Is Social Media Overrated?

Like any tool, social media has its pros and cons. What we have in the debate below are two persons whose views on social media are at two extreme ends of the spectrum.

Gary Vaynerchuk, host of Wine Library TV, has very much used social media to build his brand feels that social media has brought positive changes to the world. On the contrast is Paul Carr, a columnist from TechCrunch who recently went on a self-described “social shutdown”, quitting Facebook, Foursquare and LinkedIn.

Regardless which side of the spectrum your opinions lie, watching the debate brings in fresh perspectives. Some highlights:

Gary Vaynerchuk

“I think the way to win in social media or have success is to not talk but to listen,“ said Gary.

“I’m in the 95 percentile of just at replying and responding. (…) It’s the listening part that made sense to me. I mean, I built my brand by using Summize.com, which eventually got bought by Twitter and is the back of their search engine. Nobody knew who I was. I wasn’t going to be Robert Parker, “Wine Spectator,” and have those platforms. So, all I did was search Chardonnay and Merlot and Pinot Grigio, and I just started answering questions. I became useful. And I think that’s when I started realizing the power, when I started using Summize.”

Paul Carr

“I think it has changed people’s perceptions of how easy it is to become famous or rich, or whatever else, or to help charity, or to become engaged. Like Pete Cashmore from Mashable said, “Attention is the new currency.” No, currency is the new currency, but attention’s much easier. You know, like you can give your attention, “Oh, I gave my attention to Darfur. I gave my attention to cancer. I gave my attention to my personal brand.” Cool. What changed? What did you do? What is fixed?” said Paul.

“And they’ll say, “Well, attention is the new currency, so just look at how much attention I gave to this thing. Or look at how much attention I’ve earned.” And what does it all mean?”

“And the reason why I think social media is overrated is no one’s given me a good answer to that yet, and I haven’t seen anyone who purely using social media has made some changes they wouldn’t otherwise have made.”

Is social media overrated? Let us know your thoughts.