It is my humble opinion that you can’t have a social media expert. Social media is a personal action, done by an individual.  It is essentially “the act of sharing”. It’s thousands of years old and nothing new. So the only expert there can be is YOU, as it’s you that’s sharing.  It’s a bit like breathing, a little hard to out-source. Yes, you could strap on a tank and do scuba (social media agency), but only for short periods.  At some point you need to own it.

Using a platform such as facebook or twitter for the purposes of sharing on the semantic web (see footnotes) – that’s an altogether another scenario,  and yes, you can have “practitioners” in these fields and in the short term they might have their place. (NOTE: I said practitioners, not experts.  The web is ever evolving so you can never be at the top of the tree as the top keeps moving.  They may be experienced practitioners but that’s who they are).

But the question is not one of “social media” as the answer.  The question is social media on the web as an answer and why – i.e. why are you doing it and why are you doing it on the web?

If we look at it this way we can only surmise that there must be a reason.  I assume this reason is to make the best out of your actions on the web – in which case what you want to do has gone beyond social media.  What you are doing is getting involved in the semantic web which, at the moment, is being led by what we can call the social web – see below for footnotes on Semantics.

Social media is an action, not the “sum of”. Social media is what a user does by sharing, i.e an “upload” of information, thought, media, social interaction, debate (words, video, audio, pictures) etc but the fact is it’s an “up-load”.

But there is a second action that the web provides to us that is not social media – it’s called listening. You might want to call it “social media monitoring” but what that translates to is a listening action to everyone else’s social media action.

Why are you spending so much time on the web? Why are you “being social” on the web – is there a reason? If the answer is yes, then I would suggest that based on the above, your understanding of the “social web” needs to be pointed more at “the semantic web” not at “social media”.

The web is an incredible place.   It’s now taking the world away from the “industrial age” and into “the information age”.

What are you going to do with the information? What are you going to do with the “noise”? You’ve gone beyond “how to use twitter” or you will shortly – what are you going to do now?

Just over a year ago I started raving about software products that listen to the “noise”. Last summer I stared “playing” with some of the systems. This year I stared introducing them to “blue chips” – the result was/were outstanding.

Now I am advising companies how to listen – in return they get:

•    PR (both negative and positive. The former they can use to great effect, the latter the can use to solve problems).
•    Live R&D (the customer is telling them what to sell).
•    Find influencers that can drive “User Generated Media Impressions” (i.e. get the web generating imprints on the web for you).
•    It can tell you where you need to put your effort in during the year, what sites, when, by who, what age, what sex, what country, what town.
•    It can tell you what language, what SEO words you should be using.
•    It will tell you why your product web impression is not working in one country but it is working in another.

It will tell you a lot. And this software has been born out of the ever evolving web. So you can see now why the word “Semantics” comes into it.

Social media, on the web, has been “banded about” as the “cure all” for many years now, whereas its use has evolved somewhat – and I would argue that these new developments are the ones that need attention and debate.

No one can be an expert on something so new that meaning is being questioned – and I have little respect for “I don’t share your view” as an answer.

Learn about social media monitoring here.

If you want to know more about Social Media Monitoring you might want to consider coming along to our next event at Surrey Social Media Tribes on the 15th April – click here – I’ll be going through what the system can do and how to best use it. Moreover, it may help you better understand why you are using the systems and which ones are best suited to your business – no one size fits all.

Footnotes:
Semantics[1] is the study of meaning, usually in language. The word “semantics” itself denotes a range of ideas, from the popular to the highly technical. It is often used in ordinary language to denote a problem of understanding that comes down to word selection or connotation.

Regards N  

  
 

 

I grew up in a small town in Surrey.

On the main road into town, there was a night club set back from the road, with a large car park in front of it.

No matter what time of night or day of the week that I drove past the club, the car park was almost always virtually empty. I wondered how the club could stay in business and, sure enough, it came to the point where it was decided to close the club down.

I had a birthday coming up, so I decided to hire the club for my celebrations.

On the night of my birthday party, the car park was full with all my friends cars.

Something interesting happened.

I kept getting called to the door by the bouncers to verify whether someone was a guest of mine or not!

As the party was in full swing, the majority of the late-comers weren’t my friends, but they all said the same thing:

"We saw that there was a party going on here, the car park was full, so we wanted to see if we could get in".

I’d like to use this story to present a different view for on-line "noise".

I believe that, without noise, there is no party going on! Therefore, in my book, noise is good.

"The abundance upon which the network economy is built is one of opportunity". ~ Kevin Kelly

If someone stops by your forum and sees that there is very little action on it (very little up-dating of posts), they will move on.

If someone stops by your blog and sees that no-one comments on it, then they will move along.

If someone checks out your twitter account and sees that you very rarely tweet and you have few followers, they will possibly think twice about following you. You are not very engaged in the party.

… and if you yourself don’t drive past the carpark, you will never know where the party is.

You see, in the on-line world, success breeds success.

People like to herd, they like to go to the hottest place in town, the place where all the noise is. That is no different to the off-line world.

To quote the American thought leader, Kevin Kelly:

"The first thing the network economy reforms is our identity.

The vital distinction between the self (us) and the nonself (them)—once exemplified by the fierce loyalty of the organization man in the industrial era—becomes less meaningful in a network economy. The only "inside" now is whether you are on the network or off.

Individual allegiance moves away from firms and toward networks and network platforms.

Social communications are still in their infancy. Isn’t that an incredible opportunity for you to start your own party?

Or are you going to be one of the "late-comers" who turns up when the party is in full swing?

The secret is to understand how to get the first 40 cars into your carpark - metaphorically speaking.

Hint: Feed the web first.

Hint: Is it easy to find the way to your nightclub?

Hint: Is your nightclub free to enter and, as the host, are you accessible and easy to connect with? Are you in the conversation?

Hint: Don’t cull the people trying to get through the door.

Once you have got the first few cars (advocates) into your car park, your on-line party will gain momentum and take care of itself.

Understand: this has nothing to do with social media. Too many people get too hung up that social media is the answer. It’s not. Social media is opening the bar in the nightclub, but you have to have a nightclub in the first place, and you have to "pipe" the traffic to your club. What we are talking about here is much bigger than social media. We are talking about piping the 31 billion searches on google every month and directing them to where you want them to go.

If you want to get your party together, then you need to stop focussing on social media, and start focussing on how to "pipe" the social web. There’s no point building a fantastic nightclub in the middle of the Gobi desert. The web is people, not technology.

Find your own space, and create your own party … and don’t forget to invite me!

Thank you for stopping by my party. If you would like to leverage the many years that I have particpated in building on-line community for your business, then please consider my "How to implement a social media strategy for your business" training day. I have a few places left on my training day which is happening this Friday in Guildford. Click >>> here for details.

Every ecademist who books on will also receive a bonus – one hour of complimentary Twitter mentoring with my Twitter-holic wife, Vanessa! She will show you her strategies for building a targetted Twitter following and leveraging the power of Twitter in a social manner to create visibility and credibility. Business will be a by-product of that.

On the 24th March, I am also running the inaugural Surrey Social Media Tribes event, for those of you looking to get the best out of LinkedIn. Full details >>> here.

I have another party going on on my Property Tribes forum. Everyone with an interest in property is very welcome over there.

Regards
N