The Buzz Bin

Social Media Rock Star Chris Brogan uses social media and technology to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. Currently, Chris provides information and serves to business customers around their technology and social media needs. He is easily one of the most well known and recognized voices online today, and consistently delivers great insights.

BB: You’ve been here from the beginning. What do you think of the widespread adoption of social media?

CB: Let me break it down into social networks and then social media. On the social networks side, I believe honestly that it’s come through in waves. Technologists came first, because they made the toys. Then early adopter types jumped in fast. Second wavers got in (that’s me). And thereafter, I think marketing, PR, advertising, sales and others with professional needs have come in. Mainstream comes next, niche by niche.

On the media making side, the waves are broken down by technologists and early adopter indie media makers, followed by slightly more “serious” film maker and publisher types (who maybe saw these tools as novelties early on), and then a wave of people who saw opportunity (TechCrunch in the blog media world, for example, and Ask A Ninja on the video side.) Social “conversationalists” are the current wave, meaning people who are excited to use the tools to just communicate.

I think the value of the tools is that they apply data capture to something that used to just float away on the wind. Water cooler stuff, creative stuff, and more serious pursuits all have platforms to support them now.

BB: Most businesses, PR pros and marketers are currently focused on adopting the most basic aspects of social media: Blogs, blogger relations, and maybe contributing to YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn. What are they missing?

CB: I’m grateful for businesses that try out social media tools like blogging. I think they should consider a few other tools right up front. First, listening tools. Starting by adding your business’s voice to the mix isn’t nearly as long-term useful as figuring out a strong listening presence. Beyond that, I always want to step back and do a quick check-in to understand what businesses *really* think they’re doing in the space. My hope is that these are the baseline: “I want to add a voice to the community. I want to better understand my community.”

Beyond that, the big “fork in the road” I want businesses to consider whether they’re looking to embrace a “marketplace” or a “community” with their efforts. You can’t do both in the same spot. It’s like inviting me to dinner and then handing me a bill.

BB: There’s a lot going on with video right now: Seesmic, Utterz and ooVoo. What are your thoughts on the second generation of video social networks?

CB: Video is a tricky thing. For conversation, it’s got the added advantage of making everything a stronger potential connection (eyes, body language, inflection in the voice). It’s super powerful that Qik and UStream BlogTV and Seesmic and Magnify and Utterz (and I could keep doing this all day) can give us windows into events. And with LIVE streaming, it’s even more powerful, I think.

But, and here’s the tricky part, sifting through and consuming video after the fact as a means to “catch up” on the conversation. I can read dozens of blogs in a sitting. I can’t consume the video quickly, nor can I always “eat it” when I want. For example, I’m a Blackberry Curve user. I can read blogs on the road, but have to wait until I get to a “real” computer to get involved. To that end, if you’re using video as a communications tool, I think a hybrid is in order, with text in mind as a backup. Oh, and don’t forget: Google can’t “read” video, so whatever you say on the screen doesn’t allow for Google juice.

BB: It seems like there’s much more focus on nice markets within large social media communities. What are your thoughts here?

CB: (Presuming you meant niche) Social media makes niches shine. I think it’s the best way to “scratch a niche.” We can now aggregate via searching and collecting, and we can now share, without geography in mind, our interests. When I was a kid growing up in Maine, there were times (lots of them) where my interests at age 14 weren’t well represented in my geographical neighbors (comic books and Dungeons & Dragons). Now? Whatever I’m into, I’m sure you can find it on the web, and you can find a community around it. And if not, someone’s cooking up a startup to try and build it.

I love it, because what comes next, the chance for marketers and advertisers to walk amongst my areas of interest, and try to build relationships of value for ME, is what will be the next great wave. Gone are the “throw it at the masses” benefits, and here now are the “I have JUST the thing for you” efforts. I love B way more than A, don’t you?

BB: What about B2B? How can businesses with a very select buying community benefit?

CB: Absolutely. Find me a B2B company that has enough customers, and I’ll show you someone going under in a few years due to some strange value chain shift. B2B companies (and I should say that by being in the technology conference and media business, I’m in a B2B company) have lots of ways to use social media tools for benefit. For example, if you make a product, there’s no end to ways that customers might benefit from knowing more about uses, applications, and the people behind the product. I think that the buying community can be empowered to communicate laterally, and might even suggest products and services that haven’t yet been created. (Think: Lego with the Mindstorm second generation product).

BB: What other trends are you monitoring?

CB: I’m staying attentive to how Twitter can be used as a platform (see http://commuterfeed.com). I’m interested in who’s going to make me a usable dashboard for multiple social networking platforms (Spokeo has one version of this, and Mahalo is doing another). I’m oddly drawn to the improvements Plaxo has made lately. I think they’re growing their usefulness and reclaiming their brand from a previous perception issue.

Beyond this, in the abstract, I’m paying attention to semantic data and how all this massive volume of social artifacts (our tweets, our facebook posts, our jaiku and tumblr aggregations) will tell new stories not originally intended or obvious. I’m also interested in locative data, extending our computer presence outside of our laptops and into the “real” world. I’m interested in how we’ll be able to talk to our appliances and our workplaces, etc. (I go a little beyond “hey neat, communications!” with what interests me, so I’m sorry if I’m off your normal rails here).

BB: How does Boston’s social media culture compare to Silicon Valley’s?

CB: Boston has a vibrant social media community. We’re different than the Valley, as that place has such a vast number of people deeply engaged and already over the “should we or shouldn’t we” hump. In Boston, we’ve got a lot of people trying new things and adopting quickly, and diving in, but they’re “embedded” in more traditional organizations. That’s changing, too. C.C. Chapman is one of the founding guys behind The Advanced Guard. Christopher S. Penn and I did PodCamp. Bryan Person has his Social Media Breakfasts series, and there are so many more folks doing great work in this area, like Laura “@Pistachio” Fitton, Scott Monty from Crayon, Doug Haslam, etc.

I think we’ve got a lot on the go in the Boston area, and 2008 will show you even more new ideas. Boston: it’s like Silicon Valley with worse weather and fewer Segways.