Andrea Rotondi's Blog - Latest Comments

Re: The Importance of Branding in Social Media and Conversational Marketing

buy marketing lists — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:05:36 -0000

Social media had really a big help in the field of marketing.. Using the popular social media like Twitter and YouTube, it easy to market your business in public.

Re: The role of ego as a driver in social media

Andrea Nicole — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:40:08 -0000

Many thanks for your comments. I agree with @joannespain that there are many drivers that influence a person's social media activities or participation in social media at all. For example, someone may join a support forum because he needs help from a community and/or wishes to help others. Community members often become unpaid moderators because they wish to give back to a community that has been there for them. A person may join a brand's community because she feels so passionate about a product or service that she wants to become involved beyond her role as a customer.

I think it is important to remember the self-esteem component of ego. Beyond just self-promotion, being connected makes people feel good about themselves. I always feel happier when I am engaged in stimulating conversations with others and enjoy making a contribution. I gain pleasure from the act of collaborating with others and helping someone out with information. While I agree that an over-inflated ego can be dangerous in the realm of social media (and, to Steve's point, unsustainable), I don't think one's ego has to be necessarily negative.

Perhaps this one needs a follow-up post on the role of the super-ego in SM? :)

Re: The role of ego as a driver in social media

stevehopkins — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:04:20 -0000

I love that I'm commenting below both Keith and Jo :) Feels like a friendly catch up in here rather than a blog comment!

And I think therein lies one big key of Social Media (as we continue to term it). Media is social too, it was just never trackable. We ALL used to talk about the news on the front page and the gossip section. Nowadays, we use it to remain in the loop on different types of news - be it of our friends, our followers or our nation.

And I think that is the real big value of 'social' media. It allows us to join together and build consensus and community quickly. It echos ego, and requires a healthy dose of it to be useful (as Keith made mention of). But it is much more than that and requires much more sacrifice of the self to be useful than a pure egomaniac would allow.

Catch you kids in the play ground!

Re: The role of ego as a driver in social media

Keith Don — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:45:26 -0000

Ego is definitely a big part of social media - just like it is a part of social 'anything' and a factor in most relationships between people.

Social media helps respond to ego in many ways including:
- I'm successful and smart but ppl don't know it so I'll tell them (or let them find out themselves by the quality of my posts)
- I'm not successful in (insert field/subject/life) but I can still be popular/cool/famous as measured by a metric of some sort (i.e. followers)

As @joannespain says their are other drivers, however if ego wasn't a factor its likely people wouldn't be on social networks (or they at least would have protected their updates.)

There are some exceptions of course and the more closed the network the greater the number of other drivers but ego is usually present to some degree.

Re: The role of ego as a driver in social media

joannespain — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:30:12 -0000

This is an interesting post. I think ego is one driver for people who use social media. What about the other drivers?
I would suggest that efficiency is quite a big one and what about access to a highly tailored information source? (I would generally rather read my twitter stream and the blogs I follow rather than newspapers).
I am sure there are many others.
People are driven by multiple things, some drivers are more outstanding than others, but the outstanding drivers are different according to the individual.
What are your thoughts?

Re: A tale of two communities: The first 20 days

Angela Connor — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:19:01 -0000

It was crucial for you to do exactly what you did, in letting them know that you were there for them as a resource. I cannot even imagine walking into an unmanned community. I can understand my own mess, you know...but someone else's? The fact that you have moderators who care is huge. I am rooting for you and I am totally intrigued by what's to come. I think we will see much more of this in 2010.