We have a long way to go before Ello and its ilk pose a significant threat to established players like Facebook and Twitter — if they ever get there. But companies still need to pay attention to the growing public discomfort with advertiser dominance and algorithm-driven user experiences. As Internet users are growing uncomfortable with the now-established model of “you get free social networking, we get your data and eyeballs,” businesses need to do more than tinker with their social media strategies: they need to rethink their core approach to social media itself.

That means stepping back from the relentless quest for followers, clicks, and mentions, and instead thinking about why brands got involved in social media in the first place. In its early days, the promise of the social web lay in the ability of companies to have direct and ongoing relationships with their customers — to become more responsive, more accountable and more attuned to the things their customers really cared about. Instead, companies have found a world in which their old intermediaries (broadcasters, publishers, journalists) have simply been replaced by a new set of intermediaries (social networks, bloggers).

 

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