I’ve been continuing to think about this topic, and I’ve realized there’s at least one more parallel to make:
The converted – aka us (I’m including you because you’re reading this blog) – spend too much time preaching to the choir – aka the people who’ve already drunk the kool-aid – and ignoring the godless heathen infidels – aka the skeptics.
We need to stop turning our backs on skeptics with a dismissive: “Well, they just don’t get it, so to hell with them.”
Do you truly believe that social media is transformative? If it’s really that important, you need to HELP them get it.
David M. Patt, CAE says:
Absolutely! Help, don't scold.
Toby says:
[html error on prior comment] I think that you hit upon a great point here.
Facebook has done a great job of taking their “faith” to the masses for “personal” social media.
But for “professional” social media it's a different picture. Sure, LinkedIn has good penetration, but few participate there with any regularity approaching Facebook.
Real professional or topic-based social media comes from blogs–with “zealots” like you. It's difficult for the “infidels” to participate because unlike Facebook–where they can participate together with their friends–on blogs they have to “go it alone”: start their own blog, build their own audience, etc. Much harder.
The next step to get the infidels going is something akin to Facebook for each topic. We call them “group blogs: blogs for each topic or subject matter (i.e. for each associations industry) that an entire group can contribute to, instead of each author on their own.
I think this could be particularly powerful for associations and bringing the infidels into social media for their topic of interest.
(Disclosure: Grogger is my company)
Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE says:
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Toby (and I intentionally deleted the one with the bad link)