To best understand Social Media, I think it makes sense to see how it has matured and how people have put it to use. When I first used the Internet in 1990. There was no web, so what did I do? One of the most popular Internet activities centered around what was called USENET. It was referred to as “news” but had strange group names like sci.physics.wormholes, comp.sys.mac.comm and alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork There were other techie things like TELNET, but using USENET was fun. It was also the most used service on the Internet.
It was also very social. To this day, I have friends who I originally met through a USENET group and then ran into later at a trade show.
What you wrote about and what groups you were in said a lot about you. If you met someone in the alt.douglas.adams news group, you knew something about their sense of humor. Running into that same person in the comp.sys.mac.comm group told you they were a Mac programmer.
When the Web 1.0 came along, the interaction went away. There were USENET groups where discussions about web sites took place but there was no real connection between the two. If you missed the discussion about a new website treating customers badly or treating them well, you probably wouldn’t hear about it. The owners of a website made the rules and told you how it was going to be.
Web 2.0 is characterized by the integration between the massive amount of information and the ability of people to openly talk about it, and anyone involved.
What does this mean to you?
People have the ability to use search engines like Google to do a “background search” on you. Whether you want to participate in social media or not, there may already be web sites where someone has spoken about you. Anyone you meet can type your name into a search engine and find that mention.
Or, someone may search for you and find nothing at all.
In the age of Web 2.0, not being found at all can be as bad as having others find negative mentions of you.
Given the nature of social media and Web 2.0, it makes sense for you to participate actively and have some say in what others can find out about who you are, what your values are and such. By participating in a minimal number of social media sites, you can make new friends, share your own thoughts and experiences and even find a better job or receive business offers.
Web 2.0 also represents a major change in marketing approaches on the Internet. Web 1.0 matched well with the direct marketing practices that have supported sales letters, infomercials and mail order for a very long time. Such direct marketing practices are based on driving massive amounts of traffic through a landing page (basically a sales letter) which would be tuned constantly to achieve the highest percentage of purchases possible. Internet marketers often refer to these pages as “BBL” pages for “Buy, bookmark of leave.” If you visited and didn’t buy, it wouldn’t matter to the marketer. Given enough traffic, a finely tuned landing page, and careful attention to expenses, a lot of money can be made through this approach.
Marketing in the social media world resembles the trust based approach seen among entrepreneurs, successful, professional net workers and top salespeople. By presenting an identity, interacting with others and by GIVING.
Just like with face to face networking organizations like Toastmasters or BNI, success with social media depends on participation and interaction. On a site like Digg success is very limited if you only add bookmarks from your own web sites and do nothing else. Instead you need to comment on other Diggs that match your interest, make friends, interact with them, and help them out by voting for their pages. The more you interact the more familiar people become with you and overtime those people will examine your profile, they will visit your links, and some may even contact you out of interest in your business.
Incidentally, this is the same process you can witness on the golf course, within social groups, the chamber of commerce and another networking situations. Two people are a successful in these forms of networking, success in social media does not seem all that alien.
If you’re new to the world of social media and web 2.0, you may be looking for a list of places to get started. Here’s a short list to get you started.
Twitter: This is often referred to as a microblogging site where your messages are limited to 140 characters in length. I have personally fallen into 2 joint ventures because of interactions through Twitter and most people who use it regularly will tell you it is very addictive.
Here’s a step by step guide for getting started with Twitter.
[How to get started with Twitter->How to get started with Twitter]
StumbleUpon: This is sort of a bookmarking site where you can share, rate and comment upon your favorite web pages. Because it is also a great example of a social media site, there is also plenty of interaction possible and you can find other people to connect with through their own interests and “tags” which are associated with favored sites.
Here’s a guide for getting stumbling with StumbleUpon.
[How to get started with Stumbleupon->How to get started with Stumbleupon]
Yelp: This is one of my favorite sites. With it, you provide ratings for stores, restaurants, auto repair shops, and even churches. By reading the reviews of others, you can really learn a lot about how they see the world and others can do the same of you. I’ve made new friends through Yelp.
LinkedIn: This is more of a site for professionals, but I think that no matter what you do, having a LinkedIn profile is very valuable. In LinkedIn, you can connect to other peers, and give and receive recommendations from others in your network. If you’re looking for a job, having a linkedin profile with dozens of recommendations can be a real plus.
With any social media site beware of people who get their joy from posting very negative comments and drawing you into the fray. Your comments are on display too. Make sure you have a strong sense of your values and that all of your posts and comments reflect those values. While you may not be able to prevent someone from saying something negative about you online, you can prevent yourself from leaving a footprint you will regret later.
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