Where do you fall on the social media spectrum?

[Andy Hamilton]

I have been asked "Where do you fall on the social media spectrum?", by a potential employer. The job will be writing blogs. I am not really sure how to answer that question. Anyone else know? And where do you think you fall on the social media spectrum, in indeed you know what it is?

[lazyspice]

I don't really understand the question - it's a bit vague, isn't it?

[Graye]

Social Media is apparently the blanket name for the likes of Facebook, Bebo, Flickr and so on. So I can only guess they want to know if you use these, how important you see them and so on. Not sure tho!

Personally only I use Facebook to keep in touch with a few friends and my daughter in Savannah, Georgia. I've got my entry so tied up with security that even I have trouble finding myself sometimes! So, on the overall social media spectrum I imagine I'm crawling along at ankle height!

[invisiblepiper]

Also a facebooker - Twitter is the latest thing - but sounds inane and time consuming - I don't actually want to know what a Radio ! DJ has for breakfast!
There's MSN - which is a bit teenage as is Bebo.
My Space seems to have international appeal.
Hope that is helpful - info gleaned from three teens - twenties.

[oldfella]

[quote="Andy Hamilton"]I have been asked "Where do you fall on the social media spectrum?",



On my Arse cos I don't even understand the question

[Shirley]

Interesting phrase - I'd say you were quite well up there as you've got lots of people interested in what you do - whether via the forum/twitter/myspace/flickr/facebook(do you have this?)

[Stonehead]

Wearing my yokel hat: "Ooh arr, I just talks to people."

Wearing my trendy media pundit hat:

The social media spectrum moves from:

Passive interest-->Active interest-->Sharing-->Public dialogue-->Private dialogue-->Advocating-->Investing-->Envisioning


Passive interest: the old-fashioned media audience. In online terms, they are the people who follow someone's online presence, read their blog, follow their forum posts, track them with twitter, etc. They do nothing further. They are passive.

Active interest: audiences that respond to content but don't initiate anything themselves—again, in old-fashioned terms the people who write to newspapers. They leave comments on blogs, reply on twitter, post replies on the wall in facebook, but don't originate anything.

Sharing: this is the preserve of the aggregators. They have blogs, they use facebook actively, they tweet, they post "have you seen this..." on forums, but they only or mainly pass on links to other people's content.

Public dialogue: this is made up of the forum, chatroom and blog comment regulars, they tweet, they share on facbook. What makes these people stand out is that they are not afraid to take things further, to start new conversations. They're still reacting to events and other commentators, but they move things into new directions.

Private dialogue: this is when people take it out of the public domain because they've built trust with other commentators. They're using PMs, email, IMs etc to engage directly with each other. Trust is key here as you're relying on people not to publicise what you've said.

Advocating: this is when people use all their social media tools to promote particular commentators or viewpoints. They're saying "look at this commentator, trust them because you trust me".

Investing: this is when people buy into the commentator's social world view to the extent that they share their ideals and ideas, defend their arguments, and embrace their successes as theirs.

Envisioning: this is when people come up with new concepts and ideas, reshape old ones, or adopt a new take on the world. These are the people who take themselves out on a limb and use social media tools to shout "hey, look at this".

There is also overlap between the areas of the spectrum.

Blogs/Forums/twitter/myspace/flickr/facebook etc are simply tools that facilitate access to the different parts of the spectrum, with some being specific to one part of the spectrum while others allowing wider access.

Hope that helps. I want to get back out in the sunshine again!

EDITED to add envisioning. I was in too much of a hurry and didn't realise I'd left Andy's area of the spectrum out!

[Andy Hamilton]

Hope that helps. I want to get back out in the sunshine again!

Perfect! and thanks very much for giving up a bit of your sun.

[Millymollymandy]

Brilliant! Thank you Stoney and written in such a way that us techno numpties who don't use any of those facebookytwittery things can understand!

[invisiblepiper]

Impressed - thought I was doin' well knowing the names of the things.
Oooh - can't wait to hit the smug teens with this info!
Thankyou Stonehead!

[Stonehead]

Nae bother. It was based on work I did at the BBC, Virgin Cars and Barkers Norman Broadbent. The tools have changed/improved/been developed but the basic concepts remain the same.

[snapdragon]

woooo trust Stoney to come up with the goods again

I was entirely lost