There’s no doubt that social media has captured just about everyone’s imagination recently. Marketing channels are currently packed with the promise of higher productivity, shorter life-cycles, reduced coordination costs and peer-to-peer engagement. Whether all this ever happens, or not, have you ever wondered why social media caught on ? Or, are you asking yourself whether social media is just another fad like pet rocks and mood rings ? The good news is there’s a science behind social media and that’s why it works.
Social media is grounded in a new science called complexity. The science of complexity is an interdisciplinary study of the dynamics of the structure and behavior among the parts as well as the relationships between the parts and the whole that make up a system. The most notable research has been conducted in and around the Santa Fe Institute within the past twenty-five years. During this time, the science of complexity has produced a few surprising and important discoveries. First, we now know that between order and chaos is self organization. Social media and social networks are just one example of self organization. Bees and ants self organize, as do many chemical and biological systems. Second, we self organize as a network instead of a hierarchy. Networks are more efficient because they allow us to skip levels in the hierarchy. Of course the Internet is the most recognizable example of a network, but if we drew a picture of the links on the internet and all the friend links on Facebook, we’d find they take the same general shape.
There’s much more to say about networks, self organization and complexity, but what does this mean to Federal agencies ? I think we’d all acknowledge the Federal government is a complex system, as are Federal agencies. Our planning and governance activities help us better organize and work together more productively. And social dynamics are a large part of how productively we work together. We saw how well President-elect Obama’s campaign used social media to mobilize their constituents. Federal agencies can do that too. So in 2009 my team and I plan to take a closer look at the power of social media as a mechanism to encourage stakeholder engagement.
great post, truly provoking and thoughtful. please write more im following your blog
Hello,
I have been researching social media for some time now and how it’s concept has changed the way people interact online and I believe it can even be extended to a similar format in the form of forums where people do interact and discuss personal views on specific subjects but they are generally limited to one subject but they are still a form of social media.
The difference with social networks is that people dicuss and share information on just about anything and are not limited to one particular subject so they eliminate the word ‘niche’ and saves people from having to create several different forums to get their word out about different subjects.
So obviously social networking was the next level up from forums and it partly why they have become so popular and this is obvious when you now see Internet Marketers now using the sites as part of their marketing strategies.
Scripts can now be found online for anyone to create their own social network platforms, and experience what it is like to run one of these sites, but again most people I know use them for specific social ‘niches’, just like a forum script is used, so they lose the benefit of capturing a complete audience and may as well be using a forum script almost.
MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter and even YouTube have a global following and cater for every concievable subject that people want to discuss and share and because they were, I believe, the founders of this social concept they now dominate the internet where social site users are concerned.
Creating your own social networking platform can still have it’s benefits and don’t really have to try and compete with the Big Name sites, that would be a pointless exercise obviously, but if it is something new and unique I think people would still look at it with curiosity, that’s our nature, and give it a try just to become a part of a new community online especially if one is a social site fanatic which millions are.
I run a simple Internet Marketing Forum, which I created about 5 months ago, added some relevant content and submitted it to the search engines using some very popular and competitive keywords.
I didn’t really expect big things from the forum, although I di hope, and today the forum, after just a few months, has a membership of almost 29,000 and currently growing at a rate of 800+ per day over the last week.
So that is an example of people wanting to be a part of a new online community and that is in just one ‘niche’ so you can see why social networks, being the next evolution from forums have become so popular and I think it is extraordinary to say the least and will take something phenominal to top it but who knows? .. the internet has evolved so much, so quickly that I wouldn’t be surprised.
By the way, if you’ve ever thought about how you could have a go and start a social network of you’re own there is a great script for one here { Link }
and you can customize it to look how ever you want,
After the success of the ‘One Niche Forum’ I’ve actually bought the script/platform and I’m giving it a go because I’m convinced people will surely be curious enough to try it out, being the next revolution in online social interaction on todays internet, and I have the forum as a precedent for people wanting to be part of a new community haven’t I!
Social networking sites are here to stay for the long haul, I’m sure, unless someone can come up with something far more revolutionary and I don’t think that will happen any time soon!
Hi,
What are the things we do not know about social media?
1. Where is social media taking us? Where will we be in 5 years? No one has a clue.
2. Which media tools will survive? Is Twitter a passing fad? Will the little bird be eaten by the big cat, Google? MySpace is already on the decline. What about Facebook? My hunch is that each of these tools will find the right niche. MySpace will survive for the very young. Twitter in some form will survive for instant message type communication world-wide.
3. How will social media affect advertising, public relations, marketing, and sales? My guess is that broadcast, intrusive advertising as we know it today, will not survive. For some products (not many) it will continue in some form. Social media adds a new component to the “marketing” mix. By doing so, traditional marketing efforts must adapt. Time will show us how and who will survive.
4. What’s next? We now have Web 2.0 which means an interactive Web. It’s much more engaging to read a blog in which you can comment than to read a static website. For that reason blogs have soared in popularity. What will Web 3.0 or 2.5 or whatever look like? I’m sure there are some guru’s out there who can share what they see in their crystal balls. But, for most of us it remains a mystery. The challenge is to be ready. Two things we can count on: we are on the cusp and there’s more to come.
Just my few cents!
Casey,
Given your interest in social media and collaborative working, you might want to check out the new BuddyPress social media “platform” ({ Link }
Essentially it takes a single installation of WordPress MU (stands for Multi User) and it turns it into your own private social media platform.
How cool would it be to give government employees within different teams their own internal social networks!?! It would take just a tiny fraction of one server running within the LAN with BuddyPress on it to give a team their own private communication platform.
Of course, you’d want to direct them not to put anything on there that was really private… but just imagine your own little internal “Twitter” for the GSA. It could really transform the way that people work together. And it could give you REAL insight into the social network within an organization ({ Link }
Cheers!
John P.
I understand the link between social media and self organization and how this can benefit efforts like political campaigns. Obviously, tools like Facebook make it easier for people to stay in touch and organize into networks. As a young professional, I think a lot of the benefit of Facebook and other tools, like Twitter, allow people to compare and contrast themselves to their peers. I’m interested in your thoughts on what role social media plays in federal agencies and how it can lead to increased productivity and effectiveness. I think collaboration is important within and across agencies and between the public and private sector, but I’m not sure how something like Facebook facilitates that.
I enjoy reading your blog…keep up the insightful writing!
Best,
Ryan