The Landmark Blog

Social Media Debris

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I was watching television the other night as I was headed to bed and one of the classic movies of ALL TIME came on...no, not Citizen Kane, not Gone with the Wind...but Teen Wolf.  If you like teen movies, wolves, and basketball, this movie was made for you.  It's the classic story of an awkward teen, going through puberty, and realizing that a young man can actually be a werewolf (sounds familiar right).  It turns out that the side effect of becoming a werewolf is popularity, mad skills in basketball, increased coordination, and improved luck with the ladies (who knew?).  I have to tell you that this movie had a significant impact on my life (go Team Jacob).

There's a scene in the movie where Michael J. Fox, aka "Scott", hops on the top of his friend's wolf van and sidewalk surfs down the street to the Beach Boys song "Surfin' USA".  How cool right?  I distinctly remember one summer when my brother, friend, and I spent many a night "Surfin'" on top of my father's van as a result of this movie.  We'd drive through neighborhoods and try to knock each other off the roof with our '80's stereo blazing as loudly and as staticy as it would allow, typically not to a Beach Boy's song, but to Guns & Roses, Dead Milkmen, Jane's Addiction, or the Cult.  In retrospect, it's simply amazing that we didn't break any bones.  I did manage to dislodge my brother from the roof and almost ran over him one night.  The '80's were a different time.

Our van-surfing hit an all-time high one summer day when we decided to use the van as a moving diving board.  There was a canal near our house that we'd often swim in on hot days.  We'd frequently tie a board to the street's safety rail, throw it in the water, jump in the canal, and "surf" for as long as we could stand up.  This, the "summer of the van," we began jumping off the parked vehicle into the canal.  After the van-diving board got old, we decided to drive the van down the street, stand on the top, and when we felt the timing was right, jump off the van into the canal.  This was not without risk.  To begin with, you had to jump far enough off the van that you cleared the safety rail on the side of the road.  You never wanted to belly-flop as it could produce serious canal-rash.  There was always floating debris in the water (trash, wood, trees, dead animals, etc.) that you did NOT want to land on.  Finally, if your timing was off, you'd find yourself knee deep in muck on the side of the canal in the thistles and thorns with your shirt off.  You'd pick embedded thorns out of your crevasses for weeks.  As funny as it is to remember these summer days, I would NOT encourage you to take advantage of the moving diving board at home.

Social Media content is a little bit like our moving diving platform.  People say the craziest things online and they are happy to post them for the world to see.  My organization conducts a significant amount of social media research and you never know in advance what you're going to run across.  There's a lot of debris online, but there's also a real opportunity to make a difference for your organization if you have a way to avoid the debris.  To avoid challenges with your social media initiative, consider the following:

• Do your homework.  Stake out the landscape in advance.  Make sure that your social media insights or engagement provider has methods for cleaning out the debris and garbage that floats down the online canal every day.  Online content has a significant amount of spam, advertising, and non-relevant data tagged to the subject you're evaluating.  Make sure you can eliminate the debris.

• Your social media provider should be willing to "test" the water for you.  It's important that before you jump in, you know that there is enough subject matter to ensure the evaluation is helpful and answers your questions. 

• Know what you are trying to accomplish.  Are you looking for a social media research platform (research insights) or a social media listening platform (engagement)?  If you don't know what you want, figure it out in advance of procuring a provider of these services.  If you don't have clear goals, your experience will be unsatisfactory and you may walk away with road-rash from the experience.

• Much like traditional research, when conducting social media research, have a research question in mind.  Being succinct and exact in your research is always better than casting a wide net and hoping something useful is pulled in along with all of the other junk.

The internet is full of muck, thistles and thorns, garbage, AND some very refreshing, exciting, and exhilarating content along the way.  If you don't have one already, it's important you establish a social media approach that addresses both marketing and research.  Jump on in; it's not as scary as you'd think.