Understanding Social Media: Does Mom Get It?
One of the simplest ways to help clients during media training is to tell them to explain their technology in terms even their mom could understand.
The problem with how many of us discuss social media is that we focus on the tools, not on the overall goal. During a conversation with a colleague the other day, I pointed out how every company has a community of customers, partners, executives, employees, investors, friends, etc. and the key to social networking is first looking into that community and then figuring out how to use it. Tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs and even Google are just methods for doing that.
Too often I'm asked "how does Facebook fit into this campaign." It's the wrong question. The question is, how can we use your existing network to start the social outreach?
During a conversation with my 60-something mother last night I brought up Facebook, then paused and said "do you even know what Facebook is?"
"Yes," she said. "I have an account."
Yes, my mother has an account on the same service as my 15-year-old cousin. Why? Because her local Hadassah chapter uses it as a communications tool, so she got on board.
Mom gets it.
Tags: communciations, facebook, social media, social networking, Web 2.0
Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on January 18, 2008 at 8:59 AM
