Why I Hire Social Media — Reflection Through the Jobs to Be Done Lens
At the time I write this, there is considerable drama surrounding Twitter due to its recent acquisition by Elon Musk and the unsurprising chaos that has ensued. I have enjoyed using Twitter over the past six years, but I’m frustrated and anxious about its direction. I remain on the platform, but several weeks ago, I became an early user of Post, a new platform providing refuge to disaffected Twitter users. A respected connection of mine mentioned it on social media, then I heard Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway interview its founder, Noam Bardin, about it on their Pivot podcast. I said “Yes, And” and managed to jump the waitlist and enter in its early days.
In one of Elon’s many impulsive moves, Twitter recently announced that it would ban accounts that had profile links to certain competing platforms, including Post. I was taken aback. Since I’m a fairly cautious, rule-abiding person my first reaction was maybe I should take my Post profile link down. However, my anger over this policy took over and I decided this was a red line for me. I would leave it and if I was banned, so be it. As it turned out, Twitter soon reversed the policy and at least for now, I remain an active user.
As someone who uses Jobs to Be Done theory in my work and personal life, this episode got me thinking more about the jobs for which I hire social media. If I fire Twitter, how will I accomplish these jobs? I hire a limited number of platforms for social media — Twitter, LinkedIn and now, Post. For a short time, I hired Facebook, for a narrow social/emotional job of “feel connected to my improv community”. My distaste for Facebook exceeded my need to fulfill that job.
One of the great benefits of understanding and applying Jobs to Be Done is that it can help you become a better consumer. What objectives am I trying to accomplish? What is causing me to hire social media? I am hopeful that the process of writing this will help me work through those questions and make better hiring and firing decisions in the future.
There are various frameworks and methods used to apply the theory of Jobs to Be Done. Please see the paragraph at the end of this post for more information on the specific framework I apply here. The following table summarizes key elements of my Jobs to Be Done as they relate to social media as a solution to fulfill those jobs. It should be noted that I could list more Jobs, Pains, and Gains, but I’ve included what I feel are the most important to me for the sake of brevity.
*Note: David Duncan of Innosight wrote an article for Harvard Business Review in 2021 called “How Twitter Applied the “Jobs to Be Done” Approach to Strategy”. Twitter interviewed users to identify a wide range of jobs, which they grouped into three high-level jobs: Inform me, Inform others, and Have a Conversation. I have mapped most of my functional, social, and emotional jobs to those groupings above.
Dr. Casey Fiesler, an information scientist and professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder recently wrote an interesting piece on social media platform migration. This piece come out just days after Elon Musk closed on his acquisition of Twitter, triggered a firestorm of either immediate defections from the platform or announcements of preparations to leave. Post and Mastodon have been the most prominent recipients of Twitter defectors. Based on research, Dr. Fiesler observes that online communities face challenges migrating to another platform, and these migrations tend to be slow and gradual. Her observations resonate strongly to me, as I have joined Post more quickly than most of my Twitter communities, particularly innovation professionals/thought leaders and healthcare thought leaders. Her article causes me to think that online communities may also be thought of as people who have similar Jobs to Be Done.
Since most of my Twitter communities remain predominantly on Twitter, I still find myself opening that app first, then Post. I want to be clear that while I may be critical of a few aspects of my Post experience to date, I plan to give this platform grace for some time. It has been fascinating see it evolve from nearly the beginning and it seems well-intentioned. Noam and his team at Post are attempting something that is incredibly hard, and they are quite transparent as they forge ahead.
Satisfying content on Post is a challenge for me to find at this early stage. I have found some — for instance, Dr. Fiesler’s fine article. The “Explore” timeline has more political content than I care for, as well as a lot of posts about Twitter. So, at this point, my time on Post has triggered a fair amount of Pains and a modest amount of Gains. As more people in my communities of interest sign up, that may change for the better. Once I am following more people in my communities of interest, I can use the “Following” timeline more and minimize the likelihood of seeing irrelevant content. I also think that the Topics feature will be built out more over time, which will increase the likelihood I see relevant content.
I also haven’t been very successful generating interest or engagement with my posts on Post. While this is a little disappointing, it’s not that surprising. I have very few followers — my perception is that a very small percentage of my Twitter followers have come over to Post. Since I don’t see my Twitter communities in significant numbers on Post yet, there is minimal interest in my content-related posts. Interestingly, my light-hearted posts with pictures have garnered more likes.
It is difficult to predict the future of Twitter. One scenario is that Elon could make the free Twitter experience so unpleasant that I would have to pay a subscription fee in order to fulfill my jobs. A year ago, if Twitter had required me to pay $9.99 a month, I likely would have paid it, because I derive value from it and eliminating ads would be a great gain. However, I don’t believe that I could hand over my credit card to current ownership.
How would I fulfill my jobs if I leave Twitter? Until Post attracts more of my Twitter communities, I would invest more time into LinkedIn. There is a good deal of overlap between what I post on LinkedIn and what I post on Twitter. However, in the more light-hearted moments (such as the job to be seen as interesting or funny), I would turn to Post — LinkedIn is a professional social media platform that I don’t feel comfortable goofing off on. In terms of finding content, I would be more intentional following companies and individuals on LinkedIn than I am today. In fact, going through this Jobs to Be Done exercise may cause me to test that.
These reflections just scratch the surface in terms of thinking through how I might best engage with social media to accomplish my jobs. I might explore solutions other than social media. For example, when I want to express appreciation to content creators, perhaps I should see if there are other ways to reach out to them such as email addresses or web sites. Perhaps I should become a greater consumer of newsletters. I don’t have all of this figured out yet, but now I have a framework around my thinking and behavior, with the foundation of Jobs to Be Done theory.
If you are wrestling with how you engage with social media, or struggling with a hiring or firing decision, I encourage you to reflect and complete the four-box Jobs to Be Done table for yourself. While Jobs to Be Done is a useful framework for product development, innovation, strategy, marketing, etc. — it helps you be a better consumer. Reflect upon your context. Identify the functional, social, and emotional jobs you are trying to achieve. What are the pains you seek to avoid and the gains you hope for as you attempt to fulfill these jobs? What solutions are you hiring or firing? How are these solutions performing?
If you are new to Jobs to Be Done and would like to know more about learning more, feel free to reach out to me. There are many good resources to choose from, depending on your context and desired progress. I have written a few pieces on Jobs to Be Done and other topics on my Medium page Things Jay Writes.
Deeper Dive on the 4-Box Jobs to Be Done framework:
In my innovation work, I’m currently blending several methods to apply the theory of Jobs to Be Done. I use Bob Moesta’s definition for the overall concept of a Job to Be Done: The progress someone seeks in a struggling circumstance. I also have adapted a four-box framework from David Duncan’s method to capture the key elements of a Job to Be Done. I slightly modified David’s “Help Wanted Signs” element to reflect “Pains and Gains”, which are key elements of Alex Osterwalder’s well-known Value Proposition Canvas tool. For practitioners of Outcomes-Driven Innovation as developed by Tony Ulwick and Strategyn, I view Pains and Gains as similar to Desired Outcomes — though I have not written them here in the prescribed format. But hopefully ODI folks caught my Desired Outcome statement within the body of the post. 😊
Lastly, Bob Moesta’s Forces of Progress framework is also an incredibly elegant and valuable tool to help one explore a hiring or firing decision — but two frameworks felt a bit much for one post. Perhaps that will be a follow-up to this post.
