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by Nick Barron

The one question I get asked, when someone learns I use social media for a living, is, “So what’s the next BIG thing?”

I tell them I don’t think it’s another Facebook or Twitter or some other new twist of technology we haven’t yet seen.

Instead, I tell them I believe people are going to start pulling back. They’re going to realize how much social media has consumed their life and how much privacy they’ve sacrificed, and they’re going to start the Social Media Pullback.

As a social media professional, I’m not suppose to say this. I’m suppose to champion the technology that puts food on my table, and it’s sacrilege to publicly suggest the hordes of people flocking to social media (which is what gives social media value to companies and brands) are about to realize they went too far.

But this is what I’m hearing, seeing (hello Facebook Exodus) and feeling. (Besides, isn’t what makes Don Draper such an excellent ad man is that he is the consumer his clients are trying to reach?)

If people increase their privacy settings, begin weeding out Twitter followers and Facebook friends, start limiting how applications interact with them in online communities and even delete accounts, it doesn’t render this social-media-as-a-tool-for-brands thing useless.

It will, however, cause at least two things to happen:

1) The pretend social media professionals will disappear.

2) Brands will have to get smarter about how they interact with social media users.

On the first point, and I don’t mean to call out anyone in particular, but I’ve noticed over the past year that the number of “social media experts” has exploded. I’m all for more people evangelizing the technology I love and believe in, but it’s getting loud and crowded and something is going to have to give.

I can’t imagine being a brand trying to hire a social media professional right now. There is no certification process, no defined way to prove you are what you say you are, except what you put on your Web site and Twitter page.

(And I’m not just talking about individuals. I’ve noted agencies who’ve rushed into the social space without proving they know what they’re doing.)

This will change, though, as people begin pulling back their use of social media because those who really understand the social space, who truly get the space’s foundation, will know how to adjust with this shift in users’ attitudes. These true social media professionals will be right there with the shift, not fearing it and even taking part in it.

On the second thing that will happen, brands that are jumping into social media as a function of one department or another are going to have to change.

As I’ve said before, social media is not a marketing or PR or advertising or customer service tool. It’s all of the above. It’s none of the above.

Brands that continue to insist social media lives within one area will find it harder and harder to derive value from their investment in social media because, as people pull back, they will start by eliminating their interactions with those brands that annoy them in their communities and then those brands that provide the least value.

The only reason users of social media ever embraced brands in their communities is because they thought they would get something out of it. Whether it was to save money, an easy way to resolve an issue or to learn about the inside of their favorite brands, users didn’t opt to interact with brands as a way to show support for the brand, at least not primarily.

As users begin the social media pull back, they’re going to limit and eliminate interactions with brands that don’t interact with users in the true spirit of social media.

Brands expecting users to show support for them in social media and expecting users to care what the brand has to say, without wanting to hear from the users, will find their followers/friends dropping. They will notice that when they speak, fewer and fewer are listening.

The Social Media Pullback is nothing to fear or deny. It’s simply a shift by consumers (users) and the good social media professionals and the strong social brands will benefit from it.

- Nick Barron, Green Buzz Agency Social Media Consultant

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