Facebook: the gateway drug to social media, & other thoughts on SOCIAL networks

Repeat after me: It’s the SOCIAL that matters in social networks, not the network. On or offline, it’s the community that matters, not the structure. Even where there is no structure, community will emerge. Look at Twitter.

The engagement is what matters. Not the form of the network. Blogs, Facebook, communities like Cafe Mom and BlogHer, Twitter, LinkedIn, “Old fashioned” forums and bulletin boards. These are all forms of social media engagement.

The trick is to find the ones that matter. To you. To your business.

When I do my social media 101 workshops for business audiences, the thing I stress them most is that you want to be where your customers are. For individuals, where your friends are. Otherwise, why bother?

This week, Harvard Business Review’s report that only about 10% of Twitter users account for about 90% of the traffic on the network was quasi big news in social media circles. To which I say: what else did you expect? Twitter is most clearly an early adopter space, and early adopters are bound to be more active than users in general. @GuyKawasaki and @Scobleizer probably account for 1% alone. With (Kawasaki) or without (Scoble) ghweeters (ghost tweeters).

As it matures, the Twitter numbers may more closely reflect typical social network activity, where approximately 1% are active and the balance passive consumers of content, but for now, Twitter is the avant garde, the edge of social media. Trying to reach the early adopters? Ignore Twitter at your peril. We’re there. Every day. Using it on our phones and iPhones and Blackberries too.

Mass market? Don’t worry about it. For now.

More interesting were the Nielsen stats that time spent on Facebook had increased 700 percent, and on Twitter, more than 3,700 percent (hat tip Brian Solis).

Look carefully at those overall number for Facebook. Nearly 14 million total minutes in April. Nearly three times the nearest competitor MySpace.

This is why Facebook is the gateway drug to social media. And why it should be part of your marketing strategy, no matter what you sell.

Before I delve into why Facebook is so important, let’s review some of the common characteristics of social network sites  like Facebook, LinkedIn, CafeMom, BlogHer etc.

1. Consistent user interface
2. Friend lists
3. In-system messaging
4. Ability to make and join groups
5. Opportunity for commercial interaction with members
6. Links in/out to other social media applications (blogs, other communities etc.)

We also hope to find our friends and/or people of like interests who might become friends. Every online community may not have everything on the list, and the implementation within the networks will likely look different community to community, but by and large, most online social networks have some flavor of these commonalities.

A social network is more fun when there are enough members to generate a reasonable level of activity. The easier the site is to use, the easier it is for members to connect with the other members, the more active members the community is likely to have. The more active, fun and useful a social network is, the more new members it will attract. Lather rinse repeat.

The limiting factor then becomes the core reason for the network in the first place. What brings the people together? The more narrowly defined the community, the fewer members it will have. CafeMom, for moms. BlogHer, women bloggers. And so on. It may still have many many members, but a “vertical” interest community won’t have everybody.

Which brings us to Facebook. Facebook is for everybody. Once you are in Facebook, you can make and join interest groups, but the only limiting factor on Facebook is that you must be willing to identify yourself by your real name. No anonymity.

It’s easier to use than blogs or MySpace, the distant second place finisher in the Nielsen reports, because the user interface (screens and functionality) is consistent user to user, page to page. The company fan pages even look pretty much like the personal profile pages. It’s easy to find what you’re looking for. Most of the time, and provided of course they stop changing the user interface.

Because it is all-inclusive and relatively easy to use, if a person is even marginally active online, it’s almost a no-brainer to join Facebook. Now, when a person joins a new social network, what’s one of the first things she does?

Yup. Recruit her friends to join her. It’s more fun when all your friends are there. Since there’s no limiting interest on Facebook, you can invite everyone you know, and most people do.

And so on and so on and so on.

Net? Just about everyone who engages in social media has a Facebook account, and once you step away from the technology geeks,  early adopters and gamers, Facebook is very likely to be the first adult social network a person joins. Gen Y and Millenials may start with things like Club Penguin or “white space” communities, but those are “childish things.” [My spare copy of The Tipping Point, if you want it, to the first commenter who can source this reference. Alternative prize: if you are going to BlogHer, I’ll buy you a drink.]

Facebook is a mostly grown up place. And it’s where most grown-ups start their descent into the madness that is social media. A dark dark place of addiction.

Oops sorry. I let my gateway drug analogy run away with the post. Seriously, though, Facebook is the point of entry into social networks for many users. Some may move on to mainline social media on the wild wild web, but many will be happy as clams hanging out in Facebook with their friends. Even if the more adventurous do go exploring Twitter and Ning and other cool stuff, they are bound to pop back to Facebook now and again to hang with their friends. Even if they hate it, they won’t be able to totally avoid it. Trust me, I speak from personal experience 🙂

Why? Because Facebook is the community where you are likely to find the largest number of all your friends and acquaintances, regardless of what your commonality with them is – neighbor, classmate, friend, relative, co-worker, colleague, fellow {fill in the blank} fan/critic, etc.  Exception issued to social media geeks who seem to have abandoned Facebook for Twitter, although I bet if we continue to build out our Facebook networks, they’ll include more people we know, or have known, in the real world than Twitter does. By a significant factor.

But normal people? They’re in, and will continue to be in, Facebook. Or if Facebook falters too badly, a successor that shares the same model of inclusion. [Note: this is an unlikely scenario. Merger or new management more likely than total fail.]

Normal folk may join one or two other special interest communities and LinkedIn for professional connections where applicable, but that’s my gut feel for the limit for active engagement. Reading regularly. Commenting, at least once in while. We may join other networks, but it’s hard to be truly active in more than a few.

So, back to my statement that Facebook should be part of your marketing strategy, no matter what you sell.

Rule Number One in my social media strategy book is that you should be where your customers are. If you sell a consumer product, you have customers on Facebook. If you are a non-profit, you have both constituents and donors on Facebook. Even business to business products may find their customer or constituent base on Facebook, especially if they have a business to community component, such as the largest employer in a community or a chamber of  commerce.

Making Facebook part of your strategy doesn’t mean you have to have your own fan page, although it will probably play out that way for most companies. It could be as simple as monitoring the activity on relevant groups and providing information through a designated employee representative.

Most companies though will take the step of setting up a Facebook fan page. This is smart business, but you have to feed the beast. You can’t just set it and forget it. In this respect, it’s no different than if you started a company blog – regular updates, engagement with the customer, responding to comments and questions. The big difference, and why it is attractive as a point of entry into social media for many companies, especially smaller ones, is that Facebook provides the infrastructure. You just pour your content into their framework.

Unlike the user example above, where I posit that many will be fat smart and happy staying in Facebook as one of their primary social networks and never feel the need to venture too far into the social media wilderness, I expect many companies will feel the limitations of the Facebook structure for their branding requirements, and supplement their Facebook presence with content on their own websites or blogs. More than a few will start with their own sites and branch back into Facebook to reach a larger constituency. The more you integrate the experience, on and off Facebook, the tighter the connection with the customer.

Just do me a favor please. Don’t create one of those stupid quizzes. Find another way to engage the customer.

Pretty please. With sugar and a cherry on top.