Social Media Big Players Tone it Down, Take Their Own Advice- My Predictions for 2009 

Originally posted on the Social Media Mafia blog

Everyone and their second cousin’s kindergarten classmate’s barber has done a ‘Predictions for 2009′ post, especially within the social media sphere. John Battelle’s usual antics and Peter Kim’s assemblage of the whole social media blogosphere’s predictions both stood out, but I am too stubborn to accept what the big egos in the industry have to say. In fact, my prediction is that such egos are going to be harder to create and maintain. There’s going to be movement away from big, all-or-nothing cults of personality and little leaky silos, more niche verticals, will find their respective icons and make their efforts worthwhile.

I make this fairly bold prediction for a few reasons:

One is the preponderance of oversharing, as a concept and an actual activity, at the end of 2008. The word ‘overshare’ got a lot of hype and was generally portrayed as a thing to avoid, both as a sharer and a sharee. The web is a means for distributing and filtering content. New tools are coming out all of the time to manage such tremendous datastreams, it’s true. But, at some point, a potential reader has to make the step; unless they find Kevin Rose’s every breath interesting, they might hesitate before jumping on his personal twitter bandwagon. They just might not see it as relevant.

Another is the fever pitch of having and feeding a big ego. Investing time, money, and effort into ones personal brand has become a high priority for anyone trying to make an impact, and a necessity for those with so much personal brand equity to lose. I think, however, for the heavies it might get to be too much. Maybe this is more of a longer-term prediction (2012- the return of Quetzalcoatl and the fall of Scoble) but I think that business life/personal life separation might increase to some degree simply because people will run out of steam, lifestreams will run dry. And that might be a good thing. Because I think…

The social media figureheads are going to get more numerous, more diverse, and more specialized. The long tail is one of the key defining characteristics and guiding principles behind this whole social media locomotive. Everyone says we are entering the year of the niche, the era of the vertical. Advertising is losing ROI, a lot of Venture Capitalists lost a lot of Venture Capital, and there are simply more people on the social web than you can possibly imagine (Facebook is the 8th largest “country” in the world. Think about that). I hate to say it, but the early adopters, mavens and pioneers who have dominated the airwaves, are no longer the latest and greatest. At least not to everyone.

As their personal brands grew, they turned up the volume. Though they may have gotten slightly better at what they do, their signal:noise ratio hasn’t really changed. Small, tight social networks of devotees are developing and they need icons relevant to them. Social media players like Gary Vee will do really well. Not just because they have distinctive personalities or create content like a million copy writing monkeys or use every social media channel on the planet (though those qualities don’t hurt). But because they represent a social niche. Gary Vee represents little guys with nasally voices from Jersey who really love wine. I have a feeling one of those qualities (god, I really hope it’s not his Jersey-ness) will become a much bigger part of his online agenda. The important thing, however, is they don’t proselytize. They share their passion. They talk about what is meaningful to them, in diction that is meaningful to them and, with a large enough pool, to people whom that is meaningful.

Social media evangelists, embrace the lessons you preach and blog and sell your clients! The battle is won: social media has saturated the public and has passed a tipping point of usage. Now stop telling us about it and find your niche!

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