Is more, better? Think about that for a second. Just because we now have the ability to reach everyone, does that mean that we can reach everyone?
The truth is that in a lot of ways, social media hasn’t made things easier for someone to climb the ranks of authority but harder. Social Websites has opened the pool of available people in your market but then again, the pool has become a lot larger, and the audiences more fragmented.
Once upon a time, forums helped you cut your teeth with the community of your market.
Basically, you hung out in them and responded to questions, commented on other people’s thoughts and joked around with folks. And over time, the community would start to respect your opinions and actively seek you out. Throw a website into a signature and you would get traffic. Throw an optin form for those who came to your website and they would sign up. Much easier because the social proof were all the exchanges on the forum between yourself and the community.
If someone came in and “spammed” the forum, the community took care of itself. If someone wasn’t on the up and up, the community ‘outed’ them.
But as social communities became more and more detached and things became more and more automated, the spammers and ne’er do wells were able to move in and fake authority. Nowadays, you don’t even have to be on social media to “participate”.
I’m not complaining here. It’s just the truth. There is a difference. And if you understand the difference between then (when social media meant actively participating) and now (the majority of twitter power users automate the affair…this includes me to an extent), then you would agree that the older way of doing things was better, long term.
Sure, it took more time and energy. And it actually required an expertise to demonstrate. But the sense of community that it brought made it easier to climb the ranks of your market…or at least a part of your market.
Image Attribution- http://www.flickr.com/photos/choconancy/5613817067/
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Twitter: costafong
says:
Agree.. Humans have become cold creatures over the years, each doing things for their own needs and benefits. Gone are the compassion and comradeship. When I started my first blog, I do not even need to enter a Forum to make friends. People simply drop in to comment and say hello and welcome me to the Blogosphere and their community.
These days, you have to beg for comments. Something that I am not quite prepared to do. Comments is a form of appreciation and appreciation is something that should be given, not asked for.
And when they do make a comment, you get a sense of falsehood in what they have said and you know they have made that comment in return for something they need and not truly from their heart.
Yea..not to mention all those automated tweets and follows.
Sad.
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I feel you Costa. The world is changing and will continue to change. Blog commenting took a hit when sharing links became the new thing. The weird thing about blog commenting these days is you never really know the intentions of the one leaving the comment unless you “know” them. I have often wondered if there was no intentional benefit other than engaging, how many would bother commenting. But that is just my cynical side coming out….
Twitter: paul_forcey
says:
Costa I can totally relate, I remember the good old days when we trusted forums and made real friends on them. In fact I am still in touch with and do work with 2 people I met on forums 7+ years ago.
I saw a couple of really good forums just give up and close down because they were tired of trying to stay ahead of the spammers and they were not making any money from the forums so it just made it all the worse.
Paul Forcey recently posted..Get Facebook Likes From Linkedin
Twitter: BelindaPepper
says:
The way I figure, two things are going to happen (are happening?):
1) The internet is going to become absolutely saturated with spam, false engagement, fake social “proof”, and automated communication.
2) As the new generations are raised in a world built around social media, the need for a genuine experience will increase.
I see a backlash about to happen. People will start outing the companies/personalities who aren’t genuine. Dropping comments and likes/shares/tweets/etc simply for personal gain will become uncool. The people who shine as being REAL will become the gurus of the age.
Or something like that.
Point being, the more crappy things become, the more determined people are to find the non-crappy. Make yourself non-crappy, and you can welcome the throngs with open arms.