From regularly reading social media blogs I constantly see several themes emerging across the board, which tells me there is some consistency within the area and that is a good thing. However, I’m not quite sure what percentage of these social media bloggers are not just regurgitating. They are saying relationships are at the heart of and the future of business online and yes, I do agree. Subscribing primarily to psychological theory and research from a few other relevant disciplines, I too have come to the same conclusion but I’m also compelled by my curiosity to think, what if?

What if there is another viable explanation for social media and its success? What if our current explanations would not apply much longer as technology advances? What if as with countless theories, this one does not stand the test of time? What if? I think we must begin to critically analyse trends and think outside the box for alternative explanations along the way, not just for so but for ‘the advancement of human kind’ :)

I’m not calling for you to doubt the utility of social media for business and also for the wider society because clearly it has been and continue to be extremely useful. However, I’m challenging you to not follow the flock but to critically analyse and thus justify your online media strategies. This may be a bit time consuming and daunting for persons unfamiliar with research but I’m sure you would appreciate only having a skilled doctor surgeon using a scalpel on you. So why would you allow someone or even you yourself to implement online strategies grounded in a huge blob of nothingness or statistics based on flawed metrics that do not make any sense or that you do not even understand?

I’m sure you are aware of my psychological background and hopefully you are seeing where I’m going with this. We all obviously are not psychologists and even more so cyberpsychologists, however, a surprisingly large number of us have probably passed through rigorous training in our respective disciplines. It is time we put that training and knowledge accumulated ‘way back then’ into practice and begin to seriously apply sound proven knowledge in effort to solve the above problem I have highlighted. If you decide not to, I urge you not to be a parrot and spout someone else’s knowledge without at least giving justifications for ‘your’ advice, it is making the pond mucky. We in the Caribbean have the unique opportunity to do this right the first time, so let us put in the effort to get it right and I will even help for free from right here on my virtual podium :)