Portland Social Media

To Inform, To Form

Doc Searls writes challenging a charge made by Brian Solis in What is Wrong with Social Media? that Doc is an influential driver and definer of  Social Media.  Solis answers his headline’s question 3/4 the way down the article with:

It’s an emergent term that as Stowe put it, defines the socialization of information (Social Media) as well as the tools to faciliate conversation (social media). With those descriptions, and the collective support from some of the most visionary edglings, I’m not sure why there has to be anything wrong with the name. Seriously.

Something different is happening here, the tools for expression and communiation have never been cheaper and more available to the population.  I think anxiety advances on people that ruminate on the negatives of having to adopt the role of Producer.  I precieve there’s a group of people that don’t want to play the role of the Producer; they just want to write, or send pictures to their parents, or express their humanity without having to interact in a many-to-many manner. 

Perhaps there’s also another way to express this: equally unattractive to some might be the hundreds or thousands of people that are to consume their creative energies; perhaps this word is unattractive by it’s definition:

con·sume -verb
1. to destroy or expend by use; use up.

Still further, others might be put off by the fervor of activities by marketing and PR folks in the area of Social Media.  Chris Heuer, of Social Media Club, has a quote in the WebProNews article addressing this situation:

“Let’s stand up for what is right about “social media” rather than tearing it down just because a few misguided folks are misappropriating the meme. We need not throw out the term Social Media for the mere fact that some people will sour its intention and purpose during the course of socializing the deeper understanding of what is happening and what it means.”

Keeping up with this conversation and the excellent opinions contained within is dizzying and a bit tiring.  So I end saying Doc Searls comforts my confusion and iggnorance with his abilty to clarify, define and propose something for us to think about.

I think of it as writing that will hopefully inform readers…Informing is not the same as delivering information. Inform is derived from the verb to form. When you inform me, you form me. You enlarge that which makes me most human: what I know. I am, to some degree, authored by you.

The Messages Are Still Bad

ClickZ News is reporting on a study conducted by ROI Research for Bluestreak, a marketing services company. ClickZ summarizes the press release, but you can read Bluestreak’s press release in its entirety on their website. The release hammers through some marketing-speak, but the numbers on new technology (channel) adoption were very interesting.

Among the 1,000-member panel, 100 percent of respondents currently use e-mail, and more than half of those respondents have held onto at least one e-mail address for a significant amount of time. Meanwhile 88 percent use text messaging; 71 percent use message boards; 63 percent use blogs; 36 percent use podcasting and 28 percent use RSS. Just over 32 percent of the panel was 35 or older.

To me those numbers seem very high - 36% of the 1,000 “use” podcasting. So, I dug into the press release and read their small print regarding the survey:

This study was conducted among 1,000 consumers from an eRewards’ panel of over 1.5 million households and includes respondents who use email and at least one of the other five emerging technologies (RSS, Text Messaging, Blogs, Message Boards and Podcasting). At 95% confidence interval, a sample size of 996 has a sampling error of 3.1%.

eRewards conducts marketing research; ok, now we have the specifics out of the way. The respondents seem to feel the trade-off between free content and advertising or sponsorship messages is at a happy equilibrium at this moment in time. That is, as long as the messages are relevant and of high quality - i.e. if you’re listening to an automotive podcast you really don’t want to hear a message about the latest advance in toilet cleaning consumables. Interestingly enough, podcasting scored highest in relevant and personalized messages - as opposed to blogs, email, videos, etc.

And a quick note to those thinking of ways to at least breakeven with their social media efforts:

The proliferation of sponsored channels seems to have little to no impact on consumers’ usage (70 percent would keep reading a blog they know is sponsored, 66 percent would keep reading a sponsored message board)

So, fear little when you make an effort to find a relevant and qualified sponsor for you podcast or video podcast.

Technorati Tags: marketing, advertising, survey, RSS, podcasting