that’s funny.

If you are reading or following the most popular of the Internet’s spokespeople and simply agreeing with them, that’s probably a cue that you you might need to step back with a bit more of a skeptical eye. In other words, a tell-tale sign of mindless following is merely retweeting or parroting the content of those you follow or perhaps recently saw at a conference (I’m thinking here of those who assume they can start a profitable blog after attending a social media conference of some sort).

On the other hand, constantly being critical or trying to poke holes in others’ arguments all the time can come across as annoying too. So I think there’s good amount of balance that can be achieved.

A last point that I didn’t write originally is that really one way to avoid this whole issue is to find the people in your community, however you define community, that are setting good examples of doing this social media stuff — and doing it to achieve noble objectives. (One of my favorite local PR agencies does a fantastic job of using social media by embedding bloggers into balloons at the annual hot-air balloon race. It’s simple, costs little and is remarkably effective in getting out the words and images needed for such a great event.) Sometimes the shiniest of stars are those we notice the least, and we tend to discount them because they’re in our own backyards.

all the annotations listed on the Sidewiki got YES votes for being useful—only 1 voted NO on Danny Sullivan’s comment.

i echo Danny’s sentiment when he says this:

“Nor are you actually helping these brands. Brands can’t respond to a twitterstorm? They do all the time. No, they’re not too busy running stores not to pay attention to PR. It’s also perplexing when you maintain no presence on Twitter to be suggesting you have a solution to reputation issues that emerge from Twitter.”

i wonder (rhetorically): was this blatant brandjacking exercise inevitable? and what to do indeed about these scared cows…hmm..well, in India, while venerated, people just seem to let them be and pay them no mind. moooooo.