Comments on: Are social networks just pretty snowflakes?

By: Social Media – Is Social Not Working? « thewordmonger's blog

Social Media – Is Social Not Working? « thewordmonger's blog — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:21:30 +0000

[...] Social Media, social media experts, social media marketing, social media policy, Twitter) Here’s an interesting post – as far as I can see, what it’s actually saying is that a good [...]

By: Mat Morrison

Mat Morrison — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:39:34 +0000

Yes. One of my favourite concerns is that – with so much data – it’s relatively easy to set your objectives by what you want to measure, rather than the other way around.

By: richardstacy

richardstacy — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:08:43 +0000

Thanks for the comment – will look at the posts / articles you mentioned. I am only half-convinced that my semi idea that social media isn’t really about networks actually stands-up! It is just a feeling that we may becoming overly focused on the tremedous data analysis opportunity it presents and in the process missing something more simple – touched on here http://richardstacy.com/2009/03/06/social-media-measurement-are-we-staring-at-the-stones/

By: Mat Morrison

Mat Morrison — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:52:19 +0000

Pleased that what you took away from my presentation was a healthy dose of scepticism re: identifying "influencers". You've only to read some of Duncan Watts's papers (I recommend the one on Big Seed Marketing) to realise that the way we've worked in the past ("influencer marketing") is increasingly collapsing under the pressure of social media. I'd argue that it hasn't totally gone away -- but simply overlaying an old-world model on a new-world phenomenon probably isn't going to solve the problem. There are (very roughly speaking) two things that we need to look at when we are investigating how things spread: the network or substrate in which they spread, and the content that is being spread. There's a good deal of research into the latter part (although I've rather focussed in the past on the former, I still maintain a keen interest here.) The "London Twitter Festival Ends in Chaos as Crowd Clashes With Facebook Enthusiasts" works for a variety of reasons (some of which are explored in a post by my colleague, Chris Nee. But there were plenty of "interesting posts" written that day that didn't make it.