Lately I've been seeing a troubling trend on some blogs, and especially on Twitter. What I'm noticing is that some well-known and established players in the social media space are using these tools not as ways to interact and be "social," but instead as channels to "broadcast" the media they are creating.


This has always been somewhat of an issue with blogs, where some bloggers have a less than stellar reputation for encouraging and replying to comments from their readers. Seth Godin has a well-known "no-comment" policy on his blog (but Seth does at least quickly reply to emails).
But I'm really noticing a lack of interaction by some social media "experts" on Twitter. It seems you only see these people a couple of times a week, and that's always to leave a "My latest post is up, here's the link..." tweet. Of course if you try to reply and engage the person concerning the post, it falls on deaf ears as they are already long gone, just stopping by Twitter long enough to broadcast the availability of their latest post.
Now to be honest, this is entirely their right to treat some social sites as places for one-way communication. None of my business. The problem I have is that when companies come to these 'social media experts' and ask for help on better understanding Twitter, what do you think is likely going to happen?
That's right, they are going to be happy to show these companies how to use Twitter. And I'm betting it will be in a way that's very similar to the way they use Twitter.
If you are using social sites and tools as one-way channels to promote your content, you aren't practicing social media, you are in broadcast media.