The Growing Social Media Knowledge Gap

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Some great marketer or advertising guru once said “By the time we die, we will have spent an estimated one and a half years just watching TV commercials.”

Maybe my generation…but what about future generations?

TV Advertising is still king and yet, social media and the power of social networking is making huge inroads into the way brands are trying to communicate and influence us.

Like the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th and early 19th centuries that had a profound effect on agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation in Britain. Today’s social media revolution will have a profound effect on all industries not just advertising.

With this change, I’m seeing a serious social media knowledge gap in the workplace and a resistance to change by business/management – not forgeting our loveable politicians.

As an example of this GAP and resistance – eighteen months ago, I sat on a government advisory board that was set-up to help Regional Australian exporters. When the subject of the Internet was mentioned, I had a continual battle with other board members on the benefits of exporters using the Internet. I remember one senior board member stating that he exports and didn’t see the need to use the Internet…if he wanted to speak to a client, he’d just jump on a plane.

If such a knowledge gap and resistance to change is left to grow, I believe it would lead to some negative effects on Australian business and the economy.

According to Gavin Heaton:

“While many businesses/brands react by blocking or disabling access to social networks, the fact remains — the PRACTICE of business (just like the PRACTICE of marketing/advertising) is changing in ways that have never before been imagined. These EMERGENT practices require new skills and
flexible thinking … and they may not yet, deliver the value you want.

But they will (even the CIA agrees). We (and I do mean “we”) just need to create the connections between the practices, our business strategies and our bottom lines — this is the hard, behind the scenes activities that also need to happen (who said Web 2.0 is all fun and games).”

As practitioners of social media, I think it maybe our responsibility to use our collective knowledge to raise the awareness, so that more Australian brands and workers embrace social media.

Like Gavin, I was unable to attend the Enterprise 2.0 summit in the US. But I’d recommend you listen to Karen Appleton, VP of Business Development of Box, the file storage utility, talking about the importance of social networks to your business.

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