I need a tiny little favor.
I’m in the process of applying for a small work gig and they’ve come back with a few questions for me. I was wondering if any of you had any insight that you can share on the following questions:
- What do you foresee the most “socially-successful” institutions will be doing with their users/web presence in 5/10 years?
- What could be done in the space of 1-2 years to see overwhelmingly positive results from a social media strategy? What could backfire?
- How would you go about convincing an overworked researcher that using social media is a good idea?
Can’t really share too much context right now, but if you have some thoughts please email me or leave me a comment on this post. I’ll email you back and give you more information personally.
Thank you so much for your help. Looking forward to your insights!
1. Continuing on the path of connections. Bringing people who have the same likes and dislikes together that can make change.
2. Taking learning from your strategy and really applying them to your business. Right now, I am finding that we are still experimenting with SM, but in a year or two, we can really see how people are connecting and more importantly what they are saying to effect positive change. What could backfire? Not listening.
3. Examples. Lots and lots of examples.
Good luck!
Thanks so much for your thoughts Mish! I’ll be sure to credit your thoughts in my application, and will pass along more information as soon as I’m in a place to disclose it. Thanks again!
3. If they are overworked, then explain the benefits of leveraging the social web to have other people do your work for you!
(I know the interwebs don’t translate this well, but just trying to be humorous - all in good fun :P)
The most “socially-successful” institutions will be doing the same thing in 5/10 years that they are doing now - listening to their consumers, customers and other influencers via the web2.0 mediasphere. Then, they will be engaging and responding to their audiences’ needs and flexing/adapting to best meet them.
In the space of 1-2 years, companies can invest time and resources (e.g., a community manager) to build and develop relationships over time by listening and engaging online in the consumer-led conversation. Through active listening, companies can develop social media outreach programs that will meet their specific audiences where they are and enable positive two-way communication. Companies who do this will need to have thick skins and be prepared to hear criticism where merited - they will also be able to take that criticism and respond to it in meaningful ways. This requires a lot of openness and respect for the consumer.
Overworked researchers can no doubt benefit from using social media to search the deep web. Instead of just scanning the surface of the web, using social search tools can tap into an informed and knowledgeable network to provide much deeper content.
Good luck Sameer! :)
Sameer,
I think the next serious phase of social networking is increasing security. It seems every internet application or model follows the same line; it is embraced by the ‘savvy’, adopted by the majority, exploited by the unscrupulous, regimented by the developer and finally taken for grant and ignored until the next big thing is introduced. Then the cycle starts all over again.
From what I see, we are at the exploited stage and security will become an issue as systems and information are mined.
However, I think social networking will evolve, for some, to be much like Ancient Greece (a forum for groups to come together, make informed decisions about what is best within their particular agendas and coordinate an action plan that is uniform and sweeping) while others will use it as an inexpensive but hugely effective means to promote and hawk their wares and still others will never do anything more then utilize it’s most basic applications. In other words, it will be much the same as it is now only far more versatile and all inclusive.
In short, I believe social networking programs will become the virtual head office for a number of organizations, charities, community groups and small businesses.
I think social media should be an extension of good customer service. Blogs, micro blogs, and the like allow companies and institutions to “listen” to people on a larger scale. and if “we” start to listen rather than preach we can start to do work that really means something tangible and real.
hope i made sense!
kk
These are very interesting questions, but rather than inviting answers, they seem to demand dialogue. Five or ten years is a very long time, and any response to the first question must be predicated on how users will interact with the “web” (or its descendents).
Having said that, I think there are a few trends that could emerge:
- Users are becoming increasingly selective about what information they disclose and how they package themselves for different social networks. Sites that recognise this will help users to maintain a consistent single profile in one place and syndicate out persona through the networks that they participate in.
- Social networks and aggregators of personal information will build-out sophisticated profiling tools through which they will be able to dissect their user-base. Profile information (anonymous or otherwise) will be harvested, sold or otherwise leveraged for profit. It will also be used to attract users by offering benefits catered to them in exchange for increased participation or disclosure.
- Risks include those that are already present: loss of privacy, identity theft, predators. Threats will also become more sophisticated, with networks of false persona emerging that can prey on individuals and organisations, and otherwise manipulate social networks and the harvesting of profile information.
- Another trend will be towards the development of specialist social networks. These could be part of a larger unified structure, or standalone sites. They will connect people with shared professional interests, common purposes, or even shared outlooks. Social nets will be able to offer tools and ways to connect that go far beyond what general lowest-common-denominator networks offer, because they will cater to specific profile archetypes.
