The Psychology Of Social Networking: Radio Interview Recap

Last week on Thursday June 4, 2009 Jon Hansen tackled social media from a unique perspective as he peeled back the layers of technology and delved into the heart of social media’s value as an enabler for professional collaboration. Jon explored this topic with the assistance of three leading edge thought leaders who are living and integrating social media into everyday life and mainstream business. This one hour interview takes the listener through a thought provoking journey as he probes key questions millions of businesses around the world are asking everyday.

Following are the key points the participants contributed during the interview.

Interviewee: Andrew Ballenthin, Founder of The Community Marketing Blog, Speaker and President of Integrated Marketing Consultancy Sol Solutions

1.  The term social media is preventing many businesses from seeing what the true value of this communication evolution is about. Leave the words behind, think of it as "interactive communication".
2.  From a marketing perspective this is one of the greatest moments in communication history as mega brands through to entrepreneurs now have a vehicle for building engaging relationships based on two-way communication.
3.  Social media has the potential to humanize a business, and when executed correctly, new customers, additional sales and improved customer retention become possible as a result of following the rules that are govern any quality relationship.
4.  Now and over the next 5 years we will see a transition where mass communication converges with a greater weighting on the quality of the database’s relationship with a business.
5.  There is a timing-risk-reward factor for businesses that start this journey now, especially during an economic downturn, as it will enable them to separate themselves from competition, build loyalty, and continually learn how to fulfill client’s ongoing needs.

Interviewee:  Patrice-Anne Rutledge, Business Technology Coach and Author of 27 books including “The Truth About Profiting From Social Networking”

1.  Technology is just the enabler; it's what we do with technology that really counts.
2.  The heart of social networking is two-way communication. It's all about collaboration, interaction, and relationship-building.
3.  Social networking can give you another avenue to connect and communicate, but it shouldn’t replace your in-person networks.
4.  One of the powers of social networking is that its collaborative nature makes it a natural for word-of-mouth marketing.
5.  The social web has become a primary medium for reputation development and branding for companies both large and small.

Interviewee:  Penny Powers, Co-Founder of Ecademy, Author of “Know Me, Like Me, Follow Me”, and Esteemed Visionary and Thought Leader

1.  There is a risk of reverting to Broadcast styles of marketing now that social media is so hyped, reducing the good work done within Social Networking sites to encourage engagement.
2.  The good rise to the top in social networks – more and more it will be about ‘what people say about you’ that creates your reputation rather than what you say about yourself – self promotion is ‘out’, advocacy is ‘in’.
3.  There is an opportunity for social networks to become humanity networks if people stop using them as ‘sales’ opportunities and start seeing the benefit of being ‘liked’ in business.
4.  Being Known, Being Liked and Being Followed are the processes of creating an online presence, broadcasting becomes conversation and conversation becomes trust.
5.  The internet provides an audience to teach and to share knowledge with, not a base of prospects. Success online is the bi-product of being liked.
6.   Relationships first and then commerce emerges – community first and then transaction – will ebay really survive?
7.  The Social Networking Industry needs to work together to create a ‘safe networking’ environment to ensure the loudest voices are not the destructive ones.


Interviewer: Jon Hansen, Founder of Procurement Insights, Radio Host, Consultant and Speaker

1.  Personable and individualistic, instead of dehumanizing us as some would claim, social networking actually creates the vehicle to extend our humanity in a manner that is beneficial to the global community as a whole.
2.  At the core of the social networking value proposition is a deeply rooted commitment or dedication to serving others - to somehow or in some way "feed" the needs of those in the community.
3.  While extending and accelerating one's reach, social networking does not lessen nor circumvent the importance and need for building meaningful relationships.
4.  With 62% of all small businesses lacking even a basic web site, social networks will potentially become the web development vehicle through which the primary point of connection between companies and their prospect-client base will be established.
5.  Social networks act as both a facilitator of business as well as a fulfiller of business opportunity.

Comments

[@MeganMcQ]

I completely agree with Penny in re: advocacy is 'in'.

Especially in terms of SEO/SEM tactics, I recently read an Edelman position paper that discussed the increase of 'reputational search' and 'social search'. These new search types demonstrate that consumers want to find 'advocacy' information as opposed to self-promotion.

Great point, Penny.