After 20+ years in the business of technology, social media has piqued my interest over its predecessor techno fads and revolutions, because I am making the bold prediction that - more than any other technology wave before it - social media technology ties us each, member-to-member, more tightly into the human community by strengthening our relationships with our existing networks and helping us reach beyond them at the same time. The starting points are our existing, largely off-line, communities - companies, associations and networks of friends and colleagues - and there is no ending point.
Wow. Wouldn't it be cool if people were really that connected? Yes. It would be very cool because when people come together, amazing things happen!
Why should you read this blog? You should read Member-to-Member if you want to understand how and why social media will:
- transform the business of marketing by giving the customer a more prominent role in the transaction and renewal/repeat purchase process, providing forward thinking organizations unprecedented opportunities for brand experience success and brand loyalty;
- make organizations more effective in engaging their members to help accomplish their goals (whether membership is formal or informal and goals are commercial or not);
- empower members of organizations to contribute more of themselves to furthering their organizations' goals;
- put people in member-to-member contact, working together to make the world a better place (though beware, their definition of 'better' and yours may differ).
Scope - How broadly will we cast our net? Broadly. I expect all the following kinds of "membership" to be addressed at some point.
People:
- Marketing Professionals - skilled in the art and science of customer behavior and tasked by their organizations to turn that knowledge into greater business success.
- Employees & Workforce - formally tied to an organization by some kind of paycheck.
- Association Members - formally tied to their trade and professional organizations through dues and participation.
- Community Members - informally and formally tied to groups of all kinds through volunterism, activism, shared need, shared goal and shared desire (yes, this is broad but it's intended to cover everyone from the cancer survivor to the political activitst).
- Customers - informally tied to brands, products and each other through shared enthusiasm or dissapointment.
Technologies & applications thereof:
- Social networks (e.g., Linked In, Facebook etc.)
- Blogs, Blog Communities & Blog Directories (e.g., MySpace, Technorati etc.)
- Wikis
- Meetups, Mashups, Twitters and other interesting social media phenomenon
- Email, List serves and other innovative uses of old staples
- Collaboration software and services
Will we cover membership marketing, Web 2.0 and CRM (both kinds) and other industry buzz words we're all used to seeing? Sure, probably. But here in my blog (as opposed to my consulting practice) I am less interested in the industrial categories and dynamics of dominating them as I am in why they are successful in capturing users, converts and critics. Here I will give myself the luxury of trying to get underneath the dynamics of why this stuff works and what it means for us as managers of organizations and participants in the human community.
Facts & Stats:
This blog isn't intended to be a comprehensive stats tracker, but I do come across some interesting snippets in my research and industry scanning. To help me remember it, and provide interested readers an easily scannable RSS feed of these bits and pieces of insight into the social web, I've started the Social Insights Micro Feed. The micro feed will include announcements of blog posts so you can subscribe to it as a one-stop feed to my brain on social.
******
A note about me: I am a strategic communicator by trade (i.e., marketer, talker, listener) and a technology dabbler by interest and profession as well. Personally, I find the ability to use technology to enhance personal relationships fascinating and sometimes I'll just write about it from a personal point of view. Professionally, I believe that the best marketing happens through interaction that feels personal, even when it's not. I am not an expert on everything, but I do have good experience that gives me interesting insights into interesting things, as do you. I hope you'll come explore this brave new world with me by tracking this blog and commenting so that we can learn together .
Updated: Janauary 21, 2009
