Something hit me several weeks ago as I was preparing to speak to the Women Business Owners of Michiana. There is an easy way to understand social media sites without getting technical and using a lot of buzzwords like “microblog.” Social media sites fall into three simple categories:
Connection Centric
Sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace all focus on who you know. The goal is to connect with friends and business contacts. Conversations happen because members of these sites have common interests or histories.
Conversation Centric
Places like Twitter, Identi.ca and even old school discussion forums and mailing lists are where the community is all about the conversation. People connect for one simple reason: they want to talk about what is being talked about.
Sharing Centric
Sites where you share talent or expertise like Flickr, YouTube, Scribd and SlideShare. Sharing centric networks let you share what you do or what you know and the networking and conversation happens because of what you share.
What drives success on each of these kinds of networks is directly related to the the category they fall in:
Connection Centric: Quantity and quality of your contacts drive network growth. Want to get the little 500 icon on LinkedIn? Invite more people with common ground to connect.
Conversation Centric: Quality and quantity of your contribution to the conversation drive network growth. Growing your followers on Twitter is easy: just tweet more often about things that people like.
Sharing Centric: Again, quality and quantity of what you share drives your network’s growth. Want more followers on Digg? Either post more interesting links or post more often.
Are there options for software that can handle all three groups? What would you recommend for each group?
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