Like most emergent trends, social networking as we know it will evolve. If you are a frequent social media user, you understand that “social networks” are largely broken. If you are a business, you similarly understand that social networks are not delivering the type of consumer value that would in turn deliver predictable business value. These realities create real opportunities to make the social experience better for both the users and the businesses that support the social business models. References for statistics: Pew Research and Wikipedia, Business Intelligence.
“so·cial net·work”
noun
noun: social network; plural noun: social networks
- a network of social interactions and personal relationships.
- a dedicated website or other application that enables users to communicate with each other by posting information, comments, messages, images, etc.
Google Definitions
Though “social” is increasingly important in our lives – the typical social network experience is often frustrating for users and business alike. Why?
The answer is that present day social networks like Facebook, Twitter and their progeny, are losing their social characteristics. When we think of “social” communication we think of open networks – communication that is continuous and uninterrupted, that enables the sharing of experience and which is designed to build relationships and to nourish connections.
These qualities distinguish it from other forms of communication like email, or broadcast media, which are often more informational, linear and hierarchal – characteristics of closed networks.
As modern day social networks have evolved, they, by design, have become less social and more closed. In other words they interrupt the natural flow of dialogue. Embedded ads, discontinuous feeds, and the fleeting nature of posts all contribute to poor user experiences.
Consumer participation (and engagement) will only improve by evolving the current social network paradigm. Similarly delivering sustainable, predictable, business value will require a transformational and parallel shift in what we currently consider the state of the art.
The three core problems are fragmentation, distraction and lack of persistence of information. We will consider each in the next 3 blog posts in this series. Then we will examine strategies that each of the major social networks might consider to build better consumer experience and to create more business value.
