Thomas Pisello, in his post at the end of January 2011, hoped that technology and innovation would eventually cut through the inevitable social media noise, or messy web of "strings". I agree with him on one point, some social media platforms are getting a bit noisy, but that doesn't mean social media will empty out like a high school on Friday afternoon.
Early adopters of Twitter were happy in participating in a fairly revolutionary platform, but recently, there has been an influx of complaints, in that there are too many spam based accounts on Twitter, and an increasing number of users who are not abiding by both written and unwritten rules.
Mr. Pisello stated that social media is somehow going to implode because of its own success. There will be an exodus leaving empty networks of frail connections, but this is the point that I disagree on. Specific to Twitter, there are tools and techniques like HootSuite that helps users get better organized and there are built in lists on Twitter that help Tweeters cut through the noise. However, we need to look at community noise from both a production and engagement standpoint.
Content Production
I do not believe the true value of social media lies in having one platform where most of your friends are present, not because of too much noise, in fact just the opposite. Most of your friends are not publishing content on Twitter or Facebook every day. If you go onto Facebook regularly for a couple of weeks, you'll notice that out of your (average) 130 friends list, less than 25% of your friends are posting content more than once a week. Content producers in my circle seem to be even less, about 15% of my friends on FB are regular updaters. Have you noticed this at all? My observation is actually backed by an Insights Consulting study. Slide 49 of the presentation found here shows that 26% surveyed are addicts, while the majority of social media users are voyeurs, special occasions or passive users.
The more diverse the online population becomes, the more valuable, valid and trusted online knowledge will be. Of course there is some noise, but well written code and savvy admins can deal with unwanted content. Picture any classroom, where the teacher asks a question, opening up the discussion to the students. Obviously not every student will pipe up, but the more students there are the better because not only will more students raise their hand, but every subsequent thought will refine the conversation, reaching a better and more trusted and complete answer. Diversity is a good thing when it comes to knowledge resources. "So what" you say? Let's continue with this student-analogy to pinpoint some key characteristics of online communities, to see if we can figure this all out.
User Engagement
Hopefully, university students choose their major wisely. Hopefully, they have some general knowledge (or a student advisor appointment) that will help guide them into a subject they will enjoy. This is not a perfect analogy of a social network, but it does seem to bring out some key characteristics of social media. An online community usually has an open door, so long as a visitor creates an account, they can "waltz in" and just start publishing whatever they want (until they get voted or kicked out). In a classroom, it takes stages of payments, enrollments and once the course starts there is very little movement of visitors in and out.
If marketers were free to walk into lectures during the breaks and yell out a company slogan every now and then, if there was a freer flow of students throughout the semester, then that type of course would be more comparable to an online community. I am not trying to change the structure of university courses! I am illustrating what many online communities look like. (The educational model is more constructive by nature than a celebrity rumor mill news site.)
It's not a bad thing. There are ads in most social media networks because bills have to be paid. If it's free to join then money has to be made somewhere. Like I said above, this would be like a company marketer walking into a classroom to yell out a company slogan, then paying the university say $100 to advertise to the 300 students. This image is pretty far out there based on the classrooms we are used to, but if students were able to go into any course they wanted and leave whenever they wanted, evidently, the lack of structure would cause too many distractions for the students.
What I hope for is that students clearly choose their major/program based on their interest. What if a student enrolled in English Literature not out of interest but because all of his friends went into it, would he be happy? What if a student had some general knowledge about most programs and subjects, spoke to an academic advisor, then majored in one based on what interested her? Who do you think would be happier in the long run?
If advertising is a given in online communities and members have the choice to come and go, then how do we solve this messy web of strings that Mr. Pisello mentioned? From my classroom analogy, maybe you've already seen this coming, but I believe the answer is passion followed by choice. If there were advertisers on the stage of classrooms, and if every student in that class loved the subject matter, these two might just balance each other out.
Even though there is an advertiser standing at the side of the stage waiting for the professor to say, "break time", most students would stay because they are interested in the subject! More importantly, the noise (messy web of strings) would be greatly reduced because people are only engaging in the niche online communities they are truly interested in.
If some of you are saying out loud, "No, a hanging banner ad would be a better advertising analogy in a classroom", then I am happy with your engagement in this post.
Do you have any other thoughts on this analogy or my perspective on reducing content-noise?