Monetizing Social Networks

in Social Networking

socialmoney.jpg How do we, as corporate communicators, assign value to social networks?

There’s a short fiction story in last week’s issue of the New Yorker titled, "Raj, Bohemian " by Hari Kunzru that is certainly worth a read. It’s about a hipster who discovers that all of the other hipsters with whom he associates are now shilling products to monetize their social networks.

Choice quote from when the main character realizes the nice guy from the party was actually taking pictures to promote his product:

“But what about Raj? He never asked us whether we wanted to be on his damn vodka Web site. And all that patter about how smooth it tasted!”

“It was smooth.”

“But to talk to people and secretly be trying to sell them something—isn’t that, I don’t know, unethical? Surely you agree that it’s completely out of order.”

“He didn’t ask us to buy anything. He gave us free drinks.”

“I know, but the point was to get us to buy something later on. That particular brand. We generate buzz. We recommend it to our friends, it becomes hip, blah-blah-blah.”

“He should have given me image approval. Look at my chin! I’m going to have words next time I see him.”

“For fuck’s sake, Thanh! He was just using us. He wanted to make us into—into early adopters.”

“But we are early adopters. I got a free phone a few months ago. All I had to do was watch a film and say how it made me feel.”

“Jesus, you really are a shallow bitch.”

Social capital is very important in the blogosphere, and not just to PR people. We want our clients to get interviewed by bloggers with large audiences (i.e. social networks), but those bloggers also want to know they are sharing valuable intformation with their audiences. They don’t want to share your corporate messaging.

When we join Twitter, we typically start by adding influencers (Robert Scoble , Jeremiah Owyang , Chris Brogan ) as "friends" before we actually search for the people who our part of our social networks because we expect that having their network see our company’s messages is more "valuable" than our own networks because of their size.

A good barometer as to what type of messaging we want to communicate via social media platforms is to consider whether this is a message you would feel comfortable sharing with your own social network. If it’s just regurgitated press releases or the like, it’s probably not going to add much value.

Remember, the "cool kids" have built their social networks not by promoting products, but by being authentic. If we try to transform them into corporate spokespeople, nobody wins.

Campaigns need to be created with new goals in mind, lke those that take into consideration the way information is shared.

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  • Steve-O

    I think what the New Yorker piece makes clear to me is that there is probably a relativity scale that envelops all “authenticity,” e.g. Genuine, Calculated and Ambush, are just three levels that come to mind. And that authenticity can be corrupted in ways that are sometimes perfectly innocent, but more often than not, calculated and intentional. The filter is the community at large. But as social media tactics become more pervassive, the degree of inauthencity will invariably rise in conjunction with a geometric increase in community members that are clueless about relative authenticity — or view all chatter with a jaundiced eye.

  • Steve-O

    I think what the New Yorker piece makes clear to me is that there is probably a relativity scale that envelops all “authenticity,” e.g. Genuine, Calculated and Ambush, are just three levels that come to mind. And that authenticity can be corrupted in ways that are sometimes perfectly innocent, but more often than not, calculated and intentional. The filter is the community at large. But as social media tactics become more pervassive, the degree of inauthencity will invariably rise in conjunction with a geometric increase in community members that are clueless about relative authenticity — or view all chatter with a jaundiced eye.

  • http://disruptology.com/ Aaron

    Thanks for the comment and good point. I wonder to what degree we as communicators contribute to this and – given that there probably are different levels of authenticity as you mention – how we need to take this in to account as we develop and build our own social networks. The goal is publicity of course, but how do we engage so that our message is received, shared and “authentic”?

  • http://disruptology.com Aaron

    Thanks for the comment and good point. I wonder to what degree we as communicators contribute to this and – given that there probably are different levels of authenticity as you mention – how we need to take this in to account as we develop and build our own social networks. The goal is publicity of course, but how do we engage so that our message is received, shared and “authentic”?

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