Posts Tagged ‘microblogging’
Monday, December 14th, 2009
Global Web Index have released their latest map of global social web involvement, and although a 32,000 sample pool is a little on the small side for such a big venture, there are certainly some interesting takeaways.
China continues to emerge as a massive force in content creation, although language and economic barriers mean it is sluggish to impact on the rest of the net. Japan appears to have low online engagement, but that in fact reflects the progressive Japanese reliance on mobile – in the month of the research just over 34% of Japanese social network users purely accessed through mobile, compared to 3% in the UK. And the low levels of microblogging are a timely reminder that the practice is still confined to an evangelical few.
A sophisticated global approach to WOM is the future; it’s why we have local language capabilites and partners around the world. Check out our next WOM Expert group on regional and global WOM, coming up on Friday, or drop us a line to find out more.
Monday, December 14th, 2009
Global Web Index have released their latest map of global social web involvement, and although a 32,000 sample pool is a little on the small side for such a big venture, there are certainly some interesting takeaways.
China continues to emerge as a massive force in content creation, although language and economic barriers mean it is sluggish to impact on the rest of the net. Japan appears to have low online engagement, but that in fact reflects the progressive Japanese reliance on mobile – in the month of the research just over 34% of Japanese social network users purely accessed through mobile, compared to 3% in the UK. And the low levels of microblogging are a timely reminder that the practice is still confined to an evangelical few.
A sophisticated global approach to WOM is the future; it’s why we have local language capabilites and partners around the world. Check out our next WOM Expert group on regional and global WOM, coming up on Friday, or drop us a line to find out more.
Monday, February 23rd, 2009
One good thing about the media’s Twitter mania is that some provocative people are starting to comment on the behaviour behind social media tools. Cue psychologist Oliver James in the Times:
“Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It’s a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity [...] To ‘follow’ someone is to have a fantasy of who this person you’re following is, and you use it as a map reference or signpost to guide your own life because you are lost. I would guess that the typical profile of a ‘follower’ is someone who is young and who feels marginalised, empty and pointless. They don’t have an inner life.”
Within the polemic, there’s some truth. Many Tweeters have a strong identity, but in a crowded and competitive digital world, constant reinforcement and broadcasting of that identity has become default mode; it happened with texting long before microblogging. Many more than the ‘young’ and ‘marginalised’ feel that if they’re not visibly sharing and speaking, they don’t exist. In the same piece, Alain de Botton also notes that the mundanity of Tweets only reflects our age-old offline behaviour, by emulating the intimate, meandering small talk we indulge in with our closest family and friends. Basically, we want to feel that the big public world of social media is our living room (or even, as de Botton claims, our womb).
So underpinning most of social media’s chatter and creation is a deep craving for security. People will continue to talk as if their identities depended on it, but those who learn to listen will be richest in the attention economy. For both brands and individuals, listening well, rather than constantly opining, will prove to be the real art of social media. This doesn’t imply passivity; any actor tells you that active listening is an incredibly powerful tool, and that mirroring, acknowledging and asking for more will draw people closer to you. Making others feel heard, and reinforcing their identities – not imposing your own – garners the trust and, paradoxically, the attention that we all crave.
What was it that dude Shakespeare said? “Hold as ’twere the mirror up to nature”, or some such guff…
Monday, February 23rd, 2009
One good thing about the media’s Twitter mania is that some provocative people are starting to comment on the behaviour behind social media tools. Cue psychologist Oliver James in the Times:
“Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It’s a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity [...] To ‘follow’ someone is to have a fantasy of who this person you’re following is, and you use it as a map reference or signpost to guide your own life because you are lost. I would guess that the typical profile of a ‘follower’ is someone who is young and who feels marginalised, empty and pointless. They don’t have an inner life.”
Within the polemic, there’s some truth. Many Tweeters have a strong identity, but in a crowded and competitive digital world, constant reinforcement and broadcasting of that identity has become default mode; it happened with texting long before microblogging. Many more than the ‘young’ and ‘marginalised’ feel that if they’re not visibly sharing and speaking, they don’t exist. In the same piece, Alain de Botton also notes that the mundanity of Tweets only reflects our age-old offline behaviour, by emulating the intimate, meandering small talk we indulge in with our closest family and friends. Basically, we want to feel that the big public world of social media is our living room (or even, as de Botton claims, our womb).
So underpinning most of social media’s chatter and creation is a deep craving for security. People will continue to talk as if their identities depended on it, but those who learn to listen will be richest in the attention economy. For both brands and individuals, listening well, rather than constantly opining, will prove to be the real art of social media. This doesn’t imply passivity; any actor tells you that active listening is an incredibly powerful tool, and that mirroring, acknowledging and asking for more will draw people closer to you. Making others feel heard, and reinforcing their identities – not imposing your own – garners the trust and, paradoxically, the attention that we all crave.
What was it that dude Shakespeare said? “Hold as ’twere the mirror up to nature”, or some such guff…
