2011 kicks off with a post from Dave Briggs about the importance of personal/human relationships in social networks. Btw he writes a great blog about ‘technology, culture and the bits in between’.
When Marcie and I are talking to clients about how they can better use the social web – tools like Twitter, Facebook, blogging and so forth – one of the biggest hurdles we face is in convincing people that they have something worthwhile and valuable to say.
No matter whether we are talking with small business owners, communications professionals in large organisations or those involve in public sector projects, the fear of not having anything worthwhile to talk about seems to be a major blocking point.
‘After all,’ people say. ‘Nobody wants to hear about what I had for breakfast, or where I walked my dog at the weekend!’
The thing is, they probably do want to hear about just that.
The trick here is understanding the medium. Social media is not your company newsletter, or your newspaper advertising campaign. It’s closer to chats in the pub with your mates than traditional communications activity. With that in mind, it’s a different kind of message you’re trying to get across.
Social media and networking is above all about human beings and human relationships. It’s about building engagement with customers and prospective customers – and the way you do that is not by banging on and on about your company and what you do.
Think about it – if you’re at a party and all you talk about is work, it won’t be long before you’re left alone in the corner, examining the host’s CD collection.
Instead, the really successful users of tools like Twitter and Facebook build relationships with others online. These people tend to be just like popular people in real life: helpful, funny, generous and open.
So don’t be afraid to post what might seem at first to be trivial, or of limited interest. Much of the power of social media lies in serendipity - which probably drives people who like measuring stuff mad – and so by describing your dog walking route in one tweet might forge a link with a fellow dog walker who ends up being a vital business connection. It sounds vague and fluffy but it happens every single day.
This also has an impact on what persona you use to be active on the web.
It’s common sense to register your business name with all the popular social sites, for brand protection purposes, and by all means use this channel for publishing specific company related news or engaging around a specific topic. But remember, social networking is personal; folk are more inclined to become friends with people than companies.
So, to really maximise these tools, start tweeting or blogging in your own name, with your own photo on the account. Let people find the human being behind your organisation – what you’re interested in, what makes you tick, and yes, occasionally, what was in your sandwich this lunchtime.
I'm an avid communicator. Love writing, planning and co-ordinating projects and campaigns. Sometimes work solo but mostly team up with associates of 
do you not think that the people who are worried that they will say banal things about their own breakfast are reacting to seeing so much of this done on social networks that they found idiotic or boring?
I think the key message is that it is of interest to the people who are interested in them – and that your customers (and potential customers) are possibly more interested in your messages because you already have a hook…
and re the advice about using your own name to tweet – does that not apply to me (smileoftdecade) and you (socialPRBlog)
Patrick – people may well be worried that what they say is banal. But the truth is that we can no longer predict what people will find interesting and that an apparently trivial tweet at the right time can engage a large number of people in an instant.
Let me give you an example – the most effective tweet I have ever made, in terms of people replying to it, or forwarding it on to others, was one in which I expressed irritation at arriving at the wrong Travelodge in Edinburgh. I did it to vent frustration, in what turned out to be a very Alan Partridge style way. As a result I got talking to people I hadn’t heard from for a while and even met up with someone in Edinburgh later that day.
It’s a mixture that is needed at the end of the day. Endless trivia will turn folks off especially if they don’t know what you’re about. But as I said in the post, just banging on about work and business all the time is just as dull.
As for using real names, you can do as you please of course. SocialPRblog is a group blog and so using one name would be a little odd, though Marcie does use it for her own musings on occasion. And I’m @davebriggs on Twitter, so am walking my talk.
Best line EVER – “if you’re at a party and all you talk about is work, it won’t be long before you’re left alone in the corner, examining the host’s CD collection.”
All too often people tend to think that being “professional” means not being human. If the Gen Y’s have taught us anything about being online it is that genuiness is critical for online PR (and marketing) success if for no other reason that the BS filtering skills are much more tuned today.
[...] have I had? I’m allowed to ask this rhetorical question because, as Dave Briggs points out in this excellent post, it would be ludicrous for me to pretend that I am not a real person talking to other real people. [...]