Neology | Marketing Communications

I was recently listening to a very well crafted presentation from a social networking company. One thing the presenter mentioned got me thinking. He pointed to this image (http://marcellomedia.blogs.com/mrb/web20.jpg) and said that we have now reached “The Paradox of Choice”.

When Barry Schwartz first wrote his book “The Paradox of Choice”, he cited many examples from the consumer world, such as jeans from The Gap. In general, he reasoned that too much choice is a bad thing. It “contributes to bad decisions, to anxiety, stress, and dissatisfaction—even to clinical depression.”

Are we headed that way with social media and networking? Are we so overwhelmed with web 2.0 apps that we don’t know which one to use, or we use too many to use any of them effectively?

From a personal standpoint, I can’t deny the attraction of being and staying in touch in so many ways. And from a marketing standpoint, it offers consumers and companies more avenues for communication than ever before.

So does the paradox of choice really exist in the social media world? Perhaps, although I believe our society seems capable of handling more choices than ever before. Where the true problems start is when companies jump into social media without a plan, and with no way to manage all of the chatter or the apps being used to generate that chatter.

There is no doubt that involving customers in a plan can be tricky. But those who manage it best, whether they use one or one hundred social media apps, stand to benefit greatly from the effort.