In our work in the UK, I've run across Tom Chapman and his analysis of social network marketing on Facebook and MySpace in the UK. You can get a copy here.
There are some good key findings that will apply here in the States as well. However, one caught my eye since I've been scribbling a blog post and contemplating this for a while now:
"Look beyond the ‘friend’ and ‘fan’ metric which is a simple numbers game and place more emphasis on the quality of conversations."
I say this because I've literally heard people pass resumes around the PR firms saying "he has over 300 connections in LinkedIn, or she maxed out her Facebook friends!" This, of course, was meant to gather enthusiasm to the person as a great potential new hire, and the promising future of a fantastic social media group within the firm. Or at the very least, a popular person to bring some notoriety to the firm.
(credit: www.toothpastefordinner.com)
The quality of conversations is key here, and I would add that the quality of the relationship is more important. If somebody "pokes" me (and yes, even Super Pokes me) every three months, I would not count that person among my inner circle as much as those that I message, comment, and interact with on a daily or weekly basis. In the last post we talked about relationships outside of the online world, so let's look to that as a comparison again. Saying "Hi" to the guy in the hall every now and then is different than having lunch together, or drinks after work. Question: if you needed to recommend those people and vouch for them, would you feel more comfortable with the guy you say "Hi" to or the one that you know better?
And so it is with the numbers game. 500 people doesn't tell me much. Granted, you have been busy connecting with people. And I'm sure you have more friends than me. But what can you do with your network? How close are you to those 500 people? And how often do you interact with each and every one of them? Are they quality connections?
So for business wanting to get into the social networking mix, know that when your campaign is up on Facebook, people are looking past your friend count. They are looking at the comments, the people writing on your wall, the engagement of those people. Active engagement is where the payoff is for the campaign. I hope that your campaign looks past the posting of the site and includes plans to maintain them and actually use them.
So, who wants to be my friend? I'm looking for some connections...
More later. Viva Elastic!
