I just read an article titled ‘Why Social Media Purists Won’t Last’ and it reminded me of a blog I should have done two months ago but didn’t. This post written by Jason Falls gives some very good arguements for how Social Media can no longer be maintained and guarded by the purists. If you haven’t read it yet, it is definitely worth the 6 minutes. This post has lots of merit and is something I do find myself nodding in agreement to. Although I wonder, if I were to take a few minutes out of my day and sit still, would this post make me uncomfortable? I’m thinking yeah, yeah it would. Albeit, only a smidgen.
In September of this year I had the pleasure of working with some very smart people on a global smart phone account. I was providing the b2b social strategy, compeltely built on insights, monitoring of conversations, supported with analytics that led to crowdsourcing and co-creation of solutions, that all supported innovation and on and on it went. The proposal was a very proud moment for me. Fast forward to the client meeting.
The client had their set of objectives, needs and ideals and I definitely had mine. I was committed to delivering a social media movement that would rival Dell, one that would be used as a case study in Birmingham’s Masters coursework for social, one that… ok. I’ll stop here.
What happened? The purist in me met the realist client and neither the two shall meet. The meeting was mediated by one of my colleagues who managed to walk the fine balance between the ideal social media solution and the parameters, restrictions and objectives of said client. A more balanced (washed down) proposal was sold and they all lived happily ever after!
What did I take away from all this? I received one incredible lesson as to why the Purist model needs to evolve if it expects to survive in today’s world. NOTE – I used the word “evolve” not “compromise”. 
The fundamentals of Social Media remain true. One person represented it best when he describe it as simply – Social >media – anyone remember who coined this? I shall do some digging so credit can go where credit due.
So yes, to Social Media Consultants everywhere, the purist days are probably not numbered… they’re over.
Nov 23rd by Shannon
