Don’t Forget the People

It’s so easy to get caught up in the exciting new technologies that enable Social Media, the tools and applications like Twitter or Plurk, WordPress widgets and new add-ons to Twitter. What we sometimes forget however, is people and the role they play.

While a new iPhone application might be really cool, it’s not very useful unless people decide they want to use it. Not only is it vital that people will use a technology, it’s “how” they use it. When blogs took over from forums and newsgroups and one button publishing became easy and free, could we have predicted bloggers would create so much pain for businesses, journalists and governments?

One way to predict if a technology will become popular with people however, is to look at the demographic the technology is aimed at and what gatekeeper might possibly be displaced. Prior to free blogging, the gatekeeper of much information to the general public was news outlets. Even Twitter as a microblog, further displaced the gatekeeping of professional news outlets. Twitter is a case of a value-add technology that built on what blogging had already started – breaking down information gatekeepers.

It was people that saw how blogging and microblogging could be used to foster change and provide a counter opinion to industrial media. Granted, much blogging content is mediochre and not always reliable, but in many cases, blog articles have created significant change or had major impact.

The key to Social Media being so huge as a “movement” is people. The technology just enables people to socialize, organize and create. In choosing a “tool” for a social media strategy, the people and how they might use the tool (you can never know for sure to start) are a ey consideration.

(Author: Giles Crouch, Managing Partner – Twitter: Webconomist)