No, I am not a scientist, and really this experiment started out very innocently. I wanted to find out what great books there were available (as a gift) about Social Media. What is it? Why do it? What results can you expect? Is it fun? SOOOO, I thought that certainly the best place to find out about Social Media might be through, well, Social Media – and in this case Twitter (and a quick try on LinkedIn). I know I could have used a search engine, but I wanted to hear from all of those people that I trust and respect. I was not prepared for the onslaught of silence that I received. AND I didn’t just send one tweet, I sent FIVE – yes 5 – I will repeat 5. See below:
- Can anyone suggest a great Social Media book that I can buy for someone for Christmas? Gotta be encouraging and easy to read!
- Still looking for info on good books on #SocialMedia. How it works, why do it and what to expect. Any help?
- Want to buy a good book on #SocialMedia. How it works, why do it and what to expect. Any suggestions?
- You know I find it interesting that I essentially tweeted the SAME Social Media info request 3 times and got 1 response. Why? worth a blog
- I am going to try this one more time. Looking for a book on #SocialMedia - how it works, why to use it, gauge its success. any suggestions?
Hard to understand? I even hashtagged it! I got a grand total of 2 responses. The first one came from HRmarketer.com, which also happens to be the company I work for. Congratulations team – you were watching the Twitter conversations just like we tell our clients to do.
Then on my last Tweet, @Herzwords contacted me with a great suggestion. I would have thought that if the companies who have solutions surrounding the confusing world of Social Media, would have been contacting me with suggestions of the books, ebooks, articles, white papers that they have. Not good.
Now like with any experiement, we review the process, and create a Hypothesis/conclusion.
- Well the very sad part is that all of my followers, really are not interested in helping me, or don’t have the information to help me. (I am hoping for the latter).
- There is so much “noise” on Twitter, that something like this is just a flash in front of everyone’s eyes. (hence the reason for hashtags?).
- Those Social Media experts out there DO NOT KNOW what they are doing.
- Those Social Media experts out there DO NOT PRACTICE what they preach. (to me a much worse offence).
- There aren’t any good Social Media books out there, except for the two that were suggested to me.
- Social Media is all a FARCE. It doesn’t work! It is a waste of time! It keeps many people busy doing a crap load of nothing!
- Insert your own conclusions here.
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5 comments:
Well, these are some provoking hypotheses/conclusions.
My guess would be there is too much noise on Twitter.
Suggestion for a book: The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott.
It makes you realise the impact of social media!
Your results are similar to mine whenever I've asked for any help or input on a topic. I have about 2,300 followers and my results have been similar. About 2 people respond each time I ask for specific help.
I will say that it does get difficult to pick out a few tweets from the twitter stream if you're not really paying attention. That is why the people you follow and those that follow you have become more important - not just the numbers. I have those I pay particular attention to and I do help them when I can.
My read - still early on the adoption curve although moving up with a bullet. More people are "on" twitter but not "leveraging" it to its potential.
For future reference (if it makes any difference) I did not find this via twitter (even though I follow you) - I found it in my RSS reader. So obviously I pay more attention to my feeds than my twitter stream.
But to answer your question:
Trust Agents by Brogan would be a good place to start if you're looking for a book on the big picture. It's not a primer on how to use the various tools but more on the value of it.
Or Crush It! - Vaynerchuch - his story of how he used social media to build a business. Easy read and he hits all the major reasons and tools.
So there you go. Maybe this only proves that social media ins't "a" tool - like twitter - but the interactions of tools?
Good luck and nice post.
A possible #7? Twitter streams can quickly fall into a rhythm. If you almost always post resources & news that don't invite comment/interaction, then suddenly tossed in a question, your followers may not have expected it. (I've been guilty of this myself.)
A few books you could look into: David Meerman Scott's got some good books. I haven't yet read Brian Solis' Engage but it's getting good press. Groundswell is strong. I rely more on online sources like John Cass, Matt Rhodes and Jeremiah Owyang - the social media landscape and 'best practices' change too frequently!
Don't lose faith Rita. Your tweeted post is already inviting social contributions. Perhaps like 3M you aimed to invent a super-strong glue and instead created Post-It notes!
Rita - what timing! Check out the first line of Brian Solis' post today: "Twitter is not a social network."
http://www.briansolis.com/2010/11/who-are-all-of-these-tweeple/
Wow - some great comments on my Blog and fabulous book suggestions. Thanks for your thoughts and for filling in your own #7.
Keep 'em coming. Rita
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