What does that 'Lets Get Social' video actually mean?

Did you miss Social Media Marketing World this year? Don’t worry- Continuum Marketing Services have been kind enough to share video evidence of their employee Mary McCoy singing (screeching?) a warm up song called “Lets Get Social 2014” for the “Have we lost the social in social media?” panel. The song, written by Mary and her host, Phil, is described as “a humour-laced theme song making fun of what’s wrong with social media”. It has spread across the internet catalysing a wide variety of reactions, 99% of them negative. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itvvFfeLh84

Now that you have watched the video, and endured over 5 minutes of that voice, lets take a look at those lyrics and figure out the message.

“I’m showing you things you’ll like
Trying to get engagement
Here’s some photos from my life
My cat, my kids, some bacon”

If you’re “making fun of what’s wrong with social media”, Mary, then are you poking fun of the kind of images that we share? Are you suggesting that they are arbitrary, and do little to engage? Is the video that I Instagrammed of my cat dancing to Ashanti not anthropocentric enough? Unfortunately, we posted an infographic last week which actually counters the point (we think) you’re trying to make through that ironic humour. There are over 30 million Google searches for cats, and over 11 million Google searches for bacon each month. If you want to engage people digitally using social media, then LOLcats always work. Lets look at some more lyrics.

“Said another way, have we lost our way?
Social’s about the people, remember they are people
Do we really need another fan, like or share?
Do we need another post to show up everywhere?
I hope as we scatter we never forget
That our posts live forever even when we go to bed”

It seems that here, through the medium of rap, the duo seem to question relentless and suffocating digital marketing methods. The duo highlight the longevity of social media and wonder if we’ve digressed from the main reason we use social media in the first place: it’s about the people, people.

We’re still a bit confused, so lets look at the YouTube comments to see if the kind of people who leave YouTube comments recreationally can shed any light:

This guy doesn’t like “Lets Get Social 2014”, and thinks that educating others about social media through song isn’t a viable career. Social : )

Quite possibly.

This person knows about social media, because he uses Google+ and hashtags, so we respect his opinion.

At last, a positive. It turns out some people think this video is fun and engaging.

Hold on, is this video deliberately bad? Was it just a really really clever social media strategy that we’ve all fallen far? Are WE the stupid ones?

 

Has “Lets Get Social 2014” changed your thoughts about social media in any way? Do you think this is a “war crime”, or do you think it fulfils its purpose? Tweet us @DotRising