Social-ism!

Was watching the fascinating video below, a Ted talk by Jon Ronson about how one tweet can ruin your life, and was reminded of a recent encounter of how the internet has revolutionised both communication and information.

A couple of us from Scuffy Dug were recently attending a seminar about social marketing, a panel of three “experts” were talking about the best way to use social networks to market your company, the direction the market seemed to be going in, and where best to concentrate your efforts. The panel were eloquent, seemingly knowledgable and entertaining, it was interesting and enjoyable to attend.

Now out of the panel (yes I’m keeping things vague, as I personally don’t want to embarrass anyone), I personally knew one member having worked alongside him in the past. We had arrived early for the seminar, and that had given us a while to stand, and the second member of the panel had stood with us and we’d had a short chat, and I knew his experience, what he was working on currently, and the angle he was approaching social marketing from.

The third member of the panel however, I didn’t know. He seemed the most successful, and was certainly the most talkative. He had a strong grasp on the topic, and while there are many ways of getting “social” wrong, he mentioned the various ethical methods that could be used.

But having not worked with him, and not spoken with him before I reached for my phone and google to find out more about him as he talked.

First result on google in connection with his name and company name, was a story from a national newspaper only 3 months before about him closing down his previous company letting suppliers go without payment for goods he continued selling through his new company, a couple of hundred thousand pounds had gone unpaid to companies which themselves were now having to close down making staff redundant.

Now how that could be connected to ethics of any kind I’m not sure, and am not here to debate. But it certainly appeared that he was no expert in maintaining a good online profile. He went from sounding like an expert to looking like a liar, so me and the other Scruffy Dugger left at the next opportunity.

So if you need any help with Social Marketing, get in touch, we can’t claim to be world renowned experts, but we’ve never ruined our, or anyone elses lives with a tweet or with anything else.

Enjoy the video, it’s eye-opening to see how social media has evolved.