The importance of naming stuff in social networks
In speaking with Victoria Axelrod a couple of weeks ago it dawned on me that the reason why I have over 9,000 people in the marketing 2.0 group in Facebook and already over 200 in the LinkedIn Marketing 2.0 group is not so much because those 9,000 people want to discuss the future of marketing but because they want to have the marketing 2.0 moniker associated with their profile. That would also explain why the Facebook group was overtaken by spammers and why far fewer people are joining the marketing 2.0 group which was set up as a companion discussion to the marketing 2.0 group blog.
Another great reminder about the fact that people do not care that much about what you do - they care about themselves in the context of what you do. In this case they care about their association with something 2.0…not the discussion itself.
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June 23rd, 2008 at 10:26 am
From several years of experience with marketing teams, I still find the majority only know the buzzwords and don’t understand a lick about the philosophy of web2.0/social web marketing.
If you want serious group involvement, you may need to gate it.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I agree,it’s all about building one’s social reputation.
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:06 pm
When managing group badges in Linked-In you don’t just randomly let everyone in. ALWAYS look at their profile to see if their background is topically relevant and ALSO look to see if they have a ’sea’ of badges already collected.
July 14th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Francois,
I have just stumbled across your blog and have found it very insightful but I am going to disagree with you on this one. I don’t often do that by the way but I am going to give it shot.
First, I think anything Web 2.0 is for the most part in it’s adolescent stages and many people are jumping in trying to figure it all out. I don’t doubt that many are looking for the moniker (which I had to look up the meaning of this word by the way) but I do believe, I have to believe, that people are hungry for the conversations.
Second, I think these Social Networks are in many cases like real life in that if you see a large group of people rush over to the sidelines it’s bound to grab your attention. So, I would imagine that if you have these kinds of numbers in your particular groups it’s because people are curious, they are interested in what’s going on and ultimately want to talk about it.
The spammers, ahh, I guess they are like the paparazzi trying to score big where the conversations are already taking place. Perhaps I am off here but thanks for the blog post and keeping it real.
John Howell
December 11th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Hi - I just saw this post through a Google search on naming social networks, and I have to say that this is a brilliant statement: “…people do not care that much about what you do - they care about themselves in the context of what you do.”