- Language and culture-specific networks will be increasingly important, and may fall under the specialist category. Also, as large numbers of people in different parts of the world engage the internet differently, social networks will adapt. Much of the developing world is gaining access to the internet through a mobile browser and SMS, so twitter-style networking could arguably eclipse flashy, big-screen facebook-like systems. If the mobile phone becomes the dominant form-factor, how much will voice, snapshots and mobile video play a role versus reams of text and flashy graphics?
- There will be a premium (in fact there already is) on users and tools that can sort through the noise of social networks and harvest “meaning”. While this is essential, it also presents the risk of over-simplifying and implicit censoring. Ideally there should be many ways of drawing meaning from the social-space based on popularity, originality, credentials, deviation from the mainstream, etc. Systems that are able to present different views and ways of navigating social data, while allowing users to extract value and reflectively add value will be of interest.
- Researchers spend a lot of time seeking out previously undiscovered or ignored source material, analysing copious amounts of data or disparate information, and drawing meaning that proves or disproves a hypothesis, or sends them looking in an altogether different realm of the “unthought.” Research that is calculation-based has already made use of mesh network models of distributed computing. A social network could also offer a potential mesh of human capacity. In such a system, a researcher could reach out to anonymous individuals for ideas, feedback, primary sources, etc. Through collaboration, they could build a following and gain credibility for their research. By participating in other collaborations, they could also gain from exposure to new new directions of thought, new people, new sources. The complication will be in terms of credit - research activity at present focuses on a individual efforts and publishing of new findings. This type of model would still celebrate advances, but would necessarily spread credit more widely. The research would also be known to more people in advance, and this could present a source of insecurity for some.
While this is definitely not comprehensive, hopefully it is helpful. It’s a bit of a brain-dump, but take it for what its worth.
a.
What do you foresee the most “socially-successful” institutions will be doing with their users/web presence in 5/10 years?
A web presence brings people together right? It helps people shares ideas, opinions and information; it can also act as an archive of information. So socially successful institutions could and should be using their web presence to give their users the opportunity to participate. Participation is important. It gives people a stake and an interest, a raison d’etre for involvement. Socially successful organisations need to use the web to get ideas and to value and celebrate ideas. It’s the little things that make a difference. If someone posts an idea on your blog/feedback page, etc, you write back, saying ‘thanks’ at the very least. The internet can create accessibility, but it can also deliver an age of impersonality, a cold detachment that has to be re-won, but ‘extra special’ treatment.
Personally I believe the information age is at its close, or could even be over. This may come as a surprise to many institutions who are only just beginning to tinker around the ages of this new thing called the information economy. It may also mean that their investment in websites and an internet presence could be fruitless unless they get creative. I am proposing that the information economy is ending and is being replaced by the creative economy. Fortunately I believe the two are closely linked and a presence in the info economy, or even thoughts about a presence here, could be replaced quickly with a presence in the creative economy. The creative economy , in my humble opinion, is allowing expression to be articulated through movies, drawings, photographs, music, etc. I think socially successful organisations will be using the web to bring these mediums into their decision-making processes and into their day-to-day business. The web will be an integral facilitator in this through YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and their successors.
What could be done in the space of 1-2 years to see overwhelmingly positive results from a social media strategy? What could backfire?
I don’t have time to discuss the 1-2 year strategy in detail (I’m in an airport business lounge and want to take advantage of some free food before my plane leaves), but basically I just think a heck of a lot of organisations (particularly government ones) need to get onboard instead of worrying about risk and trends and cost, etc.
In regard to what could backfire, I was reading an article today in the latest edition of Newsweek which discusses the global financial crisis and blames much of the problem on information being freely available via the internet. It was an insightful piece. Basically the journalist was saying that the dotcom revolution in the financial sector resulted in a huge, unimaginable, avalanche of data submerging internet users, financial entities dumped information into the websphere and just left it there, it was accessible, they openly said it was accessible, but it was too much, too quick. People were overwhelmed, the information was literally just dumped, it wasn’t decoded and un-jargonised, instead it was nasty, inaccessible, scary information. That is my rather long-winded way of saying that this is what could backfire in terms of social media, too much information being out there for people to care and for people to easily understand. Organisations can say ‘hey, our info is out there for everyone to see’ and in doing this they fire up everything they’ve got onto the web, but they haven’t decanted it into comprehendible material that users can grasp. As the information revolution continues, or draws to an end, it’s time for many organisations to realise that getting online and interacting with the web doesn’t mean just firing as much data into the ether as possible. They must still make things readable and accessible.
How would you go about convincing an overworked researcher that using social media is a good idea?
Scare them.
Tell them that they will get, and are getting, left behind with each day that passes without them having an interactive, online presence.
Thanks everyone for your responses. I’ll be putting up a post later this evening with some insight as to why I was asking the questions.
Thanks again!
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