Social Media Food Chain

The Social Media Food Chain

Kevin Lawver | Refresh SavannahMay 19, 2009

http://uplaya.com

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

http://uplaya.com

http://uplaya.com

The Intro Slide

• Hi, I’m Kevin Lawver: giant nerd

• I’ve built social sites big (26 million) and small (15k), some of them even won an award or two

• I’ve been building web stuff for over a decade, speaking about best practices in building it for six.


Socialadjective: Pertaining to, devoted to, or characterized by

friendly companionship or relations


Mediathe means of communication, as radio and television, newspapers, and magazines, that reach or influence people widely


All Media is Social


The web just makes it easier to share our

social objects and gather feedback.


Social Objects

• Every social network contains primary “social objects”: the thing that powers socialization (drives comments, ratings, links, etc)

• Every social object is created by an Author and used or acted on by Users

• We’ll talk more about these later, but they are the plankton of the food chain.


Types of Social Networks


Meat Markets

• They rely on their ability to represent human relationships

• They’re all about getting your data and presenting it back to you

• They sometimes have a hard time giving you anything to do once they have all your data.

• Examples: Facebook, MySpace


Meat Market’s Primary Social Object?


You!


Aspirational

• They’re built around art of some kind

• Powered by Authors creating more of whatever the prized social object is.

• The best inspire people to refine their craft and participation fuels a virtuous circle of activity

• Example: Flickr


But what’s this ‘food chain’ thing?


The Social Media Food Chain

• Platforms and their Creators

• Authors

• Users

• Symbiotes

• Archipelagos

• Parasites and Predators


Platforms & Creators

• Social Platforms invite participation and dialogue

• There are as many different types as their are types of people, but they almost all fall into Meat Markets or Aspirational


Platforms & Creators

• Platforms influence how people interact with each other

• We usually have no idea how people will use the platform

• The best respond and build features that support how the community uses it, they don’t force users to change behavior


Authors

• In Aspirational Communities, they provide the objects for curation. In Meat Markets, they are the most talked about, most engaged users.

• They are the most vocal when things go wrong.

• You have to cater to them or you have nothing to build around!


Users

• They may not take the pictures, but they post the comments, tags and traffic that support the site.

• They’re your secondary audience - you have to make it easy for them to begin to participate.

• Ease them from passive participation to active.


Symbiotes

• They add value to the platform by extending its capabilities

• They provide services on top of the basic service - making the platform better without changing it.

• Examples: Tweetie, Flickr Export, TweetDeck


Archipelagos

• Outposts for otherwise non-social entities.

• They may not be social by themselves, but may serve as aggregators or the voice of a single entity meant to guide the discussion in the social media world.

• Example: Blogs, Facebook Pages, LinkedIn Groups, Tumblr


Parasites & Predators

• They add no value to the platform, authors or users, just add noise and confusion

• Usually just looking to broadcast, not join in the conversation

• Come in without understanding the community culture or norms

• They usually end up talking to themselves, selling nothing to no one.


This is a lot of fancy talk, Mr. Food Chain


But where do I fit in?


Well, let’s look at where you can start if you’re not here yet.


First, you need to decide where home is.


What’s Home?

• A place where you’re comfortable

• Where you can talk freely about your passions

• Where you can make the most difference


Start Small

• Get a blog.

• Write about what you know.

• Build karma by giving freely of something that’s of value: advice, art, knowledge


Benefits of Blogging

• It’s yours, so you get to decide on the voice, culture and content

• There are no pre-defined rules

• It’s a good way to dip your toes in and slowly build an audience

• You can always augment it with other social pieces later


Twitter: The Web’s Dinner Party

• Join as a human being with a face, not a thing with a logo

• Follow people you know or want to know

• Don’t just broadcast. Think of twitter as a dinner party: encourage interesting conversation

• Don’t be too noisy


Facebook

• The meat market to end all meat markets

• Join, find groups that interest you

• Lurk for a while and figure out the culture before diving in

• Start a Facebook Page for your product and encourage feedback and conversation

• http://www.facebook.com/advertising


http://www.facebook.com/advertising

http://www.facebook.com/advertising

General Rules

• Be human

• Participate, don’t preach. People have highly developed BS detectors

• If you wouldn’t say it with your mom in the room, don’t say it online - it will come back to bite you

• Have fun!


Read More!

• The Whuffie Factor by Tara Hunt

• Here Comes Everybody! by Clay Shirky

• The Cluetrain Manifesto by a bunch of people (also at http://cluetrain.com/book)

• Creating Passionate Users: http://headrush.typepad.com/


http://cluetrain.com/book

http://cluetrain.com/book

http://headrush.typepad.com




Questions?

• I covered a lot very quickly

• Any questions about:

• social objects?

• virtuous circle?

• anything else?

• This could just be the beginning of the discussion


Date post:	17-Oct-2014
Category:	Technology
View:	2,459 times
Download:	1 times

Social Media Food Chain

Technology