Not all Social Media is Social
(Please note: this piece is an observation with no judgements made, and only serves as an observation and not a criticism.)
Generally, social media is understood as a conversation between people on the web…as opposed to old media, which is a conversation of a few to the many.
That being said, there are people who use social media as if it were old media, meaning they are using it as a one way announcement platform and not mingling with the public that they serve. For example, you can have a blog and not have comments enabled. Yes, you are using new media, but are not utilizing the social aspect.
Let’s look at an popular entertainment personality who it using social media, but lacks what I call the social element – Jorge Ramos.
- On Twitter, he has close to 5,000 followers, but only follows back 9.
- He broadcasts his messages to a large audience, and has no relationship strategy to interact with them. This can be confirmed by his Twitter feed.
- He may use Twitter as a news filter and monitors only a few people – the two he recently retweeted and the ones he follows.
For those above reasons is why I say Jorge Ramos, is using social media but he is not being social. Because of who he is he has an impressive following compared to who he follows. I feel however, that if he added a more social element and actually got more involved with the community he serves his Twitter account may in fact triple in followers, and thus influence.
Note: I friend requested him on Facebook out of curiosity if the same trend is found; some of us are busy and may not have the time to be ‘everywhere’ we’d like to be.
Popularity: 6% [?]
