Occasionally folks in my neighborhood throw parties and it’s fun for my me and my wife to get out of our own house, engage in adult conversation, look at the how second mortgages were spent in backyards and see how fancy their tequila is. A lot of “Jonesing” going on as we absorb the information on vacations, car purchases, and kid sport stories. It seems there’s something instinctual at play here; something deeply fundamental in how we socialize and ultimately how we are influenced.
And as we’ve progressed with the social web, I can’t help but look at traditional concepts of marketing as unnatural. With the traditional channels there is a crafted message pushed at you from sources and voices you don’t have a strong connection with. Now as unnatural as this feels, it really is how we formally try to influence people. And nearly all forms of metrics and analytics for this marketing are based on the concepts of how well and how often you can reach an audience with your message.
Now with the web, we’ve seen an evolution from this broadcast voice of one to many, to an interactive shared voice of influence of many to many. Yet as we’ve done this, how we measure this medium’s influence is still baked in the concepts of broadcast media. How many people came to your site? How many people clicked thru links? How many people left your site? Again unnatural, and there seems to be something missing that is closer to me going to my neighbors house that we are not measuring.
The problem dawned on me when I read an article that explained how social media sites are not influential in the purchase decision. The results were very clear, people did not consider Facebook & Twitter as places to form opinions about a purchases.
In my opinion this is dead on and dead wrong at the same time. Of course people don’t consider these as places to go to be influenced on purchase decisions any more than my neighbors house is the influencer for my next top shelf tequila purchase. But like at my neighbors, people in Twitter are influenced on purchase decisions when they engage with people they trust.
I think the research made an erroneous assumption based on traditional way we look at marketing. The research made the assumption that the site, or the destination is relevant to the purchase decisions. However with social networks it’s the relationships with friends and followers that are relevant to purchase decisions. Facebook and Twitter are destinations, the people within those destinations enable relationships and enable influence.
For argument sake, I’d like to take this even further. Do Facebook & Twitter have any intrinsic value. Is it possible the value is between people and profiles and not the site? Take out the people, leave the content. Is there’s value and power to influence?
Twitter is a bit easier to look at this way. I tweet around 4 to 5 times a day on average. I probably read dozens of tweets a day. I rarely go to Twitter.com. My relationship with Twitter.com is nonexistent. For me, Twitter is actually more of a relationship API than a website.
Now this is something for marketers pause and consider. Twitter.com is as relevant as the concrete poured in the foundation of my neighbors house. The site is a construct where relationships happen but it does not create, foster or enable the relationships, therefore measuring the value of the concrete is erroneous.
Now can we take this even further and consider if ANY website holds value? Is it possible that nearly all traffic on the web is some form or relationship media, where the value and influence is between personas and not between the site and the visitor.
I recently tweeted on this and got a response claiming that even with social media, it is not always about relationships. The example given was a user recieved needed technical answers he was seeking from people he did not know, who had tweeted out into the ether.
From my perspective this person trusts the collective intelligence and personas of the Twitterverse. He is using the Twitter API as a channel to connect with people he doesn’t otherwise have access to. I believe that IS relationship media at work. He has definitely moved past finding value in a site or destination in exchange for connecting with expert personas.
Even beyond social interaction I think we can see the web has shifted primarily to relationship media. Consider the 90/9/1 rule where 90% of engagements on any social site are people consuming but not participating in the conversation. I see a relationship here. The 90% has a relationship with the 10% of content producers. And that relationship is often more sought after because it is deeper and more trusted than most institutional sources.
So for marketers what does this mean? I can’t help but wonder if we have moved to relationship media while not fully aware, and not comprehending what it means. Are we continuing to build sites while focused on the value of these destinations, meanwhile ignoring the value of personas & relationship fostering, that may truly be at the core to building relevance and influence on the web?
And as we’ve progressed with the social web, I can’t help but look at traditional concepts of marketing as unnatural. With the traditional channels there is a crafted message pushed at you from sources and voices you don’t have a strong connection with. Now as unnatural as this feels, it really is how we formally try to influence people. And nearly all forms of metrics and analytics for this marketing are based on the concepts of how well and how often you can reach an audience with your message.
Now with the web, we’ve seen an evolution from this broadcast voice of one to many, to an interactive shared voice of influence of many to many. Yet as we’ve done this, how we measure this medium’s influence is still baked in the concepts of broadcast media. How many people came to your site? How many people clicked thru links? How many people left your site? Again unnatural, and there seems to be something missing that is closer to me going to my neighbors house that we are not measuring.
The problem dawned on me when I read an article that explained how social media sites are not influential in the purchase decision. The results were very clear, people did not consider Facebook & Twitter as places to form opinions about a purchases.
In my opinion this is dead on and dead wrong at the same time. Of course people don’t consider these as places to go to be influenced on purchase decisions any more than my neighbors house is the influencer for my next top shelf tequila purchase. But like at my neighbors, people in Twitter are influenced on purchase decisions when they engage with people they trust.
I think the research made an erroneous assumption based on traditional way we look at marketing. The research made the assumption that the site, or the destination is relevant to the purchase decisions. However with social networks it’s the relationships with friends and followers that are relevant to purchase decisions. Facebook and Twitter are destinations, the people within those destinations enable relationships and enable influence.
For argument sake, I’d like to take this even further. Do Facebook & Twitter have any intrinsic value. Is it possible the value is between people and profiles and not the site? Take out the people, leave the content. Is there’s value and power to influence?
Twitter is a bit easier to look at this way. I tweet around 4 to 5 times a day on average. I probably read dozens of tweets a day. I rarely go to Twitter.com. My relationship with Twitter.com is nonexistent. For me, Twitter is actually more of a relationship API than a website.
Now this is something for marketers pause and consider. Twitter.com is as relevant as the concrete poured in the foundation of my neighbors house. The site is a construct where relationships happen but it does not create, foster or enable the relationships, therefore measuring the value of the concrete is erroneous.
Now can we take this even further and consider if ANY website holds value? Is it possible that nearly all traffic on the web is some form or relationship media, where the value and influence is between personas and not between the site and the visitor.
I recently tweeted on this and got a response claiming that even with social media, it is not always about relationships. The example given was a user recieved needed technical answers he was seeking from people he did not know, who had tweeted out into the ether.
From my perspective this person trusts the collective intelligence and personas of the Twitterverse. He is using the Twitter API as a channel to connect with people he doesn’t otherwise have access to. I believe that IS relationship media at work. He has definitely moved past finding value in a site or destination in exchange for connecting with expert personas.
Even beyond social interaction I think we can see the web has shifted primarily to relationship media. Consider the 90/9/1 rule where 90% of engagements on any social site are people consuming but not participating in the conversation. I see a relationship here. The 90% has a relationship with the 10% of content producers. And that relationship is often more sought after because it is deeper and more trusted than most institutional sources.
So for marketers what does this mean? I can’t help but wonder if we have moved to relationship media while not fully aware, and not comprehending what it means. Are we continuing to build sites while focused on the value of these destinations, meanwhile ignoring the value of personas & relationship fostering, that may truly be at the core to building relevance and influence on the web?
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