What Facebook “Really Is”
Following a recent discussion about “Web 2.0″, I felt it would be a good idea to discuss the nature of social media itself - and break it into chunks that allow you to really understand one of the most successful social media websites built so far: Facebook.
One of the reasons I dislike the label “Web 2.0″ so much is that it’s FAR too general. And so is “Social Media” for that matter.
Social Media is not all alike by any stretch - different types of social media do different things. Some aggregate information, some produce content, some enable more personal and frequent communication between people, some replicate social experience and attempt to create venues in which users can interact with each other the same way they would in real life.
Also complicating the nature of social media further, is the nature of the social media members (or “society”) that enables the social media.
For example:
If the website produces content - knowing what motivations the content producers have for creating that content is very important - both as a user who needs to be discriminatory when reading the information, and as a marketer who may want to use the social media to gain a top social media users attention and therefore enhance market reach.
So let’s start by categorizing the most popular social media sites into two sub groups with their separate uses, based on the “output” of the website:
CONTENT CREATION AND AGGREGATION SITES - AS A MARKETER, LEVERAGING THESE INCREASE YOUR REACH AND POSSIBLY INCREASE YOUR CREDIBILITY
1. User Contributed News Sites - Digg.com, Reddit.com, Slashdot.org, Sumbleupon.com, Social Bookmarking - these news sites rely on their own users finding, summarizing, and then submitting and voting on particular web pages they find. These sites DO NOT produce content, however, they can be a tremendous source of traffic for a web page that receives enough votes from the individual news sites user base.
Motivation of the active submitting/voting members: Gaining a large network of fellow news submitters who will vote for their own stories when they submit them. People who regularly participate in news sites do so to further their own business exposure - a good example of how members network their way to the top of these news sites was written by Maki from DoshDosh.
Marketing Opportunities: Increase market reach enormously and very cheaply. Also it can be argued that by being seen on the front page of Digg or Slashdot you receive some extra credibility because of the implied social proof needed to get on the front page.
Marketing Problems: Networking into the path of top social media contributors is time consuming and has no definite outcome - anything could happen. Compounding the problem is that many internet users who read social media sites are doing it for the stimulation of an interesting story, and once they have their “hit of excitement” they never return to your web site.
2. User Contributed Content Sites - Wikipedia.com, Squidoo.com, Mahalo.com, Youtube.com - these sites rely on their active members producing hundreds of thousands of pages of content. Many people don’t realize that Google.com is also a user contributed content site - it relies on content producers creating content it indexes in a website that becomes a hub for the general public to visit. Obviously user contributer content sites are incredibly lucrative if you can make the model work - but that’s no easy task.
Motivation of the active content producers: Gaining traffic to their own website, and/or monetizing the content they write on the social site itself through contextual advertising programs such as Adsense. Some content producers are also highly motivated by recognition and prestige - like the wikipedia writers.
Marketing Opportunities: Like the users contributed news sites, the content sites have the capability to increase market reach enormously. Also, the content sites have a built in opportunity to pre-sell the website visitor on the website you are promoting, or, you as an expert. Being cited by Wikipedia as a source can both drive a large amount of traffic to your site as well as categorize you as a “trusted” site far more then your site being listed in the search results ever could.
Marketing Problems: Competition! Because of the potential upside of being cited as a wikipedia source, or being a top youtube channel - every man, every company, and anyone with an interest in increasing market reach is falling all over themselves to leverage this opportunity. Barriers to entry include ALREADY having market reach you can leverage to build your profile on these sites, as well as being able to afford giving away content that most people would have to CHARGE MONEY FOR to break even on the content creation in the first place.
COMMUNITY COMMUNICATION SITES - AS A MARKETER LEVERAGING THESE, YOU POSSIBLY DEEPEN YOUR ESTABLISHED COMMUNITY BOND
3. Social Chatter Sites - Twitter.com, Jaiku.com, Pownce.com - these sites allows users to micro blog about their everyday life.
Motivation of the active participants: To connect and chat with friends/family members, and follow along in the lives of “well known people” or celebrities.
Marketing Opportunities: To engage your followers more frequently, in a more personal way. This may result in higher take up of your offers from a group of people who may trust you more because they feel they know you more then they otherwise would.
Marketing Problems: Does not increase market reach at all. Only allows a closer relationship with customers and prospects you already have.
4. Socializing Facilitation Sites - Myspace.com, Facebook.com, Bebo.com, Friendster.com - these sites attempt to create a social environment in which users can express their own personality and interact with other users in way that resembles real life as closely as possible.
Motivation of the active socializer’s: To talk and interact with friends/family and possibly to make new friends. Interest groups are popular on these sites and resemble clubs in real life. Membership into these groups is often simple and straightforward.
Marketing Opportunities: Like the Social Chatter Sites these sites can facilitate a closer relationships with current customers and prospects through the user groups. These sites can also be a source of traffic if you develop an application that becomes popular.
Marketing Problems: Unless you’re monetizing Facebook/Myspace application or layouts businesses - these sites do not increase market reach. Facebook also reserve the right to steal your business if it becomes profitable for them to do so. Top marketers have also reported that users of these sites can be very resistant to marketing.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Content creation/news aggregation sites can increase your market reach and credibility, while social communication sites can be leveraged to increase community bond.
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