12 Most Idiotic Things About Spreading Social Good Online

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I guess it’s time I confess something. You probably already have figured it out but I might as well ease the tension and just come on out and say it.

As far as social media strategies go, dedicating yourself to spreading social good is really, really stupid. Daft. Dumb. Devoid of good sense. In fact, it’s so idiotic that I was able to think of 12 (weird number) reasons why spreading social good online is just plain silly.

1. How can you talk about yourself?

This is an obvious flaw. If you are supporting other people and/or other causes, how can you get in that promotion of your own self? It’s like that line from The Incredibles. “I’m your wife. I’m the greatest GOOD you got.” It’s best to focus on ourselves, as we all know!

2. You barely think about Klout or PeerIndex or PowerAge

Funnily enough, when you are trying to achieve an awareness goal or a monetary goal, Klout doesn’t seem to be omnipresent in your mind. Nor do other typical measurements of social media success. Anything that can lead you that far astray must have something wrong with it. Right?

3. Online drama loses its luster

What is the point of being online if you aren’t interested in deep, riveting, far too personal dramas? What is the point of being online if these dramas do not interest you? I mean, really!

4. Calling people out is not part of your plan

We all know that calling people out is a great traffic driver, but when you’re engaging in social good, you can’t easily rationalize dragging people through the mud. You’re depriving yourself of TRAFFIC, people!

5. Nice is boring

We’ve all heard this one before, right? If you’re nice, you’re boring. Predictable. Vanilla. If you use f-bombs and call BS on every other person you meet, it’s so much more exciting to engage with you! Social good really can take the fun out of social media.

6. Your priorities are way skewed

Instead of talking about Google Plus or Empire Avenue, your attention gets diverted when you’re engaged in social good. It gets pulled to, well, social good. And who is talking about that? Get with the program! There’s always going to be need in the world. I can’t promise there will always be Empire Avenue. Carpe Diem.

7. You end up talking to people who don’t have high Klout scores

One of the big goal in the online world is to talk to people who have huge followings, right? Get that exposure going. But a lot of the people and organizations you talk to when you’re engaging in social good may not even know what Klout is. Woah. Reality check time!

8. You may feel big social media conferences aren’t the best use of your time

This is where you really start falling off the edge. When you are engaging in a lot of online social good, it may be easier to dedicate time to more of a humanity-based conference versus, say, BlogWorld. You are cutting your nose off to spite your face. You want to go to a human rights protest but not SXSW? Sheesh.

9. There is no end-game

If you are trying to make money online, you can set a goal, and once you reach that you can decide if you want to set a new goal. When you are engaging in social good online, there is never an “I’m done” moment because there’s always something poopy going on somewhere. Your mission is never done. You’re just setting yourself up for ongoing plugging away.

10. It’s possible you will rub people the wrong way

You are really treading on thin ice when all you talk about is social good stuff. We all know that not everyone defines social good the same way. One of these days, if it hasn’t happened already, you’re going to support a cause that someone else doesn’t support. You’re just asking for trouble.

11. Nobody gets famous promoting social good

Let’s face it – the path most traveled to social media success is Build following, Write book, Do speeches about book. Where does social good fit into this scenario? Um, nowhere. Unless you’re Mother Theresa or Bill Gates (two ends of the spectrum there), social good doesn’t get you anything but an emptier pocket book, maybe. Isn’t fame important to you?

12. You might step away from your computer altogether

This is the really alarming part. I don’t want to freak anyone out, but sometimes, if you find yourself engaging in trying to spread social good online, you might actually find that the work takes you offline and way from your computer entirely. You might actually find yourself engaging with 3D people in the great big offline world. Twitter may become a fleeting hobby that fits around this other stuff.

Who would want that?

So as you can see, trying to spread social good online is just a fool’s paradise. It’s a house made of cards. Don’t tread down this gnarly, twisted path. It’s too dangerous and anyway, what would you get out of it?

Right?

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/2380748271 via Creative Commons

Margie Clayman

http://www.margieclayman.com/

Marjorie Clayman (@margieclayman) is the Director of Client Development at her family's 58-year-old marketing firm, Clayman Advertising, Inc. Margie is the resident blogger at www.margieclayman.com and is the resident librarian at www.thebloglibrary.com. Margie's writing has been featured on pushingsocial.com, problogger.net, convinceandconvert.com, and dannybrown.me. Margie has recently published an e-book called The ABC’s of Marketing Myths. Margie is still not used to talking about herself in the third person but is working on it.