the adoption cycle you outlined and think many people are afraid of experimenting because they don't want to look bad if they don't utilize social media the “right way”.
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