Social networking - the getting of wisdom*

Published : 01 May 2010

Our Associates serve three communities – Government, Associations and Publishers: all natural community mediators of a traditional kind.  And in all three there are strong and lasting indicators that social networking and all that it implies for the marketing and communications process is entering its early adolescence and leaving its childhood behind.

Government now (on all sides of the political fence) is embracing a transformation of the relationship between itself and the Citizen by empowering the latter to discover, comment and contribute. Hansard is no longer the sole (and difficult to navigate) record of an MP’s voting record. They Work for You is a more powerful, citizen generated tool which combines both data from several official sources plus self generated comments, with tools (such as very basic sentiment profiling – “Voted strongly against....” etc). It informs and enriches our understanding of politics far better than Government or Parliament can do themselves. It and the hundreds of other examples are The Power of Information writ large, strong testimony to a growing model of web enabled engagement characteristic of every community we know. Government as Enabler, rather than Deliverer.

Our Associate i-Publishing Consultants has recently published Professional Networking: Perspectives from the Field which details most interestingly developments in the Third Sector – professional associations of dentists, doctors, ophthalmologists - all developing new ways of ‘listening’ to their memberships and feeling their way to a new form of empowered membership relationship. Sharing across boundaries may be easier for Associations than for nakedly commercial enterprises. But embarking upon these pathways is not easy for committee led structures, deeply conservative cultures and, often, financially challenged organisations. Yet innovation here is quietly taking place – as the i-Publishing case studies illustrate. 

Commercial organisations are well aware of the impact of social networking approaches but unlike their Government or Association counterparts, their ROI pressures are more immediate.  Exceptions abound – though often where private or Association ownership and market strengths can encourage experimentation: Nature’s Connotea and BMJ’s Doc2Doc being such examples. Or where experimentation and experience has been hard won in start up and venture capital mode – Magicalia’s series of hobbyist community sites such as Runner's World etc.  But where publishers have brands and a market in market segments which they are determined to keep, then there is no shortage of both experimentation and of successful transformation. The emergence of a scale learning objects repository out of the old ink stained staffroom stalwart, the Times Educational Supplement, in the form of TES Connect is testimony to that. As is Farmers Weekly where traditional B2B virtues of knowing the community and learning about its needs and behaviour have been applied to transform its offering. Farmers – like Sermo’s physicians in the USA are remote from each other, non competitive locally and willing to share information about their professional needs. They are also human beings and wish to date! – age old aspirations given renewed vigour by the web.

There is more than just experimentation going on in all three of our market areas. There is an emerging longevity of experience, a willingness to execute and do before you can prove, that is leading to real strengthening of citizen, membership and/or customer loyalties. Social networking approaches are coming of age just as the printed medium in certain sectors is irreversibly in decline.

And from the knowledge we are gathering, new products and services will certainly flow - indeed they already are.

*Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Proverbs, IV, 7.