If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
So yesterday I purchased a patio set online. (Not during the working day OR using work computers, as that is not approved by company policy.) Rather unremarkable. Except for the fact that my purchase was promptly and automatically posted to my Facebook page. With my permission, I suppose. This is homage to the fact that many folks keep connected via social media. They share photos, events, activities and the minutia of their lives. As we social beings are wont to do. Instead of casual conversation around the water-cooler, people are staying connected in new and wider ways. No longer is proximity a requirement for intimacy. (Except, of course, for intimacy of a particular sort.) Now all my Facebook friends know I purchased a patio set (and more importantly FROM WHOM) and I didn’t even have to tell them myself.
How smart is Overstock.com to understand this way of communication and find a way that uses this social marketing tactic to market themselves? Very. As I said in my twitter comments… “my patio furniture purchase was posted to my Facebook page. Thank goodness I hadn’t purchased a vibrator.”
OK, I am at that awkward age… no right to be twittering or Facebooking. Old enough to remember marketing on a matchbook yet young enough to comment on marketing on my Facebook page.
So, do you like the patio set? Do you think I care?
If you were one of the lucky recipients of February issue of Brogan & Partners 60 Second Impact – a free monthly e-newsletter that takes :60 or less to read (money back guaranteed) – you saw the article titled A Great Example of Social Media: BigThink.com For Big Ideas. The article talked about a new social media site that offers visitors intellectual discussion on everything from faith and beliefs to science and technology. Here’s their overview video.
No Facebook or YouTube wannabe. According to BigThink, when you log in you get access to hundreds of hours of direct, unfiltered interviews with today’s leading thinkers, movers and shakers. Although still in beta testing – a quick browse of the site shows contributions from various subject matter “experts”, not to mention paid ad links from presidential hopefuls Hilary Clinton and Mike Huckabee. With about 60,000 visitors in January this online community seems to be steadily growing. If you’ve got BIG questions, BIG opinions, BIG concerns, BIG answers check out BigThink.com. And if you missed the BigThink article in our e-newsletter and don’t want to miss any other cutting edge ideas, products or helpful information sign up for the 60 Second Impact at Brogan.com.
According to Wikipedia, the lyrics from this 1979 hit by the Buggles express a desire to remember nostalgic radio through which many “stars” were created and a fear that children of current and past generations would not appreciate the medium due to the introduction of television music videos. Many people know it was the first video shown on MTV, but many do not know that it was also the millionth. Who would guess that almost 30 year after its release, stars would be created on a medium called the Internet. So, the question is: If video killed the radio star, and the Internet killed the TV star, any guesses as to who will kill the Internet star? One thing is for certain, this song and this video will go on forever. It never gets old.
Social networking is fascinating. Simply looking at the membership in the popular social networking sites is mind-boggling. 50 million visitors to MySpace? 80 million? 200 million? That many people doing the same thing? Without anyone really (perceivably) planning for it? For a control freak (like me) or at least someone who has spent their life planning and running businesses, this kind of force is daunting and humbling and fascinating.
But then I look at Friendster, the darling of the Internet in 2003, with 20 million visitors. But suddenly, and inexplicably, its visitors started dropping like flies. The popularity, and sudden unpopularity, of a site seems serendipitous. No surprise, when you consider that most social networking sites are driven by teens and young adults.
Even those who develop and deploy social network sites can be puzzled by their success. Piczo is a Canadian social networking site that burst on the scene with over 10 million visitors last year. Its founder, Jim Conning says “I didn’t wake up one day and say, ‘I’m going to start a Web site for teenage girls.”
There is no question that teens and young adults and more older adults are gathering on social media sites. We humans are busy as bees, creating our hives. And like our apian brethren, we sometimes inexplicably swarm and buzz off to a new hive. Fascinating.
So yesterday I purchased a patio set online. (Not during the working day OR using work computers, as that is not approved by company policy.) Rather unremarkable. Except for the fact that my purchase was promptly and automatically posted to my Facebook page. With my permission, I suppose. This is homage to the fact that many folks keep connected via social media. They share photos, events, activities and the minutia of their lives. As we social beings are wont to do. Instead of casual conversation around the water-cooler, people are staying connected in new and wider ways. No longer is proximity a requirement for intimacy. (Except, of course, for intimacy of a particular sort.) Now all my Facebook friends know I purchased a patio set (and more importantly FROM WHOM) and I didn’t even have to tell them myself.
