I started coaching, training and speaking on social media nearly five years ago. I was so excited with this new concept that I wanted to tell the world.
Some business people may have heard of My Space and Facebook, but virtually no one knew about LinkedIn or Twitter. Google+, Instagram, and Pinterest hadn’t been invented.
In my speeches, I described social media as “new media.”
Old media, I said, was “interruption” or outbound marketing. You watched TV or listened to radio and suddenly an unwelcomed commercial interruped your program. And you didn’t necessarily trust the commercial because you knew some company had paid money to tell you how great it was.
By contrast, I defined social media (new media) as “permission” or inbound marketing. The consumer makes the decision to accept the content.
I described social media as welcomed and unselfish. Instead of forcing commercials on people, it’s the company’s responsibility to provide content that is interesting, relevant, and engaging.
It’s still true that much of social media is permission based, but we are seeing a complete transformation of that business model as companies rush to make money.
First we started seeing commercials on YouTube. Then Pandora, my favorite Internet music platform, started inserting commercials.
Then paid ads started invading our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn streams.
And now we hear that Facebook plans to start inserting video ads.
I sure don’t want to be forced to watch video ads while I’m on Facebook.
But should we be shocked? Probably not. Companies are in business to make money.
But it’s disappointing. I wanted to think of social media as being selfless.
However, the jury is still out.
I quit listening to Pandora and now listen to Songza because their music is commercial free.
Google+ is gaining traction. Maybe this is Google’s opportunity to catch up and pass Facebook?
Free enterprise is alive and well in America. We shall see.
David Sher is a co-founder of Buzz12 Advertising. You can read more of his posts by looking for the “David Sher Posts” category in the sidebar of Buzz12’s website.