A quick one this.

You want to understand social media better? Forget about the toolkit for the moment and learn the phrase “It’s all about the people”. That’s it.

It’s not about the technology. People are, and always have been, social animals. They have shared, communicated, discussed and recommended to their social groups since the development of language - No hang on, since even earlier - I’m sure that certain neanderthal grunts and fingerpoints at poisonous berries could be considered a 0 out of 5 star review.

The tools available online now aren’t creating new behaviour, they are simply supercharging behaviour that’s always been there. It’s this behaviour that matters. How can you shape it? Contribute to it? Sustain it? and do all this long term? Well, roughly speaking you do this by developing solid strategic objectives and exploiting the tools that are currently available, as they become available.

So, from the outset, don’t start by thinking about Twitter and Facebook, start by thinking about people and then incorporate the tools as appropriate to the job at hand.

I recently changed to O2 home broadband and came across the following while setting it up.

http://www.jibble.org/o2-broadband-fail/

It’s the story of Paul Mutton, a technically adept user who found a security flaw in the O2 routers  (O2 wireless box II and O2 wireless box III) and simply wanted to let O2 know about it so they could correct the issue. The security flaw could essentially allow a hacker access to the user’s PC without their knowledge.

For several weeks O2 refused to take any action, quoting from standard response scripts in their emails and generally fobbing him off. Exasperated, Mr. Mutton approached the press office who, clearly having taken technical advice, simply replied with a ‘fix’ that simply didn’t work.

All the while Paul Mutton was recording his experience on his personal blog for the world to see.

It was only after a technical demonstration to Be (an ISP owned by O2), who escalated the problem to O2, that Paul finally received a telephone call from a tech support manager at O2 who was taking it all very seriously (perhaps Be also mentioned to O2 the existence of the blog?).

Anyway, O2 issued a press release, reassured their customers and have now nearly completed a firmware release to fix the security flaw.

Although it didn’t take a large scale public discussion of this issue on social networks to prompt O2 to take action, the danger of an online viral flood of scaremongering was always there. Paul Mutton held far more clout than customers of days gone by simply because he’s connected. Just like you and me. Companies don’t wait for a threatening letter from BBC Watchdog to take action on complaints of this nature anymore.

O2 were lucky. Very lucky. Paul Mutton could easily have given up trying to contact the powers-that-be at O2 and simply gone public. Sure he had blogged about it, but had yet released his findings to any social networks. Issues such as this spread like wildfire once released and O2 could have taken a real hammering.

I’m sure that the front line customer service staff at O2 are all now briefed about and ready to deal with the dangers of the Kryptonite effect (see http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2004/09/64987) and how to avoid it. Are yours? or are you relying on your customers being as considerate as Mr Mutton?

Just a quick one today. I stumbled across this social media video that doesn’t really reveal anything new but does shout what we all already know quite effectively. It could be quite a useful video to use to persuade some reticent old-schoolers to sit up and think a little harder.

I’m sure you’ve heard about the Palin/USA/NHS debate that has recently erupted on Twitter.

In brief: Republicans in the USA want to upset Barack Obama’s plans for healthcare reform and are publicly using the UK’s NHS as a warning against a ‘socialised’ healthcare system.

This has caused a wave of support by disgruntled supporters of the NHS both in the UK and around the world on twitter and other social networks. No big surprise and not much point going into great depth about why this is happening - this has been done to death. We know that people use the tools at their disposal to state their case and, yeah yeah, Twitter is currently that tool of choice (please see upcoming post, probably entitled “Please stop talking about the toolkit”).

What is interesting to note from is that a debate such as this is now wide open for all comers - and all comers can be heard. For instance Gordon Brown has voiced his support for the NHS and John Prescott has taken a camera out onto the terrace at the Houses of Parliament:

Watching this video reminded me about two things that politicians do not often remind me about. Authenticity and transparency. This video is authentic. The headlines have allowed the participants in the debate to open up and given them further freedom to be transparent. To show heart and passion. Now, we may not agree with ol’ JP above but I do think that there’s a real authenticity here and this is because he has concentrated on getting one thing across - the message. There’s no make-up or studio lights and there’s no journalist with an agenda either. Plus I also feel that I know him a little better.

Standard, daily, non-reactionary communications from politicians are, in the main, all agenda and spin with little authenticity. This is unlikely to change overnight in the political world.

However, the corporate arena is a different matter. If more businesses concentrated on being authentic and opening up genuine dialogue in the commercial world then they would derive real value. Authenticity promotes trust and relationships. Without building these over the coming years and simply doing the same old same old, companies will be whistling in the wind.