Is Social Media Still a Force For Good In The World?

On this episode of Convince and Convert the hosts talk with Caleb Garder on the podcast. Caleb Gardner is the founder and managing partner of 18 Coffees. 18 Coffees is a consulting firm focusing on strategy firm building through consulting, content, and community. One unique thing about Caleb is that he worked on the social media campaign for Obama. At the beginning of the podcast, Caleb talks a little about how he got into this career in social media and particularly why he chose this path. He said that he was so attracted to it because it was seen as something that you just put into your toolbox in the beginning. But, Caleb saw the potential, and it evolved rapidly fast. As Caleb’s career progressed, he worked in the political world where he first noticed that social media could be world-changing for the better or worse. Caleb said that “social media is more than just a marketing tool, it can be much more impactful than that.” A decent amount of the podcast focused on this topic. Caleb explained that during his time working on the Obama campaign he started to notice this sort of shift to the dark side. In 2013–2016 is when he saw the issue arising. From the rise in overall hate and bully culture to the coordination of bashing campaigns. I remember this time very specifically. I was in high school during those years and I can’t remember how many times our school had an assembly to talk about bullying on social media. It was a very dark time for a lot of teens who were being bullied and created a lot of bad habits and perceptions of the social media scene as a whole. I think that this is an issue that we are going to have for a very long time. I grew up sort of in the middle so, I can still differentiate the two. But, kids growing up today are being brought up so differently that it makes you wonder what the future holds. Social media can be such a good and positive space, but it can also have the exact opposite effect. I do not know if it will ever be in a constantly positive place, and it seems to have gotten worse as time goes on. Caleb said that back in 2010, he was trying to convince companies to open a Facebook page. Now he is trying to convince companies not to open a Facebook page, and I thought that was interesting. He also mentioned that the business model of social media does not help either. The business model relies mainly on engagement, and Caleb said that “no one wants to shut down the engagement, they want more engagement even if its negative engagement”.

As the topic switches, they start to focus on some of the new social media platforms. Caleb says that no social platform should think that there going to be a powerhouse platform forever. This is why the “copy and kill” strategy has occurred, and they refer to the stories epidemic going on in social media. Caleb says that platforms like Youtube adding stories makes no sense and “it betrays a lack of imagination” which I completely agree with. I can not stand having to go through what feels like a thousand stories a day. Another thing that stood out to me during the podcast was the topic of this sort of value change. We used to go on social media and find real value and meaning, usually through connecting with friends. Now social media can be so noisy and a lot harder to find that value that we used to have. This is why we see more people using text messages and email as a sort of an “invitation to my living room” where they can connect more personally. This idea stood out to me because if I want to have a meaningful exchange nowadays, it is over email. I do think that Instagram does a great job of creating this personal value. They have options where you can reply to someone’s story, and it goes directly to the owner’s messages and not for everyone to see. I use this a lot when I want to comment on something but don’t want to make it visible to everyone. There were many insightful things to be taken away from this podcast. I think the one that was most interesting to me was the topic of is social media for the better or worse. I think it’s an incredibly hard question to answer because a lot of it can be out of our control. But as a society, I think we all have to make the conscious decision that we want social to be a comfortable space for everyone and, I think that’s how we keep social media positive.