Missing the point

There was a time when Tony Hsieh, the ebullient founder of Zappos, would tweet invitations to anyone who happened to be in the airport he was in, somewhere in the world, to meet him in the bar for a drink.

He would hold live public chats on Twitter with customers. Talk about risk tolerance. Of course, that’s probably why Zappos is known to have just about the best customer service around.

The whole point of “social media” was to create “social” opportunities.

Social: relating to or involving activities in which people spend time talking to each other of doing enjoyable things with each other.

I honestly don’t see much of that with any company, but especially not in radio’s use of social media.

Most are using it as an extension of their broadcast, to get the word out about some contest or promotion. Rarely is it an invitation to actually socialize with someone at the station or an artist who’s in town and will take an hour for a “private” social time with your listeners.

Facebook has become a tool for narcissists. We don’t actually ‘socialize’ with anyone there. We just desperately hope lots of them ‘Like” the things we find important in our lives.

I wonder at the opportunity this offers someone with a bit of vision, and persistence — and extraversion.

Finding ways to use ‘social media’ to actually increase personal social time with your listeners…