The Bandwagon Effect and Other Social Media Behaviors

It's not a secret that there are many different communications styles. Sometimes I'm tempted to think that they are as many as the people on the planet. It's such a wonder that we connect at all. What gets us on the same page are usually the rituals within communities. We build communities with each other and within other entities - like social networks, blogs, forums, towns in real life, etc.

That's why as soon as a social network is launched and people join it, you see many attempts at defining how one is to behave in such a context. Up pop the posts on how you behave on Twitter, what you share on FriendFeed, what constitutes blogger relations and what is social media sponsored content, what success is - remind me, is it the number of comments to a post? The influence of the blogger? Whether he's famous already in life 1.0? - how brands (actually in sales they call them logos) need to thread and so on.

Organizations are systems, too where people and materials (more and more, those are ideas today) combine to deliver outcomes. There are informal networks that underpin the social fabric of companies and that allow people to really get the stuff that matters done.

Yes, hierarchies are still there, but their power is on the way out. Soft power is in. Experience matters - as in the experience of you. The best results are cultivated through collaboration, not boxes on an org. chart, as important as those are to the order of things.

How you communicate is an indication of how you relate

Imitation is part of the human fabric - we are social animals, we like to socialize things. As soon as we join a new company, club, social network, community, anything, we look around to figure out who else is there, what they want/are about, and who follows whom.

However, there are different stages we socialize from, depending upon how we relate to others. There is also a whole conversation around authority, influence, and popularity that I will not attempt here. I have not read Malcolm Gladwell's latest book, yet, so I won't try to retrace his arguments on culture and circumstances, either.

How we relate goes to what is important to us and in which stacking order. It depends on our values, our stage in life, our attitude, and our awareness. So if I asked you, as I did last night on Twitter:

What do you dislike most about social media?

What you'd say would depend on your frame of reference - how you see the world, the type of project you're working on, personal curiosity, and belief system. Let's take a look at what other people said:

 

When we dug deeper and continued the conversation, Miles Austin said that for him it's a question of how much time there is in a day and what needs his attention. You can see there that The Somers Team also asked me a question. My answer was: I don't like posers, people who cannot find their own brand, and feel the need to 'try' and copy someone else's.

This is why conversation is so important and effective - we discover frames of reference, opinions that build on ours, common ground from which to explore more. Just as importantly, we discover that by virtue of being in the same space, we develop similarities in how we behave and what we accept as unspoken rules. Remember that we all aired the opinions in public and I would guess that was not the first time any of us had given thought to the question or verbalized the response.

Can this kind of insight help public relations? Could it be good food for thought for marketing? There are discoveries in there that we could learn from to execute both better. For all the talk about individual preferences and choices, we are still very much social in our behavior. Yet, the way we stand out - as people and as brands - is by being different. How do the two reconcile?

What do you think? Bandwagon or unique and different? Both?

[image courtesy of Eirik Solheim]

Comments

[Corey Rozon]

"Can this kind of insight help public relations? Could it be good food for thought for marketing?"

Definitely, for the companies, brands, what have you, that are taking a stab at this social media thing as an outlet to connect with their consumers, it sure can help. By taking just those few 'posts' from above you can almost start a 'How To' thing for companies.

- don't spam your followers with links to you blog, site, etc. or send DM spam
- actually engage your followers in conversation, 90% listening (reading/responding) and 10% talking (posting/broadcasting)

I'd like to see the opposite side of the coin. How many responses do you think you would get if you ventured in the positive - 'What do you like most about social media?'

I’ll take amabaie’s lead from above; you can follow me at http://twitter.com/Crozon

[David Leonhardt]

I think from this, we have confirmation of what I have been saying all along, that there really are no "rules" to how to behave on social media, any more than there are "rules" on how to behave at the water cooler, at a trade show reception or any other social function. There are guidelines about courtesy, respect and appropriateness, but those are organic and have to do with the expectations of others. Even on Twitter, where one draws the line on certain activities depends on who you are and who your follower circle is composed of.

I am http://www.twitter.com/amabaie on Twitter.

[Joe Mescher]

I see it.

Taking something from others and making it your own is a part of the American Way (along with truth and honesty).

I've seen a lot of contests on Twitter so I decided to create one for Valentine's Day (free chocolate).

My rationale is that I get to provide something of value to the Twitter community while simultaneously gaining access to a larger communication network.

Plus I love chocolate.

http://tinyurl.com/7o7rk3