Social media is worthless.
Social media is essential.
Those contrasting views were on display March 21 at Benjamin Steakhouse in White Plains, N.Y., in a debate over the value of social media presented by the Business Journals and Wag magazine.
On one side of the debate was marketing consultant B.J. Mendelson, author of “Social Media is Bullshit.” Opposing him were Kristen Ruby, founder and CEO of Ruby Media Group L.L.C. and Ted Miller of DataKey Consulting L.L.C., both based in Mount Kisco, N.Y.
Miller said that social media has made word of mouth very important, given the speed information spreads. He said that while consumers will trust advertisers only 29 percent of the time, they trust friends on social media 92 percent of the time.
“It”™s staggering,” Miller said. “People”™s voices have been amplified and are being heard loud and clear.”
Occasionally trading barbs, Ruby and Mendelson were espousing the merits of ”” or in Mendelson”™s case, the waste represented by ”” social media.
“It allows you to communicate and aggregate your content,” Ruby said, citing Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram as examples.
Mendelson called social media a buzzword created by corporations, which he said allows them to continue to control the balance of power.
“Social media involves a very vocal minority,” Mendelson said.
Ruby spoke about the impact social media has had with her clients. Benjamin Steakhouse and Stacyknows.com teamed up for a holiday party that later turned into an event to mark 26 Acts of Kindness, an initiative started by journalist Ann Curry after the Sandy Hook shooting. The companies used social media to get the word out, and Curry even showed up, having heard about it through Twitter.
“That”™s just good marketing,” Mendelson retorted. “It had nothing to do with social media. Sandy Hook was everywhere; it was a major news story. It was brilliant marketing.”
Mendelson argued about the usefulness of Twitter, claiming that only 15 percent of people use it and most of its users are journalists, like Curry. He maintains a Twitter account and said most of his followers are fake, created by companies with the purposes of spamming.
Ruby said that there is still a place for media like print and said it is important that companies fully integrate.
“The best campaigns still use print,” Ruby said. “In the old days there was just one medium. You have to use multiple channels.”
However, Mendelson argued the return on investment from social media isn”™t sufficient for most companies to justify funding campaigns.
He said that in 2009 he traveled across the country to raise money for breast cancer charities. While he generated lots of followers on Twitter and many “Likes” on Facebook, the trip did not translate into actual dollars, he said.
“It was a live demonstration that social media doesn”™t work,” Mendelson said. “You can”™t qualify social media with sales.”
The debate was moderated by Elizabeth Bracken-Thompson of Briarcliff, N.Y., public relations firm Thompson & Bender L.L.C. Bruce Newman, vice president of Productivity Institute L.L.C., located in Carmel, N.Y., summed up.
