4 Fuks Saké

"Hey Guys, I'm A Bit Uncomfortable You Made A $1bn. Let's Have A Diet Coke And Talk."

I've held an opinion for a while that a large proportion of people working in social media had sand kicked in their faces at school. Technology has always been 'nerdy' and there is a revelling in the outsider term 'geek.' Naturally, social media in its infant years attracted the types who worked their way up from Star Wars figures through to circuit boards. 

Woe betide anyone that leaves the geek crowd and gets accepted by the in crowd. Backs will be turned.  

Like Instagram. They had the audacity to take $1bn off Facebook. They have "sold out."  People get fucked off and talk of betrayal. The issue seems to be that:

a) They took money off the big enemy, Facebook.

b) That Instagram made the user feel special and important, and now they don't.

I would suggest the following.

1. People come up with ideas and go to work to try and make money. That includes the founders of Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, and whatever a couple of people in San Francisco are working on right now, that we'll fall in love with later this year or early next.

2. People with relaxed dress codes, white teeth, and nice smiles from California, are adept at making geeks feel special. Like the Instagram "guys" pictured. Wouldn't you just love to have a Diet Coke with them? They give them things to play with. Coax personal information out of them to make money, and then persuade them to promote the whole process.

3. If someone makes $1bn out of something like nice pictures of babies, cats and food - rather than oil or guns, then that's a good thing. 

4. If you are uncomfortable with Instagram making money in the social media industry, stop doing it yourself. Stop walking into publications and/or businesses asking for much smaller amounts of money to advise on how to use Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest etc...to make money. 

5. If you don't like Facebook, delete your account.

Congratulations to Instagram. I love your product, I love your work, and I'm glad you're making money. As Paul Carr, said "They didn't sell out, they just sold. They're a company, not the fucking Rolling Stones."

 

What's Happening Now?

This is very nice. 

Clever Shit #103: Gordon Gustavsson, IKEA Malmo

Been working with IKEA for all of 3 weeks now. If this quality of brain power exists inside their business, well, it should be fun.

Money. Twitter. Measurement. The Usual.

Go online, look for social media debate around Twitter, and you're a click away from two debates.

1. How does anyone make any money from Twitter?

2. How do you measure ROI on social media?

The answer to the first one is simple. Go into the conference production business, or start manufacturing lanyards. The big winners so far are anybody who cashes in on the thousands of bodies in and around the industry short on paid-for client work, and long on love of the sound of their own voice.

If you can't beat them, join them. So yesterday, Mike took his business cards down to the O2. Don't watch Olly Murs clips - kick off your shoes and enjoy all 17 minutes of it. James Poulter is your host.

Second, here courtesy of David Berkowitz has written an outstanding post - 100 ways to measure social media. There is one flaw. If I'm a client, I still can't work out whether any of them will increase sales of my product. 

Currently working on this. When it's done, 4 Fuks Saké readers will get first dibs on the tickets to the resultant conference in the New Year.

Save Time & Money.

Here's an opportunity to give yourself a break filling your "packed" schedule of procrastination at conferences and seminars. Just watch this, and then go and do some real client work in social media for 6 months. It's all you need. They'll be another one in the spring.

Prince. Frog. Rainforests. Save Them

Last Call

Cracking idea. Get your slide in to Neil Perkin for his community presentation by Monday. That's mine above. The community (or Neil) will judge if it makes the cut.

Asian Intelligence

How to get instantly smart on Asia, the Internet and other things. Norman Lewis: "To See The Future of the Internet, Look East," in the excellent Spiked.