What Matters To You in the Online Social Space?

I talk to people everyday and nearly everyone of them have a different interest in Online Social Networking.  I find it interesting in how many are out to do one thing online and end up actually doing what they didn’t want to do.  Confused?  So am I.

Socializing Online

The question I always have to ask once someone explains to me the reason they are online I usually ask… How is that working for you?  

Most of the time what they say they are doing online turns out to be actually something different than what they think they are doing.

For instance.  Naturally when it gets around to people answering me the question everyone wants to know about me… What exactly is it you do? .. I will ask them if they use any of the online social networkers.  This usually begins a range of conversations from explaining what a social network is to discussing the merits..or lack of any..of being on Facebook.  This is when I tell them what I do is help people understand the reality of the internet as a whole.

In one particular conversation with a group of people I had in the group a person who does not like the internet, another person who feels it is filled with worthless people with no morale values, another person who is just getting started in social networking and another person who knows Mark Zuckenberg’s father and is only on Facebook.

It is quite common to have these varying interests of the internet.   These group discussions serve as an interesting testing ground for me to find out more on why people think the way they do about social networking and do what they are doing online.

Social Search

When I asked the person who did not use the internet if they had ever used the internet I found they actually had used it but did not understand it’s value for socializing.  They felt it unpersonable and not real.  This person was a dentist and saw no way of it benefiting them so they avoided using social spaces for anything.

Scams Take a Toll

Of course when I got to asking the person who felt the social spaces were filled with less desirable people I found it easy to sympathize with them.  In some of the spaces there are many more people, places and things on these sites who are only out to make the rest of the world as miserable as they are.  For a business person they don’t have the time to be messing with the trolls and pranksters who seem to enjoy making people who are in the spaces look foolish.  For this person they have a home based business and the internet was a place they needed to be but now have left the online social networks out of frustration.

Lost Online

Most people I run into are online and they find it a real benefit.  In this case I found the person who was just starting was following the advice of someone who was not as verse to what really is going on in the social space.  As is in most cases, many people out to do business online are told by others they need to live on Facebook and Twitter.  Back in the day these social platforms did have tremendous value and produced a moderate return on energy spent.

Now the environment has changed with these aging social networks who are now struggling to find a way to pay back their investors.  Naturally, when the social networks start to get gimmicky in their efforts to raise revenue the results are not as trustworthy.  This leads many people who are just getting started with social networking feel a little confused and usually will make big mistakes from taking advice from people who may know what Sales is about but nothing about how the internet really works today.

Maker of Koolaide for Dying Social Spaces

Naturally there is going to be one dude or dudette in every group who just can’t see why anything other than Facebook or Twitter is needed.  They usually always base their reason for using these aging big dogs of social networking on having millions of people in their database.  Of course, they don’t know what that means or that the database cannot be validated leaving the stats they offer all up to speculation.

They will usually boast of having thousands of Friends, Followers and Likes but never can tell anyone how many are actually still Friends, Followers or Likes.  They will attempt to base their argument on arguments others have stated in hopes it will deflect the conversation away from the fact that they really are not getting anything out of being on those social spaces other than a lot of wasted energy.

Even the Facebook Pages they have are active only due to there being fewer and fewer active Facebook pages for those who are still on Facebook to be active with.  Even Twitter Chat sessions many people taunt as the most product source of social media for them are so ladened with spam or comments from questionable sources it just is not worth a business person’s effort to get involved.

None of this is really what they want to be doing online.

So What Works

When I get into these conversations I will always take the stance that the quality of interaction in the social space is much more worth a person’s time than the quantity of interaction.  The social space offering a person the ability to express themselves while also being interactive personably with others, or being social, will be the space a business person needs to reside.

Even the thrill seeker social network mavens eventually will search the Google Search Engine for something they need to survive.  The social space that provides the greatest Search experience will also be the social space they will want to be to be social.

So if making connections that lead to sales is why you are online you have to provide content in the social spaces that matters to the consumer who would, or could, use the product or services the business offer.  For the social butterflies who are only online for the social aspects their experience would be greatly improved if they only socialized with other people who interact.  Social networking is for everyone, it just all boils down to what matters to you.

What really works for both business and personal is to be more social.  If a business presents itself as being more sociable to more people the more likely the possibility the consumers are going to come calling.  The more social a person is the more people will result in more people to come calling to also be social.

Bottomline: It’s All About Social.

Let me know how I can help.