What’s wrong with social media?

In a word, alot.

Lest you think I’m some pie-in-the-sky, kumbaya-singing, guitar-strumming, daisy-headress-wearing social media evangelist, I want to put my position on the topic out front.

Do I think social media will cure world hunger? Um, sadly, no.

Do I think it’s got uber-potential of the likes we haven’t seen in years? Yep.

But, let’s get back to the rant, Dennis McDonald-style…

I know there are problems with social media and I’m going to outline a few below. However, it should be very telling that I took the direction of my firm from overall technology strategy to social media strategy in less than a year.

The challenges of social media as I see them are myriad.

It’s ripe to fall prey to net marketing cults. You know the guys with 90 autoresponder series promising you the golden keys to making $50,0000 a day on Google Adwords if you just pay $5,000 to go to their ‘Mentoring Sermon-ar’? It’s just a matter of time before these same guys show up on the scene and do the same thing with social media. And, that’s the problem with social media. Anyone can get social media ‘street cred’ if they’ve got a big enough list.

Stalker-Prone, Security & Other Nuts. Unfortunately, there have been more than a few cases of cyber-stalking of prominent bloggers. I’ve never received any death threats. Probably because I always travel with personal security and partly because, well, I don’t give the impression that I’d tolerate it for one minute. That, and my sister is a Federal Agent. But, security concerns are real and the more involved with social media you are, personally or professionally, the more likely it is that you’ll attract unstable personality types.

Lack of Personal Identity. Unless I came up with a totally false name, email address, etc. I could never start a hugely popular MySpace fan club for boy bands and expect to be taken seriously by my clients and peers. Google search results would ‘out’ me as sure as I am typing this blog post. If that didn’t happen, my IP address would give me away at some point. And, if you think people don’t care, try to start a online community focused on macrame, make sure it’s really popular (or not) and see how many clients and colleagues send you puzzled emails. The days of an anonymous fan club with a P.O. Box are long gone. Let’s not even touch personal identity theft.

Copyrights, Trademarks, Fair Use and Other Legal Snafus. As we become more and more a content and conversation driven society, making sure your content doesn’t get ripped off is even more of a challenge – as is making sure we always give appropriate attribution to others for their contributions and content. Call it walking on eggshells or being a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, but the risks are real, present and must be addressed. And, if you’re publicly held with the SEC breathing down your shirt and shareholders and lawyers in your face, heaven help you.

Blogs, Podcasts and Wikis. Using these tools is not for the faint of heart. It’s only for the ready. If the public even gets a whiff of disingenuousness, they’ll nail your hide. If you’re customer service is not up to snuff, you’ll hear about it. And wikis? Just the thought of allowing the public to change a portion of any site you own, without prior consent is enough to send any organization into a tailspin. Most of the wikis I’m involved with a relatively small and/or private. As soon as they become heavily trafficked, the nuts and vandals appear.

This is by no means an exhaustive list and if you’re ticked off by social media now’s the time to chime in and share.

And, if you love social media and think it’s the best thing since sliced bread, my next post is for you…