Talk With People, Not To Them
Ross | December 8th
A few days ago, I read an interesting essay by Steven Hodson on The Inquisitr - Is social media becoming a social mess? In his essay, Steven wrote about the avalanche of conversations occuring in social media.
“It is beginning to feel like we are just having conversations for converstaion sake - to make some noise - to fill up that immense space of the Internet with noise. It is all becoming a matter of hyper-conversation. Conversations on as many services as possible with as many people as possible. We are drowning in conversations but is anybody really talking?”
It’s an excellent essay and I encourage everyone to read it. I spent the last two days thinking about Steven’s essay. After I read the essay, I posted a comment:
“I agree that things are starting to look like mush and the conversations are becoming less about the conversation and more about having others see that you’re having a conversation. My personal view - many people are drawn not only to the excitement of conversing with many people, but also to the excitement of having lots of followers and being known and recognized. Those are all good things - and some deserve the recognition and the followers. But for most, it’s become a game and is less about substance than it is about numbers. And that’s a real problem because there are far more people who care about numbers than those who care about substance. The noise will continue to increase and it will be more and more difficult to follow real conversations. I don’t have a solution to propose. I certainly understand @chrisbrogan and the reason he wouldn’t delete his Facebook account - that account doesn’t contribute to the noise. It’s really not about how many accounts we have and our presence on the many social networks. It’s more about our reasons for being there. If it’s merely to build followers and that’s the end goal - we become shills and easily compromise our own values and standards. So - I say that conversations are a great thing if they are about the conversations, and not about making sure others see you’re having them. Sadly, looking at Twitter as an example, I am finding fewer and fewer conversations for the sake of conversation.”
It occurred to me this morning that Steven’s point can be extended a bit further. The problem is not merely that we are conversing on every social network and with as many people as we can at one time - we often forget why we are participating in these conversations. I don’t mean that we lose track of where we’ve posted our comments or about our tweets on Twitter. We forget that conversations are about talking WITH people, not talking TO people. There are many good reasons why people like Chris Brogan and Tim O’Reilly are highly respected in social media circles. One important reason: they don’t forget that they are talking WITH people, not TO people.
There is a difference, and the difference is important. It’s a lesson we learned long ago. For example, we are currently talking with our entire community in our forums about standards of conduct for creatives on crowdSPRING. We could have simply written the standards and published them. Instead, we wanted to involve our entire community. It’s an important conversation and we wanted everyone to have an opportunity to contribute to the discussion.
This isn’t a particularly profound concept - talking WITH people. We are pretty good at talking with people when we meet face to face. But our online conversations often ignore common courtesies and we often feign real interest. Our online conversations often become more about increasing the number of people who follow us on Twitter or friends on Facebook.
If you really want to be like Chris Brogan and Tim O’Reilly - don’t worry about how many people “follow” or “friend” you. Worry about your conversations and ask yourself whether you are talking WITH people or merely TO them. The difference is important.
The lovely numbers game in social media. It happens all too often, with noobies or seasoned ‘veterans’ - they focus on the numbers and feel that it’s what determines their ’status’. I feel we have a duty to the industry to help educate (not just tell ppl that they’re wrong) when someone is putting their focus or efforts towards just broadcasting their messages and amounting followers. Unfortunately, it falls on deaf ears at times - but the ones who eventually understand makes teaching worth while. It’s not just the Chris Brogans or Tim O’Reillys of the interwebs that are there to learn from but the entire community has a role in this. The cS team shows your community through the forums that talks about standards/conduct - its the same for the SM community as we have Twitter, etc. as our forum to pull people in the conversation and show them the value in talking with people.
[...] Ross Kimbarovsky, co-founder of crowdSPRING posted a very good post titled ‘Talk with people, Not to them’ on the startup’s blog. He used Chris Brogan and Tim O’Reilly, two highly respected [...]
Good post, and good observations Ross. Thanks.
I agree and would like to add my perspective.
I measure my footprint and value in social networks with how many people I can help, affect, or make laugh AND I love the stimulation I get back from others who I learn new things from to broaden my perspective. It’s awkward striking up a conversation about something you could care less about, but people are doing it all the time.
I also agree with Ryan in his Social Noise-making vs. Social Networking post ( http://ryanagraves.com/12/08/2008/social-noise-making-vs-social-networking/ ). These tools are only as good as the relationships you create while using them. BS convos don’t add any value to your life or that of anyone else. Others can see through the smog of spewing garbage and at that point you’re just wasting my time and your own.
I also admit I was a noisemaker in the beginning. It all started 2 years ago with an idea for a website and experimenting with how to market it. I didn’t have any marketing experience and social networking was still pretty new to me. A few of close friends begged me to set up a profile on MySpace to share pictures and keep in touch more often. So, I did it. After a few months, things changed for me and I began crafting and idea for local biz social network.
I loved the idea and I wanted everybody else to love it, too. I thought I was doing everyone a favor by spreading the word aggressively on MySpace. I was wrong. I was adding to the noise. At this point, MySpace was already flooded with spam. People couldn’t filter out all the spam and know that my project was legit. It wouldn’t have mattered if I found a cure for cancer, what I was doing doesn’t work (mass messaging, mass friending, mass commenting, etc.).
I learned my lesson rather quickly. My natural passion for reaching out and talking to people took over and I began developing real relationships with like-minded people. I’ve developed deep, true relationships with quite a few people who I’d prefer to call my friends now. I have relationships with others where we agree to bounce ideas off each other. It has to be give and take and you have to be yourself if you want anything real and lasting to come out of your efforts.
If I’m not being entertained or informed by others’ conversations, I tune out. We can’t be friends with everyone folks, so you’ve got be cautious. By the way I follow nearly 300 more people than who follow me. I don’t care about that and I don’t really care what you think about that; I mean that in the most light-hearted way
[...] Ross Kimbarovsky, co-founder of crowdSPRING posted a very good post titled ‘Talk with people, Not to them’ on the startup’s blog. He used Chris Brogan and Tim O’Reilly, two highly respected individuals [...]
[...] Ross recently wrote a post about talking with people, not to them. [...]
I enjoyed your “Talk With People, Not to Them” post. You bring up many great points that I think go beyond people’s intentions to have more followers, friends, or subscribers (my own 2 cents there). In the end, shouldn’t we be asking ourselves “why are we doing this in the first place?” Don’t we engage or particpate in social media because it’s probably the first form of marketing that closely resembles genuine, human conversation? Right now, as I respond to you, I’m thinking that this is fun, and I’m commenting on a new piece of great content that I received from someone I find interesting (and I’ve never met him face-to-face).
If the only reason we’re doing all “this social media stuff” is to just keep score and rack up a bunch of numbers, then we’re all missing wonderful opportunities for getting to know each other and building trustworthy relationships.
Yes, there is an underlying business purpose. But, I don’t ever remember buying anything from somebody I didn’t inherently trust.
Many thanks Ross for engaging me even more!
Tony - wise words. I too wonder how many people ask themselves WHY they’re engaging in social media. And perhaps even more importantly, how many people ask themselves that question from time to time. Our motivations do change, and it’s important to not only recognize these changes, but refocus when we find ourselves participating for different reasons than we intended. Thanks for stopping by and leaving your thoughtful comment.
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