Social Superiority

Maximizing Social Discovery Opportunities on the Social Web
Posted on November 28th, 2008 by Jackie Peters

Excerpt: Social media has fundamentally changed the way that people discover products, services and content.

The social web has amplified and magnified word of mouth to increasingly expanding proportions. Prior to the social web, if I were to like a product or service enough to talk about it, I may have mentioned it to 5 or 10 people, and maybe 1 or 2 or them would have then told their friends. But now, being hyper-connected means that when I talk about something favorably, or negatively for that matter, I’m potentially telling thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people.

Passive social discovery happens when we casually observe information streams emanating from our social circles and pick up on something that strikes a chord. For example, I may see a friend of mine link to a blog post, or become a fan of a product on Facebook and
as a result I have discovered something new.

Active social discovery happens when information is actively requested, or “crowd-sourced.” For instance: I want to know the best place to get lunch in Santa Monica, so I post a question on Twitter asking my followers and solicit a response.

In my view, social discovery represents an amazing opportunity for brands and individuals alike. So how can brands take social discovery into account as they forge pathways within the social web?

1. Listen
2. Know where your community, ambassadors and mavens are
3. Share something, contribute, be relevant!
4. Give your content “social lube.”

My Take

Jackie Peters pegs the "passive" and "active" functionality of social media based search. This distinguishes social media from Web 1.0 advertising which is active - i.e. you conduct a search for a product and get results based on the search engine's algorithm. Social media is more powerful because it integrates it into our real-life relationships and daily offline conversations.