I saw an interesting tweet pass through my feed the other day. It was from Patrick Rhone of Minimal Mac fame and said:
Weird thought: Nuance is the numbers between 0 and 1 (i.e. the reason that social relationships are difficult to program).
It got me thinking about this is whole how-to-do-social-media thing. There is a lot of information out there about social media. In fact, according to Google Keyword Tool, “how to social media” gets 2,240,000 monthly searches. I believe that talking and learning about how to do social media well is important, why else would we have this blog?
However, sometimes we start to look at word of mouth as a science that we can program, as Patrick puts it. If we tweet the right amount about the right things on the right days, voilà you have quality engagement with your consumers. Whaaaaat are we thinking? There are no formulas for relationships! No logic, no cheats, only chaos! I jest slightly, but we need keep in mind that on the other end of these social networks are actually real people. Instead of consulting a How-to guide, we should spend time listening to what our users are saying.