Brian Solis: Social media from the social science perspective

One of the key parts of social media that we often forget about is the social part, but beyond that we also forget the key parts of observing a community and how to learn from it.  Brian Solis penned a post today that is right up my alley, talking about the sociology and ethnographic portions of what PR and marketers need to understand to “get” social media.

Why up my alley?  Because I have a degree in Anthropology and have been a student of it for 20 years now.

Brian’s post is deep and takes a couple reads to dig into.  I wanted to find that essential bit from his post that makes it all come together.  Besides “Social Media is About Sociology and not Technology”, which is the title of another of his posts (which I still need to read), I found these bits:

Social Media Marketing requires observation, which will dictate your engagement strategies. It starts with combination of using Social and Traditional tools to discover, listen, learn, and engage directly with customers to help, not market, but indeed help them make decisions and also do things that they couldn’t, or didn’t know how to do, before. And, most importantly, the lessons learned in the field should in turn be fed into the marketing department to create and run more intelligent, experienced, and real world initiatives across all forms of marketing, PR, sales, and advertising.

[snip]

Conversations are feeding communities and communities are markets for relationships. Relationships are the new currency in Social Media, and as we all know, relationships need cultivation and value from both sides in order to grow into something of value.

In this world, engagement is a privilege. Trust and loyalty are the rewards.

Source: PR 2.0

The essential part, the thesis, of this post is the effect of observation on the observed and vice versa.  As people embedded and enmeshed in social media we aren’t unbiased.  It doesn’t mean that we can’t comment on it, nor does it mean that our observations are any less important, it just means that as insiders we don’t see what others see.

When I talk about what I do with people not in it, wow a very different perspective.  What we see as important, they don’t.  What they find amazing, I’m often thinking, hmm why don’t I see that.

Interestingly enough, I am getting a lot of “I hate/am sick of Facebook” … which mirrors what I’m reading in social media circles, as a collective yawn about Facebook.

Regardless, what we’re seeing online now is no different than what has been going on for centuries of human existence. We form groups (tribes), cultures, and societies.  The only difference now is that the aspect of distance is being taken out of the equation.