When I saw these shoes recently in Oxford Street in London, it occurred to me that all shoes do principally the same thing: they protect your feet from the pavement and keep them warm, although some also make a fashion and cultural statement. So while all shoes are different (these ones especially!) they basically do the same thing. It’s the same with humans. Seriously, I am me and no one else, which is how it’s meant to be. Unfortunately, too often we limit our knowledge and experience of someone by comparing them to someone else. It’s meant to simplify our thinking, but actually it complicates it and creates bad decision making.

I’ve been frustrated by the number of people who have tried to compare my new company to others. No, we are not the new Facebook, and we never want to be!  But why do people do that? A new band emerges and they are heralded as the next Oasis. How long will it be before the next diva is called the new Whitney Houston? We’ve all experienced older family members extolling how much we look like great aunt Freda (I made that one up, but you get my point.)

It’s no secret that I’ve kicked back against the major social networks marketing so aggressively recently – that’s my choice. I left Facebook not only because of that, but because I was bored of the relentless repetitive posts and the lack of publishing awareness of the people I was connected to. I know that’s harsh, but even I don’t want to know everything my friends are up to, especially when the posts tend to be utopian when in reality life is not!

However, there is nothing like a little break of a couple of days by the sea in the heat to get you to think differently and to accept that the honeymoon period is over and that the whole social media sector is not just fragmenting, it’s rationalising itself. Therefore, I am going to make some changes to how I approach my social media activity. Some people will find that strange, annoying, baffling and stupid, but others will be thankful, according to the feedback I’ve been getting. Making the change was helped by several clients and people I’m connected to, who suggested it in 2011. They lauded me when I shared my thinking and said, “Thank God,” and, “At last.”

So how will I use each channel in future? 

Its an ordinary day, but you’re doing something special; you’re meeting friends for a coffee in a store down town. You’re chatting, you’re gossiping, you’re catching up,  discussing the merits of disposable nappies or, the latest offering from a mobile network company. Suddenly, right there next to your table somebody starts walking up and down with a placard showing the brand name of those companies on it you have been talking about. You laugh at it, you try to ignore and after a few moments become irritated by it.

Then, even ruder, you’re having a conversation about your next holidays in New Zealand and up pops a message board right there in the middle of the table. It might be quirky to begin with, even fun, but eventually that interruption becomes nothing short of bombardment. That’s what and will happen on a fundamental basis in the future. And it won’t stop there. That person that was walking up and down with the placards with the nappy brand on it, was discreetly looking through your handbag taking data that will help that same person market to you when you’re sat on the loo and on the intercom in your new car when ‘social’ introduces itself to the driving experience. Welcome to in real life what Facebook and Twitter are doing to you online. Of course you know that.

Most of us would admit that when Facebook launched way back in 2004, it was a game changer. It stole the show and created demand for social networking, which individuals across the world didn’t know they needed. In the last year, though, Facebook has changed, as it becomes busy fulfilling the demand not of its users but of the brands that drive its revenue and shareholder value, other brands will see that the gate has opened and the horse has bolted! Opportunities are everywhere, and everything can be remade. Unthink is just one of the first out of the traps.

Facebook’s changes in the last few weeks are just tweaks. Seriously, they’re not revolutionary. When Henry Ford brought the first mass-produced motor car to the market in 1908 it changed the world, but since then the industry has just been fiddling with the original design. When James Dyson launched a snazzy new vacuum cleaner it was a game changer, but since then all they have been doing is fine tuning.

Online replicates offline behaviour in a profusion of activity. In some cases it’s a remix, real time conversation, sharing information, gossip, pictures and videos. Hell we have been borrowing each other’s books for decades. And, whilst its no different, it can be so different!

In their short online life, social networks are going through a metamorphose already. They are becoming ad networks driven not by the user experience but by shareholder value. Its flipped on its head in the last two years. We do forget they are businesses, exposed to the same pressures as older, more traditional corporate brands. There is not much light between how a company like Coca Cola or Shell operates and Twitter. Certainly Facebook next year when it goes for its IPO. To be brazen, Flickr is in a far better position to produce what we, as users, will want from future social networking. Facebook’s ‘changes’ last week resembled a facelift that Cher would have been more than happy with.

It’s hard to actually identify a social network now that has motivations of purely a social business model not just revenue and profit. There is nothing wrong with that, but whilst aggregation and syndication go on, these online networks are frankly changing functionality and still looking too linear, too narrow and too silo like.  Yet brands are racing to them as if they hold the key to future sustainability. Well they might hold the key but not if its for the wrong lock. Its gullibility at its frightening extreme.

I remember my parents warning me that if I watched too much TV my eyes would become square! They lied! Can’t help thinking there are a lot of untruths circulating about social media too. Nowadays we alert our children to the perceived dangers of spending too much time online. The fact that TV, for the most part, is not social in the slightest and being online, even in gaming, can be socially enthralling is for later discussion.

The research is compelling, it is demonstrating that there has been a consistent decline in social engagement from the 1960′s to now Putnam (1995.) There are several reasons that determine this according to Putnam (2000):

1. Generational change – 50%

2. Television and electronic entertainment – 25%

3. Work intensity – 10%

4. Urban sprawl – 10%

His research also alludes to how, within the USA (and the UK follows similar patterns) that people who watch more TV are less trusting of others and are less engaged in their communities. Halpern, John and Morris (2002) found that the more young adults watched TV, the less they trusted others. Putnam (2000) considers that despite the other contributers “Nothing – is more broadly associated with civic disenagement and social disconnection than is dependance on television and entertainment.”

TV typically is broadcast, its one way, its not engaging. It is characterised by a lot of the nasty things in the world. We search for good news stories that promote the great things happening in the world. When was the last time you heard “And in other news, several million people had a great day today!”

We are still to measure the impact of time spent online, the possible repercussions of virtual social networking and the inevitable chain reactions that always come out of some new phenomena. Our ancestors were probably saying the same thing about the Gutenberg’s press and the telephone. Lighten up folks, what we really need to be concerned about is that we are looking, a lot of the time, at social media and social branding from the completely wrong angle!

Robert Delaunay is quoted as saying “I am very much afraid of definitions, and yet one is almost forced to make them. One must take care, too, not to be inhibited by them.” Agreed but lack of definition can lead to confusion and that is what is happening in social media as it enters a new phase!

Its already become too sophisticated and that phrase ‘social media’ is increasingly clouding some of the discussions and outcomes of policy decisions and solutions at the highest level in government and organisations. It also obscuring people’s understanding. We need to re define social media and bring a comprehensive discussion to the table. There will always be several definitions of phraseology, I just want to start the debate. Here are some thoughts: