Social Media: Are You Teaching a Class or Hosting a Party?
Over the last few years I have witnessed the almost exponential growth of “social media strategy consultants” and their highly elaborated advice to businesses about how they should engage with social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and many many more. I have to admit to a certain degree of scepticism which starts from having “social” and “strategy” in the same phrase – because if you have to work out a strategy for the social aspects of your life then something has probably gone wrong and you are about as genuine as a US Presidential candidate’s false smile.
But in this month’s Harvard Business Review I was drawn to what I consider to be the most useful analogy that I’ve come across so far in relation to how we might think about an organisation’s engagement with social media. It was offered up by George Eberstadt, the CEO of TurnTo Networks who made the comparison between hosting a party and teaching a class.
In both cases all of the participants are physically in the same room, but there are very different dynamics at play. In the classroom setting the teacher (the organisation’s brand) dominates the conversation (if indeed it is a conversation at all as it might well be a lecture) and the flow of information is “hub and spoke” – from the teacher to the class and maybe with some flow back to the teacher.
Whereas in a party the guests (customers and potential customers) may have minimal or no direct contact with the host (the brand), preferring to spend most of their time interacting with other guests. But all / most of the guests know and presumably like the host and so when the conversation touches upon the host it is very likely to be favorable and positive. The host has no control over those myriad conversations but the guests at a party are at least as likely to go home with a warm feeling about the hosts as are the pupils in a classroom setting.
The learning point being that controlling the conversations isn’t a guarantee of those conversations being positive and people harbouring warm feelings about the brand. Sometimes letting go and allowing people to express their own opinions, in private and to whom they want, can be even more beneficial. The great news is that in the social media space brands can monitor much of what is being said about them, without needing to control it. The eavesdropping tools are numerous and well developed.
What is going to work best for your organisation in terms of social media – lecturing your clients and prospects or inviting them to an ongoing party?
