To Comment or Not To Comment is Not the Question

Has the social networking world gone mad with using the apps that ask a question?  Are there any questions left to ask?  Does any of the answer solve any problem?  Does this line of questions make you sick?  If it does, I don’t blame ya..I am kind of sick of asking them anyway.

Seriously, questions are one of the strongest problem solving tools ever created.  One single question can open up or shutdown someone’s mind to finding a solution or run away from from the problem.  Questions are very powerful tools to problem solving.  However, asking too many questions and too frequently will cause people to not want to answer.  That is the problem that is developing online today.

So, why are there so many apps being created to ask questions?  (There I go again asking a question)  Are there that many problems out there needing answers?

What is taking place with the onslaught of questions hitting all the social networks is apathy is building towards even being online.  The volumes of people sending each other questions and posting questions and saying…’hey, check out this questions’..is working against the grain of most people who understand how to use Social Media.

I know some of the marketing companies and a number of the social media pundits have written on how the questions apps are providing additional market support, but like everything else out in La-La-Land, can you believe it?  Especially, when everyone around you is getting turned off with so many questions hitting all of the social network feed.  How can that be helping any marketing strategy?

Comments Still Rule

True, the answers to these questions being posted around the social networks like IED’s are another form of making a comment, but does answering the question..’Boxer’s or Brief’s?’..really make for a real comment? (I just cannot stop asking questions).   What about the question..’Which would you rather hang out with?  The Old Spice Guy or Charlie Sheen?’  What comment does either answer make?

Questions being asked in the social space have been around since social networking started.  Sometime during the caveman era one caveman looked to the other and said UGH!?! And the other hit him with a club as the answer to the question and that was the start of social networking ‘question asking’.

Again, seriously, what now is taken place in La-La-Land is getting even more ridiculous than the Pet Rock era that most of you never lived thru..thank goodness.  There are still some very emotionally disturbed individuals around today who are still not adjusted to the let down when they found that their little Pet Rock was just a ROCK.  The same thing is going to happen to many people when they see the Questions apps are not social at all.

Get Back to Being Social

So what do we do? (I can’t guarantee that is the last question..but I am  getting tired of asking them) Going back to responding to posts and updates would really help revive social networking.  Commenting and making remarks has been proven over and over to be the most valuable form of marketing.  However, over the past 18 months, the number of comments in the social space has fallen off  by over 45%.  Indications from some of the surveys I have made is people are using their mobile devices more than desktop or laptops.  Mobile devices have never been great tools for making comments or carrying on conversations in a text format.  Even the iPads and Tablets are not making typing as easy as it was before to create a complete sentence or carry on a conversation in the text format.

If the trend of ‘no response’ and ‘no comment’ keeps declining the value of social networking will start dropping to a point all the social space will be a place for Only the self promoters.  Shortly after that those promotions will be totally self promotions since the only person viewing them are the people who post them.  The consumer will be long gone and once most the accounts on social networks who do not respond to anything find out it about everyone leaving it will be too late for the social network…can you say MySpace?

The innovations of programs allowing people to easily ask questions in the social space is not new.  Can anyone remember the flood of Survey apps a few years ago?  The result of the hundreds of surveys being posted each day caused nobody today being wiling to fill out a survey because of it being so cliche.

Even though those who thought up the questions apps were sincere in their intentions to get more interaction of the Facebook membership, it more than likely will start the cycle of increase apathy that sets in when there is TOO many of the same thing which means clearly..the questions apps are not helping improve interaction amongst the millions online.

My call to action is simple…lets get back to being social by reaching out to your contacts or friends and starting a conversation.  Respond to friends or contacts who reach out to you.  This is just a start but I know it will lead to a resurgence of interest to those who have already left the internet to think about returning.  Maybe if they heard Being Social was BACK will help bring back the millions of Real People who have left.  Don’t you think that would work?  (I promise that is my last question)

Let me know how I can help.