Photo Credit: Lost in the..masquerade by LightPlay on flickr
There is no reliable set of terminology to describe or measure the structure, content or value of your social media experiments and the assets that result. Most effective practitioners realize that social value is something like fresh produce. It has a shelf life. You have to build and harvest value in a manner that resembles grocery store inventory management.
We’re all learning about this stuff together. Here are five links (and a bonus) to help clarify your thoughts on value in social media.
- The Social Media Bubble
This Harvard Business Review blog suggests that we are experiencing “relationship inflation” rooted in “Thin relationships”. In other words, the fun of making all those connections produces a cotton candy high. Lots of fluff, not much substance, a real sugar rush and, when you get over it, you are not satisfied. - Five Levels of Social Media Relationships
Jedi, Best Friend, Buddy, eQuaintence and Link Lover. Concise, well written piece that tries to wrestle with the differing qualities in relationships online. - Who Owns Your Social Media? What To Do When Your Social Media Employees Move On
Jessica Lee, the founding editor of our Editorial Advisory Board, grapples with an important question. In the past six months, we’ve seen a lot of churn from people who achieved a level of celebrity in social media. The important question every organization has to ask is whether or not the company “owns” the relationships the celebrities built. There are absolutely no clear answers. What is clear is that we are all going to have to get better at drawing the lines between our role based personas. - The Relationship Economy
This blog is one of those little gems that you ought to insert in your RSS Feed. Written by folks in the advertising business, it will expose you to people who have a better sense of the utility of social media than the HR camp. - The New Social Marketing Paradigm (via Shannon Seery Gude)
“Our world of marketing and customer relationship as we know it today is changing and the new paradigm of social marketing will be defined by velocity, not scale. As Jason Jennings titled his best seller, “It’s not the big that eat the small, it’s the fast that eat the slow.”
Bonus Link
- The Lefsetz Letter
The best models for developing relationships with audiences come from the entertainment business. No meaningful cultural influence has made it without knowing how to work an audience and build a fan base. If you have even a hint of interest in the music industry, you can learn all about HR by reading between the lines. Lefsetz is one of those guys who never lets you wonder about what’s on his mind. He imagines performance and musical excellence and then critiques the artists, venues, production values, songs, concepts, equipment and trends of the industry. As you listen to him talk about audience development, what works and what doesn’t, you’ll see the outlines of real talent network and market development. It’s nice to read it on Bob’s site since it isn’t really happening in our industry.
