Participating vs. Broadcasting
The use of social networks is definitely forking. For some it is about participation. For others, it’s about broadcasting.
Put differently, people who are members of online social networks are not so much “networking” as they are “broadcasting their lives to an outer tier of acquaintances who aren’t necessarily inside the Dunbar circle,” says Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a polling organisation. Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever.
Good read from over at The Economist.
SPINNING THE WEB
Online, the NYTimes story on PR in the Valley is interesting but innocuous. In print it takes a whole new sense of import as it spreads cross the front page of the business section. A couple of observations:
- PR has and always will be about relationships.
- It is also about good counsel and strategy – neither of which Wordnik are getting in any kind of an effective dose. Saying that, and having spent more than ten years doling out counsel, clients usually get what they deserve.
- PR is multidimensional – the Blogeratti and Blogmedia are one of the many “messengers” and mediums available. That Wordnik would pursue such a one dimensional strategy is foolhardy and reflected in their prominence. Again, they are probably getting what they are paying for.
- Agreed, you’d better be able to plug into the new media elite to get the message out. But if that’s all you are planning to do, good luck.
- Nowhere in the story do we see examples of “influencing the social web”. What we see is the age-old techniques employed by flacks of all shapes and sizes – reaching prominent messengers to get the message out. What the savvy are now doing is activating and engaging with communities – that’s very different than opening the rolodex and making a few calls.
- Awareness does not equal action. We need a fundamental shift in our focus from awareness to action. Where awareness isn’t activated effectively, businesses starve of traffic and revenue.
- Successful engagement through the “A List” will make your clients feel great but isn’t any kind of predicator of success. In fact, they are largely irrelevant. Scoble makes this point nicely – when he quit Microsoft the news first hot through 15 nobody’s at a conference. At the end of the day, the news creates the echo and the social web has democratized distribution. Story over strategic relationships. (his manifesto is still as relevant as ever)
What screams throughout this story is that neither the hacks or flacks necessarily get what the new art of social media relations and community engagement is about. And as Michael rightly points out, you need look no further than the traffic pattern at Wordnik to see this. This is a point reinforced by Margit in the story:
“Few tech companies with absolutely no P.R. have built a user base successfully,” said Margit Wennmachers, a co-founder of OutCast Communications, a P.R. agency in San Francisco that opened in 1997. “They need P.R. to put the booster under that rocket ship.”
Free…
And so the debate rages on Chris Anderson’s new book. Looking forward to reading it.
- Here is arguably the best review of the book…
- And Gladwell’s critique…
- Preorder here… (ironically, no Kindle edition yet…)
- Chris responds to Malcom here…
The thing that gets me is the notion that “The cost of the building blocks of all electronic activity—storage, processing, and bandwidth—has fallen so far that it is now approaching zero” is a truism. Really?
I pay a small fortune for a DSL line… even more for ATT.. then I’m surrounded by systems, storage, displays, TVs, Kindles… all of them priced in the many hundreds of dollars. Actually, what we have going on here is an attempt by the hardware makers (Amazon Kindle) to subsidize their hardware by dominating the margin in content. They are simply attaching a new profit pool and looking to create a virtuous circle inside the customer relationship – which they now hope to own. Nowhere does “free” feature in this equation.
For the maker, there is no question that the irrevocable march of technology is driving distribution costs down. But rather than pass those costs on to consumers what seems to be happening is that the new entrants are absorbing the prior profit pool.
As much as I am looking forward to the book I’m also fearful I’m going to read another tome by the technology elite who seem to be swimming in free while the rest of us pay. The reality is that a $300+ Kindle + books at $9.95 don’t equal free.
Second, “free” is relative and a product going “viral” via it being free is just one strategy. “Coolness, for instance, could also result in a viral swarm. As could word of mouth. Free is absolutely a distribution and marketing strategy but it isn’t a business model. That is, unless you plan to make no profit.
