Time to get over the fear of social media

26 January 2010

Sheridan Bruce

There’s been a quiet revolution going on, but it has been breathtakingly rapid. Social media is the term used to describe what most people understand to be about websites such as Twitter, Facebook, Bebo and the like.

But the world seems to be divided between the hoards who are leaping aboard and those who are reluctant to enter.

A simple explanation for those who are reluctant to participate is likely to be that it involves some initial effort to engage with a new use of technology. But fear of the unknown is also equally plausible.

As a communications professional, social media is a revelation to me. We’ve all lived most of our lives dominated by communications emanating from large businesses and organisations where the messages run largely in only one direction – traditional mass media. Now anyone can have their say to many, or just one-to-one.

If you’re still in the ‘doubter’ category, here’s a useful way to view the new world of social media. Think of it as having conversations that are more highly enabled than might be possible through simply talking on the phone, in emails or meeting someone on the street. Yet social media takes what’s good from the everyday world we all experience, and makes it better, faster and… free.

I recall from my childhood the local shopkeeper who always made a point of socially chatting to all his customers. Of course this built good relationships, but the conversations also gave him good insights into the needs of his customers and helped him constantly improve his business by offering more of what was wanted.

Twitter, for example, offers the opportunity for people to have quick and short discussions with contacts. Its big advantage is the ability it gives people, businesses and organisations to ‘listen’ and learn what’s happening. Then, just like the shopkeeper, it gives the chance to respond. Did you know that Twitter actually offers a way to automate status updates and the people you follow?

I have no doubt that this article will seem quaint in only a few years time – maybe only a few months. I can imagine that the invention of the telephone was met with similar suspicions and reluctance to engage. And we have no idea where the social media revolution will take us, but I’m sure that it’s not back to when we lived in little villages and occasionally communicated by drum and smoke signal.

Sheridan Bruce is a principal of Issues.co.nz

sheridan.bruce@issues.co.nz