On Hashtags, Fax Machines and Cults of Personality

I’ve been thinking about social media a great deal lately. Well, social media and fax machines.

A few years back, I was placed in the awkward position of training a Gen Z intern on operating a fax machine. It was a brutal reminder that as an early Millennial my life experience has bridged the gap between the analog and digital ages. Even more brutal? Explaining how many government agencies still conducted business via fax machine.

Technology, and social media in particular, have assumed an outsized role in our personal lives. In many ways, we’ve come to expect our social media experiences to translate into the other aspects of our lives. We’ve come to demand immediate gratification, public recognition of our thoughts, and (subliminally) decision makers to be impacted by volume.

As I’ve been thinking about social media and advocacy, I kept coming back to that experience training a younger employee on a piece of machinery that most would say had gone the way of the dinosaur. Then an idea struck me, and frankly I haven’t been able to shake it for a few days:

hashtags are the new fax machines

Wait. Hear me out.

Government offices seem to be the last realm of facsimile transmission. And it makes sense, most everyone in the West has migrated to e-mail communication at minimum. But, government offices run on government budgets. Those budgets are limited, constrained, stretched thin. But government offices are still everywhere. So how are those ubiquitous bastions of bureaucracy going to keep up with each other over the long, arduous evolution into the digital age? Passive, but relatively reliable, communication technologies like fax machines. And so they’ve hummed along for the past decade, dutifully tended and awaiting their final day of utility.

It’s the particularly passive aspect of fax machines that got stuck on repeat in my mind over recent days. Those of us *old* enough to have worked with faxes remember fondly that “a fax sent is not always a fax received.” You’d spend just as much time calling colleagues across the country to ensure they got the darn thing as you did preparing a document to feed through the machine without jamming. You had to. The alternative was to cross your fingers and hope that your message got through.

What folks are failing to realize these days is that hashtags are no better. Honestly, even directly tagging a person or an organization in a post is no greater guarantee that your message is getting through. And when you account for the grossly amplified impact of social media influencers, your average organization stands almost no chance of breaking through the noise on most social media platforms. But when we rely on the simplicity of hashtags and tagging, we are defaulting to the same style of passive communication we once knew through fax machines. Worse yet, we don’t even take the time to call and make sure the message was received anymore.

Short of TikTok and LinkedIn, which still hold a distinct value for organic reach, social media campaigns on most platforms simply aren’t worth the value we’re assigning them. Advocacy organizations would be hard pressed to co-opt the latest viral sensation to advance their agenda with a decision maker. You simply cannot expect to compete with the social media giants: influencers and companies like Wendy’s that have carved out a distinct social media brand that moves the needle in the minds of millions. These giants have developed cult like followings (and haters) that dominate the scene.

But notice I didn’t say social media campaigns aren’t worth doing. There is absolutely a role for social media to play as one piece in your organization’s advocacy plan. But would be advocates need to take a hard look at the weight we are allotting to these modern day fax machines.

Over the next several weeks, regular Thursday posts on this blog are going to focus on social media in advocacy, under two main themes:

1. Maintaining your own sanity as an advocate in the political social media realm.
2. Recognizing social media as a mere tool, and tips on how to leverage it effectively in your broader advocacy plans.

As the series develops, I’m hoping to bring in a couple of folks to share their insights. The first guest writer will be pitching in next Thursday and I hope you’ll give him a warm welcome to the blog. Putting your thoughts out in this format, as a living document, is no small feat. So, check in next Thursday and consider showing a little extra love in the comments and on the “like” button.

In the mean time, I want to hear from you. What’s on your mind about social media? Is there an aspect to it that seems particularly challenging as you try to advocate for your issues? What trips you up? Where have you been successful? What are you trying to do differently in the coming year?

Drop a comment below, or drop me a line with ideas on what to cover in the coming weeks: luke@partofthepossible.com. Good hunting!