The rise of social networking sites over the past few years has been nothing short of phenomenal, but yet, many people still don’t understand why these types of sites have succeeded. Especially given that many of the sites are extremely basic, and simply offer methods of communicating that people have enjoyed for decades.
On more than one occasion I’ve heard people say about Twitter, “so what’s the big deal? What can you really say in just 140 characters? After all, don’t you need more room (than 140 characters) to say something really important. And frankly, I don’t care to hear about what someone’s eating for lunch!”).
True enough. I don’t care what others are eating for lunch either, but for some reason, people are more comfortable sending a message via public forums like Twitter and Facebook, rather than simply picking-up the phone., or typing an email.
This fact is backed up by a recent Nielsen report. In it, Nielson states that the use of social network sites (called Member Communities) such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube finally passed the use of email in becoming the 4th most popular activity online. These communities are realizing a growth rate more than twice that of any of the other four largest sectors. The rapid increase in the number of social networking sites has been such a marvel that many fail to appreciate or comprehend why they keep growing or why they thrive.
So… just why have Social Networking sites become “the next big thing?” The key is the first word… social – the social part of the operation. People are such social beings that they naturally will start “friending” as a big group over common ideas or interests. In other words people collect, concentrate, congregate, convene, converge, convoke, corral, flock, gang around, gather, hang out, mass, meet, meet up, muster, pack, rally, rendezvous, round up, and swarm, This is why you will see groups of people gathering over Maker’s Mark ® Bourbon or bingo. This “friending” creates a bond among those who are in the group. Social networks keep track of those common ideas, interests, and information that then can be used to find other people with whom we share those same common likes and interests.
Let’s say I made an acquaintance at a restaurant on a weekday. We sit over a few bottles of beverages sharing with each other about our past week and I discover that he is a carpenter. He impresses me and seems to know what he’s doing. Remember now, this was the first time I spoke to him. Five days later, one of my co-worker’s tells me that he needs someone to remodel his basement. Recalling that my newfound friend is a carpenter, I put my co-worker in contact with him — I refer him. This is a simple illustration of a business concept that has been repeated a million times over in many different venues. It’s called “word-of-mouth.”
This is the concept that social networks have tapped. People recommend others and invite still others to join conversations. The sharing of knowledge spreads camaraderie and trust.
This concept is what many internet markets build on. By using social networks, it is easy to build a following for your products or services that get you trust by proxy. Doing one good thing for one person alone will result to more customers if that one satisfied person you helped passes on the information to others. Social networking is one that also encourages responsibility and diligence — it’s “word-of-mouth” (for both good and bad experiences) on steroids.
G. Wayne Clayton is the founder and Chief Visionary Officer of Integerol LLC along with SocialMarketingExpert.org. He’s a former newspaper publisher and investigative journalist. He has been seen seen and heard on CNN, Fox News Talk radio, quoted in The Toronto Star and is a Guest Blogger on FastCompany.com.
An amazing confession from doen under IT pro’s… More than half of Australian IT professionals are confused about what constitutes Web 2.0.
