Let’s be honest, if the geeks had their way, no one would be allowed on the web and we would still be passing notes through ftp.
Today, the internet has been taken over by the average person. MySpace and Facebook defined the social network. It is about the party. Are you invited? Are you part of the group? Are you popular? So, how many friends do you have following you anyway?
You know what is the same? The discussion of etiquette and the proper way to engage. Social media has rules. Social media is about fitting in to how it was “intended”. I think this notion of what social media is is holding us back. It might be about the conversation, but it can be so much more than that.
Here are some examples of social media being beyond a personal conversation.
ReadWriteWeb provided a review on a new social app called Yawnlog. People log their sleeping patterns and dreams and then can share them with their friends. Maybe a nice widget addition to Facebook. But, a real product? Here’s the thing. The value isn’t that you can track this and share with you friends. It’s the potential for trials and longitudinal studies. The application has more value for science than a gadget that I’ll use with my friends and discuss what my dream meant.
LouisGray.com talked about what Twitter is really about (see article), listening, not friend following.
“Even if you are a rabid information junkie, the constant updates from Twitter can be too much for anybody to absorb, even with a few hundred connections. To believe that I am seeing all of a friend’s updates with 6,000 connections, or that Scoble can see the updates from ten times that many, is clearly impossible. So while a small population of Twitter is using the service to follow individual’s updates, a huge number are instead using it to broadcast updates, monitor keywords, and occasionally, send direct messages to people or reply in public. Twitter is simply too much to handle as conversations are lost, people’s updates can be of any type, and the limitations of the service, including the much-discussed 140 character boundary, make it a poor foundation for exchanging ideas in a crowd.”
So, when we talk about Twitter as a social network, how can you say that when you can’t really exchange ideas through conversation. It is bill-boarding.
I think there ia also something to the fact that in the end, 99% of people out there are watchers, not participants. Maybe they participate in their micro networks in Facebook with real friends, but there are only a handful of people out there that are part of the social. That leaves open a huge opportunity for social media to fill beyond “Whoever Has the Most Friends Wins” theme. Increasingly, and you see this particularly with Twitter, that social is pushing past the confines of personal conversation. As with the web, the value is in the topics of conversations – the information.
Let’s start considering that maybe the power of social media isn’t that it is social but that it is about linking people, experience, and ideas to move forward in a non-cyber world. Since when did a clique do anything but hold someone back?
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Filed under: brainstorm, marketing technology, networking, social media , collaboration, Conversation, Facebook, following, information, longitudinal studies, Louis Gray, MySpace, opensocial, Robert Scoble, social media, Social network, Twitter, yawnblog
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February 25, 2009 • 3:42 pm 5
Conversational Preference in B2B Social Media
Anyone that tells you it is simple to get real engagement from your customers through social media – call their bluff. If they can prove they did it, hire them!
We all know that social media is the wave of the future. Every marketing department is putting more effort and resources toward it. The problem is that no one can really get their arms around how to engage the customer.
Eric Brown is on target when he says:
He is right. You are really just creating another brochure website. Why do you want to do that?
It’s only been a few weeks since I started Brain Vibe and have found that the easiest part of the processes was getting some traction. By leveraging social networking venues, letting friends know, commenting, and paying attention to SEO, I’m pretty happy with the results. People are starting to subscribe and follow, bookmarking is happening, syndication is working, and I’m getting good feedback and comments. Here’s the thing, those comments, they don’t come in how I expect. I get emails. People don’t comment on the post, they go to my contact page and send me an email. I also get voted up without any feedback and commenting.
I’m not getting a ton of feedback. I’d love to get more, particularly on the articles that seem to be driving viewership, subscriptions, and bookmarking. I do what everyone says, ask for comments, create interactive posts, put up polls. I tried a Blog Improv to get participation as well. Interestingly, the Improv only generated 2 comments (1 from a new professional connection and I’m extremely greatful!). But, it drove subscriptions and traffic. Go figure.
Particularly for business marketing, I’m finding that people have preferences in how they want to interact with you. Social media is one of those avenues and even within it is a microcosm of conversational preferences. How we measure our success around commenting and interaction needs to be looked at in its entirety. If I only used direct comments on my blog to determine effectiveness, I miss out on the fact that the way people are connecting with me is through email. Some people may only vote up your post. Sometimes, the value is “paying it forward” through reblogging or re-tweeting. Measuring success of your efforts early on may be looking at indicators that show traction that should lead to participation and interaction.
Look at the big picture:
If these things are happening, it is only a matter of time before people will comment and interact with each other and you.
Here’s what I’ll say about conversation and interaction. It is something that you will need to nurture and develop. What I’ll add to Eric’s perspective is that unless you already had a strong following and network to begin with, it is going to take time. I’ve seen numbers ranging as high as 99% of blog readers are lurkers. In social networks, there was usually an offline connection that helped to generate interaction on walls and blogs. For business marketers that are trying to build networks with their customers, a different mindset is needed to get commenting and participation to happen. You may need to seed participation by leveraging your offline relationships. And, even then, if you are in PR, you know how hard it is just to get references.
What have you done to get comments?
Please, leave a comment…
Filed under: b2b, metrics, networking, social media , Blog, collaboration, commenting, comments, communication, Conversation, email, Eric Brown, Facebook, lurkers, marketing, opensocial, participants, public relations, Search engine optimization, social media, social media metrics, Social network, Twitter