"Drive Thru?" by snailo86 on Flickr.com
Maybe you missed it, but that’s understandable. I’m talking about Society and Social Media, of course. Wedding of the century, and they friggin eloped back in ’08. After two and a half years, though, the honeymoon is over. It was great for a while. All they wanted to do was spend time with each other. They were so cute… all shiny and new. But in the process of falling madly in love, they lost their sense of self. They lost their personal identity. Can’t really bring much to a relationship if there’s no “you” anymore. And that’s natural. It’s part of any healthy relationship. So, Society is reconnecting with her roots while Social Media reconnects with his.
Seriously, though, I’ve noticed more and more stories about people rediscovering real life. Some great examples:
- A bike ride across Europe, where the trending topics were the direction of the wind, and some dude’s knee.
- Why Peter Bregman returned his iPad
- I’m too cool for the Internet
- GOOD.is project about finding solitude in the city
3 Implications/recommendations for businesses:
- Your shiny new Facebook/Twitter/Foursquare presence doesn’t matter as much as you think it does. Yay! You made it to the party. But did you bring sales brochures or bratwurst? Be helpful first. The sales will follow.
- Experiences are more important than ever. All this new tech stuff is supposed to make it easier for your customers to interact directly with your employees. Kill your phone tree. Seriously. Think about the immediate connection with, education about, and empathy for your customers you’d have if every single one of your employees had to answer the phones. Make it random. Related note: get rid of metrics based on length of the call.
- Simple is powerful. Simplify your product offering & pricing strategy: good, better, best, works pretty damn well.
What do you think? Do you see Real Life as the next Twitter?
By the way, I’m pretty sure Social Media is sitting on his couch in his underwear playing GTA.