The Onion’s Searing Parody Of Social Media Experts

The Onion has another hit parody on its hands: a clever take on social media “experts” that is sure to hit too close to home for many public relations firms. “Social media is the driving force behind the economy. What does that mean? Nobody knows,” says the faux social media guru, in a TED-style talk, complete with PowerPoint.

A few choice quotes from the video:

• “I’m a successful social media consultant, even though I’ve never had a thought or original idea in my life. But, because my firm charges lots of money, we’ve put social media on some of the tongues of some of the biggest companies in the world.”

• Companies don’t care if their followers are real or not; they’ll pay you either way (applause). Ideally real human users will leave social social networking all together. And, all that will be left will be thousands of robots talking to each other, who we can then advertising to. Now robots don’t yet buy products. That’s not our concern. In the new social media economy, you just have to keep look like you’re doing work, and people will pay you for it. [A clever homage to recent articles on how many social media followers are, in fact, fake.]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK62I-4cuSY]

For your viewing pleasure, we’ve included a video of The Onion’s original TED parody, and an equally clever take from The Daily Show on the use of social media by broadcasters.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkGMY63FF3Q]

The Daily Show takes on social media in the news.

[Via TheAtlantic]