An unwritten contract exists that makes a social media connection different and more personal than all other forms of media. That contract states that social is a direct dialogue from one individual to another – without a middleman. Because of that direct communication, social media is seen as a way to reach the previously unreachable.
When we connect to an individual — and this is quantified and underlined by the various platforms’ ‘Verified’ systems — we innately come to that understanding. Passing off that social contract to a third-party is breaking that sacred social contract with those they owe the most: followers, fans, believers, and supporters.
Recent articles in The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times have highlighted the practice of social by proxy. This is the growing business of luminary-type individuals hiring teams to run their social accounts in place of themselves. When Tom Cruise tweets, is it Tom Cruise tweeting or is it a random in a cube farm?
In other words, it’s transposing a mechanism that is used for brands and being put in place to represent individuals. However, the practice has much different implications because people don’t expect direct communication with a CEO every time they tweet a business. The CEO or President of the company may have a personal account, but to follow a brand is to follow a collective and its ideals. Social may attempt humanize a brand through its outreach, but it can never make that transition fully, nor should it.
The net result is this: social by proxy isn’t social – it’s at best nothing more than an authorized micro-blog, and at worst is an example of manipulating and taking advantage of an intrinsic trust between two parties. But does it matter? Is it enough to show support through the act of following, through the very public messaging of adoration, or criticism? For many, it is not the expectation of a personal message for which they connect, but it is just one part of building their own personal brand; our likes and dislikes are fundamental in our self-created social image.
What is concerning about this practice is that it kills social’s great differentiator: the personal connection. And once we lose that connection the bigger implication will then be social’s slow transition by the public to an arm’s length medium. By traditional media and marketing agencies trying to make this burgeoning medium into everything that came before it, we will suffer the same malaise that all other forms of marketing and advertising face. Businesses see far higher advocacy and engagement in social because of an innate trust that exists between two parties joined by a direct and immediate connection. Once that is broken, once that line has been crossed in the collective mind of the public, there is no going back.