Social media: bringing sexy back

I just returned from a week of conferences. I started up at SearchFest in Portland, OR (put on by the dominators of search—SEMpdx) and ended in Austin, TX where I partook in both the PubCon and SXSW festivities. Let me just say…I am tired. What is it about us geeky types? Put all of us in the same city, with our iPhones, tweetstreams, free cocktails, and we are a happy, chatty group of brainstorming power, but I digress …

The point is after a week of traveling and smoozing with the bigwigs of social media, one word lingers…sexy. Never have I been so engulfed by one phrase, “social media is sexy.” The question that prefaced the response never mattered. The word sexy was like an exclamation point to every panel discussion, every Q & A, every handshake I encountered.

So what does that mean? I have been an advocate of social media for quite some time, always pushing past the buzz-worthy stereotypes and the criticisms that it is just a fad. I’ve pushed for moving beyond the initial excitement into a world of social media standards, social media analytics and into an awareness that our efforts in this new marketing realm will be fueled with a finite purpose leading to a bottom-dollar gain.

However, we seem to be stuck as to how best to categorize the powerful tool that lay before us. If social media is most accurately described as sexy then we are in fact saying it is “interesting, exciting, trendy.” While I agree with the first two adjectives, I also believe our dependency on this overused phrase unintentionally confirms that social media is simply a passing thrill. Clearly we all know this isn’t the case. So I threw it out to the twitter stream in a truly sexy fashion, asking, “What does it mean when someone calls social media “sexy”? Here are the responses:

There is comfort to be found in the fact that the users of the word actually differ in the definition itself, but I wonder how long it will take for social media to evolve into something more than the sexy little number we pimp out to our clients. Or perhaps more importantly we should be asking, “after social media retires her red stilettos, what will we be left with?” Will there be something of substance or just a lot of hype, confused business owners, and thousands of 140 character statements that never led to a conversion?

The past week has made me realize the excitement around social media is still full throttle, and for better or for worse, it’s up to us to push past the buzz and start figuring out where social media fits into our long term marketing initiatives. Have you asked yourself lately the tough question…”What is all of this social media sexiness adding to your bottom line?”

Joanna Lord is a social marketing consultant and founder of YourJobStop, the job resources board. See her business profile, contact Joanna or leave a comment below.