While in Seattle for Gnomedex, we all expect to be talking about geeky things, blogging, sending a crapload of tweets on Twitter, etc. One thing you don’t expect to do is send a Cambodian girl to college. A girl who would not have been able to do so were it for not those of us in that conference room. We raised about $3,700 for this woman using nothing but the power of social media (mainly Twitter), and we did so in less than 90 minutes.

Continued

Remember the days when the the Internet was new and when we were all spellbound at the idea of having our own desktop computer? Learning the workings of the computer was of prime importance. You had this piece of powerful equipment on your desk and you wanted to explore all the possibilities it presented.

Fast forward to today. Things have most certainly changed. My question is: has everybody realized that it has indeed changed?

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Twitter has been the subject of a LOT of tech talk. It results in three different camps of people: (1) people who get it and participate, (2) people who tried it and found it stupid, (3) people who don’t even try it.

In our recent reader survey here at PCMech, we had some interesting results…

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Talking about using social media for business purposes practically walks on the third rail of the Internet. A lot of people who are using social media sites like Twitter or Facebook are particularly sensitive when it appears they are being marketed to.

In my opinion, the fact that Twitter users get nervous when they see a “internet marketer” use Twitter is testament to the fact that many use it incorrectly. Twitter and any other social media platform is inherently a community. And that community is made up of real people.

And just like when people get annoyed when you walk up and knock on the door to sell you something during dinner time, people are going to resent you if you start marketing to them in their social settings online.

This is not to say that, as a business person, that you should steer clear of using such sites. Absolutely not. These sites are used by a LOT of people. And with a large group of people, it is inevitable that some of your potential clientele are using these social media sites.

The trick (if you want to call it that) is to treat people with respect. You need to actually participate as a person first, and a business second. You need to be a part of the community. Offer things of value. You might even just “shoot the crap” with people about things which have absolutely nothing to do with your business. If you build a reputation on these sites as a PERSON and not as a business, then when you send in the random plug every now and then for your business, people won’t really mind it.

These sites are called social media, and you need to place emphasis on the SOCIAL part of it.

If you find the social part of these sites to be a waste of your time, then do yourself a favor and don’t even start using these sites to begin with. You will do your business more harm than good by joining a site like Twitter for the purposes of building up a big follow list and then spamming them with your links.

If you’re going to set up shop online and try to market anything, you are most definitely going to need an online identity. In fact, even if you don’t plan to use the Internet to make any money, you might want to set up an online identity.

But, what do I mean when I say “online identity”? Essentially, I mean an easily identified brand on the Internet. A brand which is consistent. Get in the habit of looking at yourself as a brand, even if you’re not marketing it.

Here are a few things to do to get going with your online identity:

1. Set up profiles with the leading social networking sites. This includes MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn as bare minimums.
2. Use the same name on all your social network profiles. You need to keep things consistent.
3. Participate on Twitter and FriendFeed and start sharing news and findings that are relevant to your target market.
4. Use an avatar or icon to represent yourself. And, if possible, use the same avatar regardless of the website. That avatar will then become representative of your online identity.
5. Start a blog. A well written blog targeting your market can do more for your online identity than anything else you do.
6. Be helpful and active. If you’re interested in building a recognizable presence, you have to be out there in front of people. That means participating on the Internet. Posting blog entries. Actively networking on sites like Twitter, FriendFeed and the social networks. This puts your name out in front of people and repetition builds to recognition builds to trust.

Smart internet businesspeople are realizing that the age of anonymous retailers is ending. People would rather shop with a small person they know and trust than a big non-personal corporate presence. Social media and using it properly can built you up into that person they know.

Think of your blog and your website as the hub of a wheel, and your social media profiles across the Internet as multiple spokes to the wheel. Keep all of them as active as you can and you can use all the spokes to drive traffic right to the hub: your website.

The Internet is broken up into, let’s say, two groups of people: (1) Early adopters who try everything that comes out and are on the cutting edge, and (2) everybody else. And there is a whole lot more of “everybody else” than there are people like myself (early adopters). The “everybody else” crowd hears buzzwords like Twitter but chalks it up to one of those things that’s just too advanced to understand. And there is also the issue of people just getting comfortable with certain things and not being intellectually curious enough to try something new. These are the kinds of people who are still using Internet Explorer despite everybody saying how much better the alternatives are.

Twitter is one that definitely breaks down cross this digital divide. You have those who get it and use it often. You have those who tried it and decide it is stupid. And you have those who just don’t get it.

Continued

Every time a “new” method of communication comes about on the internet that has any functionality to do with threaded discussions (key phrase there), it is in essence a forum.

Twitter does act like a forum at times. How? You can reply to someone’s “tweet”. Other Twitter users can reply to your tweet. This is technically a threaded discussion. Granted, it’s a very basic thread, but it is a thread. In addition, you can “follow” other users in that system to see who they responded to and add your own into the mix as well - and that’s some more threading right there.

Blog commentary acts very much like a forum, especially ones (like PCMech) where you can reply to specific comment authors. The article itself you can think of as the forum topic, i.e. the “new thread discussion.” Any replies to that topic continues that thread.

YouTube comments also act very much like a forum. Just like blog commentary, you can reply to specific authors. The video itself is the new thread discussion/topic. And being the commentary is 100% text-based, yes, it’s forum-style.

If you examine the way text discussion works with any social medium, it’s the same stuff you’ve seen years before. The only real difference is that you’re able to post in different ways (such as from a mobile device) and it’s packaged differently. But the end result is the same. The threads are the same.

Some things traditional forums have that social media doesn’t

“Bumping” a thread

This is where someone purposely writes a reply to a thread in order to have it appear in the “most recent discussion”, usually listed at the top. For example, someone may simply reply with “bump” or “bumped”.

There is no way to “bump” anything with blog commentary, YouTube comments and so on. This is a lack of functionality and not a perk.

Signatures

Some people use little signatures when they send e-mails. You can do the same when posting to a forum - if the admins have it enabled (it varies from system to system).

With social media there usually isn’t any option for signatures. Your name more or less is your signature and that’s it.

Linking threads

Forums for years have had the ability to link threads. You can literally cross-connect a post from one forum to another completely different forum within the same system.

Social media to the best of my knowledge has absolutely no ability to do this whatsoever. You can’t link a comment to another comment in another video/article and have the two connected seamlessly.

And yes there are more things forums do that social media doesn’t, but you get the idea.

You could easily say forums are better equipped for communication

…and you’d be right. Whether it’s vBulletin, phpBB, punBB, bbPress, YaBB or what-have-you, all of these systems are much better suited for community conversation than any blog or social media could be.

Where do traditional forums lack compared to social media?

You can’t post a thread via a mobile device. (Some would ask “Why?” The answer is that it makes the forum more social.)

Forum software by and large doesn’t connect with anything else. For example, there is no easy way (not without a lot of code hacking anyway) to use a phpBB system as the comment system in WordPress. Is it possible? Sure, anything’s possible with enough programming effort put forth. But is it simple or easy? Not at present.

Does this mean social media is better than traditional forums?

As a communications medium, no. Forums will always be better in that department.

As a social medium, yes. As good as forum software is, all forums more or less act as “islands unto themselves”. If you’re on the island, you can communicate. When off the island, you can’t. You can get notified (by means of e-mail and/or RSS) but you can’t participate unless you’re back on that island.

Are forums dead?

No. Every time you see a threaded discussion it’s just a forum in a different package. Most people just think it’s new because of its social implications.

And it seems that as social media progresses they seem to be “borrowing” more and more ideas from traditional forum software.