Social media - Against human nature?

Despite being one of the early adopters of Internet - first Mosaic experiences in mid 90s', earlier to that local network user in Helsinki University of Technology and commercial online services from late 90s' - Still power of Internet amazes me.... and I get irritated how people (and companies) are lost with its power.

First some good news - about my blog. Something what started as a way to improve writing skills and sharing ideas across industries - today visitors from 48 countries, latest "rush" from Pakistan. Disappointing part is that there is practically no idea exchange. Very few comments even when my texts tend to have against the conservative and common wisdom opinions.

Most common search engine (Google) phrase: marketing functions - of which zero from my home country Finland. For Finns most read texts are related to international expansion. Another disappointment - my first texts from early 2010 are practically never read. Not even the one which I consider to be loaded of strategic thinking: http://nordicsbusiness.blogspot.com/2010/01/business-models-and-commodities-and-ict_18.html. Well issues with marketing are global and led in many companies with theories from 50s' and 80s'... so cannot blame.

So what amazes me? I have been involved and responsible to create commercial success for over 25 online stores and services, both international and domestic... so been there and done that - never had imagined that I could readers from so many countries.

Let's stop analyzing my tiny blog and move to irritation part - related to social media

Most of the other blogs I have read or looked into - majority of those are boring. Old dated ideas from 5-10 years back brought to life as "new exciting ideas", obvious and self-evident advises or praising one simple idea and most terrible ones are advertisement blasts.

99 % of Linkedin discussion starters are ads. Even the people who claim to be professionals of social media blast their one way ads as "group discussion starters". Do they really believe that someone gets excited?

Majority of Facebook content from companies (read bigger companies) is "one-way" campaign based. Same offline campaign blast continues in online space added normally with some kind of contest: "give your opinion and win toothpaste for one year's consumption". When you land to company's own web page it is too many times annual report in the web sometimes including an online store. Others have as well so should we. Zero points from interactivity and highlighting root cause for poor Facebook content.

Internet should and was suppose to start interactive two-way relationship with customers. But maybe it is against human nature? Think about F2F normal discussions we have with peers and friends. Many of us in the conversations do not pay attention (=listen) what someone is about to say because we are preparing our own opinion. We love to talk about ourselves and we tend to memorize discussions where we have filled the airtime. BUT we also remember those because someone was humble and intelligent enough to listen and build ideas on top on our own thoughts and ideas.

Social media is imitating (at least trying to) our offline behavior, therefore in communities based on friendships or shared interests it has great opportunities. Unfortunately in corporate world where normal approach is inside-out "we are telling and want you to do this" we fall into a situation where social media is against human nature (and company objectives driving our behavior).