Page 54 - Social Media Marketing

c h a p t e r 2 : ╇ T he N ew Role of the C ustomer ╇ ■
32 nearly always develops a better solution given the stated scenario (meaning, the group
of exactly this sort of content creation and sharing. The result is a highly trafficked
site and lots of buzz, but the “social interaction” still occurs for the most part at the
individual, content-consumption level rather than as truly shared or collaborative expe-
riences. Compared with Facebook, for example, YouTube participants share and con-
sume content in a decidedly less social manner: The interaction on YouTube revolves
around a sharing or referral of content that each may feel the other will find interest-
ing. Compare this to Facebook, where the majority of sharing involves thoughts, ideas,
and conversations and occurs between members that have a true (albeit virtual in many
cases) friendship link in place.
Moving from a personal to a business context, “friending” drives the creation
and refinement of knowledge because it connects people and facilitates their work-
ing together. Collaborative behaviors emerge in environments of linked friends as the
recognition of a joint stake or shared outcome becomes evident between participants.
Working together—versus alone—almost always produces a better end-product. Think
about the corporate training exercises that begin with a survival scenario: The group
members are more likely to survive!) than do individuals acting alone.
In communities built around shared content, the process of curation (touched on
in Chapter 1, “Social Media and Customer Engagement”) and its associated activities
such as rating and recommending a photo improve the overall body of content within
the community and thereby improve the experience and raise the value of membership.
This type of public refinement and informal collaboration results in a stronger shared
outcome. These acts of curation additionally manifest themselves in the context of the
social graph through the practice of reputation among friends or colleagues in that net-
work. Just as a photo is rated, so are the contributions of a specific community mem-
ber, giving rise to the reputation of that member. It is this sense of “shared outcome”
that you are after when implementing social technologies within the enterprise or when
creating an active, lasting customer or stakeholder community that wraps around it.
Ultimately, it is the acts of friending, following, and similar formally declared
forms of online social connections that support and encourage the relationships that
bond the community and transform it into an organically evolving social entity. As
these relationships are put in place, it is important that the participants in the commu-
nity become more committed to the care and well-being of the community. Plenty of
social networking services have failed even though lots of members had lots of friends.
There needs to be an activity or core purpose for participants that encourage peer-to-
peer interaction. Chapter 10, “Social Objects,” Chpater 11, “The Social Graph,” and
Chapter 12, “Social Applications,” offer in-depth discussions on how to ensure that
these essential relationships form.