It’s been an incredible week for stats, demographics, and authority trends related to Social Media this week.
The Social Web is our Industrial Revolution and our Renaissance period. It is at the very least completely transforming how we communicate with each other and how we also discover and share content.
Twitter, Facebook News Feeds, FriendFeed and other micro communities that define the Statusphere, are captivating and distracting our focus. But, while many argue that it’s decreasing productivity, I say it’s arousing a more active, engaging, and enlightened community of media literate information socialites.
While Twitter is stealing the spotlight with somewhere between 4-6 million passionate users and Facebook is taking over the networked world with 175 million nodes on the social graph, one thing is crystal clear, the statusphere is strengthened by the updates that inspire action, not those that reinforce the ME in Social Media – a.k.a. the narcisystem (coined by Chris Pirillo).
It’s in the way that you use it.
It’s the art of curation. Producing and posting updates that people find invigorating, insightful, entertaining, and enriching is how you build a meaningful foundation for which people to follow, admire, and trust you. You are a beacon for all that moves you.
Remember, the secret to attracting comments, likes or stimulating retweets is not governed by a formula, but instead by the intent and nature of sharing something worthy of response.
Jay Rosen calls this mindcasting. I would also add that this is key to community building.
It’s micro curation with macro education and collaboration served in Twitter time. It serves as a strong catalyst for valuable relationships in our personal and professional lives.
We’re living history as we not only document the transformation of media, but how information finds us.
We’re engaged at the point and place of introduction and bound by context and time. Striking content sparks curiosity and dictates our next move and subsequently the next moves and reactions of friends and friends of friends (FoFs). Some of us are smarter and humbled because of what we learn.
Hitwise released some very interesting information that reveals the emerging trends, activity, and true impact of injecting useful, interesting, and thought provoking updates into the micro social timeline.
The following numbers and charts surface the activity of where people go from Twitter.com. Note, that Twitter is one of the most dominant forces in referring traffic to blog posts, social profiles, news articles, and pictures and video on the Web.
The numbers indicate that Twitter is much more than a timeline for sharing and responding to useless or self-promotional content. Based on my own research using Bit.ly and Poprl, my numbers also corroborate the notion that Twitter can be a highly valuable source of personal and professional growth and a petri dish for growing invaluable relationships dictated solely by whom you follow.
Notice how Twitter users flock to interesting content wherever it’s hosted.
If you buy into the curation methodology, Twitter and other Statusphere networks represent the CPR and a new opportunity for the media industry disparately needs to engage a more discerning and constantly shifting audience.
As Steve Rubel so correctly observes, Twitter Search is poised to replace Google Blogsearch. His observation, HitWise numbers and an astute command of the obvious only reinforce the reality that The Blogosphere is Losing Authority to the Statusphere. Also Danny Sullivan documents how we search with the Twitter Search Engine.
Blogs will retain prominent influence as an online library of intellectual capital and social networks will also host compelling and relevant media assets and personalities. The Statusphere will serve as the bridge that connects people to content and the people behind the content, building relationships rooted context, interests, and passion.
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Great post.
“It’s in the way that you use it.”
That too me is the # 1 most important point about social media.
Like everything else, any time there’s a low barrier to entry everyone comes in and not everyone has something worth paying attention to.
But just because there’s people out there telling you on twitter where they’re going to eat lunch or “I’m going to sleep now” doesn’t mean that’s what everyone in social media does.
It’s also a place to get unparalleled access to the thoughts, interests and links of people and groups of people that you never could access previously and you can interact with them (or some of them). Being able to chose who you follow and filter the streams with keywords and groups makes the difference.
The downside is people with ADHD can find these social networks to be great distraction magnets too, amplifying the condition, spending hour’s going off on endless rabbit holes losing hours of productive time.
But, that being said, I think if you’re heavily into social media, having ADHD can be a competitive edge. Not having ADHD might be a disadvantage in social media.
ADDers have higher levels of curiosity and energy, greater multitasking and scanning abilities, the ability to process quickly large quantities of information (IF they’re interested in it) and when they’re interested in something, the ability to hyperfocus like a laser to take better advantage of these opportunities in social media and chances to learn and share.
ADHD is not really a deficit of attention it’s a surplus of it. We notice everything, well, except for paperwork:)
It all comes down to how you use it and how you manage yourself around it.
You might want to read this article I did a while back. Top 10 Advantages of ADD in a High Tech Career
http://adultaddstrengths.com/2006/02/09/top-10-advantages-of-add-in-a-high-tech-career/
For most of recorded time community has been build off line, it’s going to take a while to get more people open to the idea of also doing it online.
Hola Brian Solis!
Interesting points executed in fine rhetoric.
But to call social media the next industrial revolution? It might a little too much, don’t you think?
And how does the statusphere benefit the every day Joe Sch2.0e?
I have written a lonely, sad post to your phenomenon. Please check it out and remember imitation is a form of flattery!
Smashing post again Brian, and thanks for some great links.
I’d love to see myself as a ‘media literate information socialite’, but sometimes I just feel like an aimless procrastinator on Twitter. It’s so rich with information and opinions – and I’m a massive knowledge junkie – that I often find myself getting sucked into oblivion, and not focusing on the important tasks.
Working on it though!
I’ve written a post reviewing some of the recent banter in the Blogosphere and Statusphere about Twitter search, and some interesting stuff that’s going on. If you get chance to take a look, you can find it at http://www.gloryinvirtue.com
Interesting post for sure, and some really interesting data points, but as you can see, I take issue with the basis for asserting that “social networks are more popular than email” http://blog.zetainteractive.com/?p=249
It’s the same old apples to oranges comparison. They’re two completely different channels with different means by which you would measure popularity/utility.
Great, great post. And it was great to meet you in person at SXSW. AND I have a potential project through work that I will contact you about separately.
Best,
Aimee
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You bought up some impressive points here.
Have you ever thought about writing an e-book or guest authoring on other websites? I have a blog centered on the same ideas you discuss and would really like to have you share some stories/information. I know my viewers would appreciate your work. If you are even remotely interested, feel free to send me an email.
I’m curious to find out what blog system you happen to be utilizing I’m having some small security problems with my latest blog and I’d like to find something more safe. Do you have any solutions