Does mainstream mean evil?

Goal of most organizations and Businesses is to go mainstream.

But growing should not happen at all costs, we see many people/orgs losing their soul by going mainstream.

We could talk about politicians, or some software vendors, but let’s no go there for now, and limit this post to medias & communication channels.

What happened on most Comms channels

Let’s consider famous channels:

• Postal Mail
• Phone
• Email
• Social Media

Communication channels grow, till them become doomed, full of spam or ads.

Most of them are now full of spam or advertisement, and I don’t enjoy them as much as I used to:

• My post Inbox is full of brochures that go almost directly into recycling
• I’m more and more reluctant to answer phone calls (mobile, or home) around lunch-time or diner-time, since we’re bombarded with telemarketers reading their boring scripts and trying to sells things that I don’t need
• I’ve not fully given up on Email, but the Experience is more and more painful, with so many spams or fishy posts (or non-productive discussions)
• Even on Facebook, Twitter on Linkedin, ads appear all over the place

Unfortunately, it’s a fact that most medias have been taken over by ads. It occurred to me that this also happened to Fax!

Should all web sites and platforms become evil?

I read recently an article stating that as soon as a web site becomes popular, it’s a best practice to embed ads to make money out of it.

I disagree with that broad statement, ads may be highly counter productive!

Are we only here to try and make money, at all costs?

If the goal of a web site is to help Customers succeed and connect with your Brand, why disturbing them with ads? What value can a product advertisement add to the Experience for your Customer or Partner?

Keeping your Enterprise Social Network healthy

I believe spams on most existing channels is a fantastic opportunity for Enterprise Social Networks. Since Brands control them, Brands decide the exact Experience they want to provide.

No spam: great rule for your ESN

Let’s keep each ESN a place where people want to go back, because they feel good, they know they can trust the venue, nothing will be pushed to them in an inappropriate manner.

Two things need to happen here:

1. obviously not deciding to contract with Adwords or any other Ad Service,
2. also making sure that Community Members play ball, and don’t pitch products in an inappropriate manner (setting expectations in Guidelines like here, and also enforcing it through moderation, automated and/or crowdsourced)

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More on these topics at JiveWorld17.