Let the Conversation Begin (Interpersonal)

Chapter 22

Safko, The Social Media Bible

Interpersonal social media, as Safko defines them, are those that allow people to communicate live and real-time in one of several ways: one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many.In each of these three categories, there are many kinds of technologies available. Some are free, some carry a nominal fee. None of them require any particular expertise to operate, and in many cases no software is required beyond a web browser.

Safko spends almost all of this chapter running down the list of interpersonal media, dispensing with the history. It seems to me that the potential uses of these media for marketing purposes is discussed less than in previous chapters.

Because the nature of these technologies is real time – that is, you need to be there at the same time as the intended targets of your message, actually interacting with an individual or group – their potential for marketing to mass audiences is, in my opinion, not as great as other social media where you can use typed-in text and prepared images to network with many thousands of members of a network, all in minutes or hours a day.

Still, interpersonal media can be effective for some types of marketing activities. A few that come to mind: Product roll-outs to dealers or targeted audiences (early adopters?); demonstration, training, or Q&A sessions with product users (a good way to strengthen customer bonds and build loyalty); and gathering feedback from target audiences (again, a way to build stronger customer relationships).

Really, interpersonal media have the strongest potential for intra-organization use, IMO, and Safko probably provides more examples of this type of activity than any other in this chapter. Meetings, training sessions, planning, brainstorming and so on, especially when distance is a real factor.

I feel like I’ve mentioned this in an earlier chapter blog, but this type of technology is well-suited to Extension, whose mission is disseminating research-based, sometimes technical, information to target audiences of clientele. Time and distance are often a limiting factor for these clients, yet workshops and meetings have typically been conducted as daylong sessions in meeting rooms in the largest town in the county. Making training available via a two-way web connection with both audio and video, and sometimes other rich content, with the possibility of recording the event so it can be reviewed later if the clientele need to, has much potential for Extension. This is the type of technology that is well-suited to sharing technical information with targeted audiences who are separated by large distances.