This week on Marketing Smarts, we speak with Mitch Joel, well-known blogger, podcaster, and speaker, about his new book, Control Alt Delete. Not just another book about the social media "revolution," Control Alt Delete serves more as a reflection on the uncertainty of the future in the face of rapid, technological change. With this uncertainty as a backdrop—Mitch insists that we currently inhabit a kind of Purgatory—the book focuses on ways that we can prepare for and adapt to whatever might come next. 

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Mitch and I discuss the issues and questions raised by his book, what it means to be "authentic" in social media, and why you should consider killing your content (or at least, as Mitch says, "taking your foot off the gas").

A few highlights of our conversation can be found here...

On authenticity (4:32): "I think what people do is they confuse authenticity with complete, unadulterated honesty." 

On Facebook (6:24): "Facebook isn't the real you; Facebook is the perception you hope others will have of you."

On content curation and contracting world of social media (17:03): "[By deciding who to follow, etc.] your world is contracting because all you're seeing are the things you think are the best things you should see or the best people you should follow or the best people you should connect to. And what that actually does, I believe, is it creates a shrinking worldview because your perspective is limited by your own values."

On the ephemerality and invisibility of content (18:28): "You could go down this whole sort of mind path and realize that, wow, a lot of the stuff we're creating probably doesn't even get consumed. It probably isn't even a part of anyone's Zeitgeist. And that component of it is scary." 

On making sure that your content is worth putting out there (24:00): "Are you publishing every day and pushing stuff out on Facebook because it's the right thing to do and you just need to keep in people's faces? Or are you doing it because you have something to say, that you've thought it out, that you know exactly what it is? You have an editorial calendar, and you know what you're creating is unique? There are a lot of brands who are simply there because they can be."

On Purgatory (29:33): "Purgatory is knowing full well that these [technological and social changes] are realities that have already transpired. We live in the post-PC world. We are living in the post-web-browser world right now. We are living in it. And yet most brands are worried about their website and their e-commerce and their transactions and their social media, and few of them are really saying, 'What does the world look like in the one-screen-world, where the only screen that matters is the screen that's in front of you?' Because screens are cheap, ubitquitous, in our hand, and highly connected."

Mitch and I went pretty deep into all the above and much more, so I encourage you to check out the entire show. Use the player provided or download the mp3 and listen at your leisure.

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Published on May 22, 2013