Online replicates offline behaviour in a profusion of activity. In some cases it’s a remix, real time conversation, sharing information, gossip, pictures and videos. Hell we have been borrowing each other’s books for decades. And, whilst its no different, it can be so different!

In their short online life, social networks are going through a metamorphose already. They are becoming ad networks driven not by the user experience but by shareholder value. Its flipped on its head in the last two years. We do forget they are businesses, exposed to the same pressures as older, more traditional corporate brands. There is not much light between how a company like Coca Cola or Shell operates and Twitter. Certainly Facebook next year when it goes for its IPO. To be brazen, Flickr is in a far better position to produce what we, as users, will want from future social networking. Facebook’s ‘changes’ last week resembled a facelift that Cher would have been more than happy with.

It’s hard to actually identify a social network now that has motivations of purely a social business model not just revenue and profit. There is nothing wrong with that, but whilst aggregation and syndication go on, these online networks are frankly changing functionality and still looking too linear, too narrow and too silo like.  Yet brands are racing to them as if they hold the key to future sustainability. Well they might hold the key but not if its for the wrong lock. Its gullibility at its frightening extreme.

Broadcast is anything that is one way! TV, radio, traditional advertising, seminar, printed book, magazine, exhibition and even theatre and its been struggling to adapt to the digital world. However, we may soon witness a renaissance of broadcast if it integrates with social in a marriage of convenience. But it will need to obey the new rules of social. Social media integration will soon become a comfortable bed fellow in almost everything we do, even when we watch the TV. Its a huge opportunity not a threat for traditional broadcast media.

They say sometimes we make the best decisions when in survival mode and TV seems to have awoken albeit slowly. TV has become dull but it is beginning to change its monologue tones into a swan song of dialogue. There are a number of example applications that we soon will all be able to experience:

1.  A company called Zeebox, is due to launch an app aimed at making television a more social experience. You are able to see what friends are watching and view with them using a “companion” device. From a business point of view this is where recommendations amongst viewers with a common affinity to a programme is very powerful.

Its a modern day newspaper, the only difference is the conversations happening in the stream. Effectively, Facebook’s days as a truly social network are over. Its stepped over the precipice into the world of advertising and broadcasting. That’s okay. We are learning that broadcast and social can live in harmony as long as the audience find it acceptable.

There are now two distinct groups inhabiting Facebook; the consumer and the brand. The consumer of products, conversations and information, and brands, that are quite literally trying to gain attention and sell product. There are some huge challenges ahead for both groups and not least Facebook who really are only the enablers and facilitators in this huge caldron of digital and social.

Consumers will fall into two categories:

1. Those willing to tolerate the constant broadcasting and advertising of the mighty and imposing brands now occupying Facebook space. They will choose to just ignore it (like we do TV and newspaper advertising) and carry on with sharing conversations and information with their peers. Or, they will actually start to engage in social commerce, by actually buying products via the adverts on Facebook.

The future is about building several communities full of connections and monetising that rather than creating products and trying to sell them to a bunch of people we are disconnected to. We have forgotten how much social capital really matters as we were busy breeding a couple of generations where human capital was expressed as the sole attribute to have.

I’ve talked a lot about how we have to get up close, intimate and personal with customers. They cost too much to attract and are too valuable to lose. The problem is how we scale that. We are seeing brands and individuals building significant followings and not being able to engage and initiate a cherished relationship, myself included. Its a real head scratcher!

We know and accept that its the density of the network/community not the numbers that matter. We are frustrated with the lack of ability to govern it. We can use IT to listen, identify and deliver customised experiences but we still need to ensure that the algorithmic activity flocks to a common rendezvous with social. The semantic web will create some succor but it won’t provide all the answers. Computers still can’t interpret human emotion, intent and sentiment the same way us humans can.

When people don’t know what to do next they just keep on doing what they have always done. In social media its spreading like a wildfire. Henry Ford is famous for quoting “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Social media is starting to lack imagination and ironically take on the personality of traditional marketing; broadcast and buying customers.

There are only three reasons why you would embark upon a social media strategy, note I use the word strategy not campaign, and that is to increase revenue streams, improve communication or, better still, both. Its as simple as that.  Now marketers have swept into social media, most of them are just doing the same thing on a different channel. Baloney, bull, drivel, empty talk, futile, gibberish, hogwash and hot air characterise a lot of social media activity at the moment.

1. Gathering an audience around your brand means nothing, absolutely nihility if its not engaged and participating. Its no good giving away free iPad’s to boost your ‘likes’ if there is no creative thought behind it to bring loyalty and increased revenues. Prezzo take heed. All you have done is create yet another database not a brand community.

I remember my parents warning me that if I watched too much TV my eyes would become square! They lied! Can’t help thinking there are a lot of untruths circulating about social media too. Nowadays we alert our children to the perceived dangers of spending too much time online. The fact that TV, for the most part, is not social in the slightest and being online, even in gaming, can be socially enthralling is for later discussion.

The research is compelling, it is demonstrating that there has been a consistent decline in social engagement from the 1960′s to now Putnam (1995.) There are several reasons that determine this according to Putnam (2000):

1. Generational change – 50%

2. Television and electronic entertainment – 25%

3. Work intensity – 10%

4. Urban sprawl – 10%

His research also alludes to how, within the USA (and the UK follows similar patterns) that people who watch more TV are less trusting of others and are less engaged in their communities. Halpern, John and Morris (2002) found that the more young adults watched TV, the less they trusted others. Putnam (2000) considers that despite the other contributers “Nothing – is more broadly associated with civic disenagement and social disconnection than is dependance on television and entertainment.”

TV typically is broadcast, its one way, its not engaging. It is characterised by a lot of the nasty things in the world. We search for good news stories that promote the great things happening in the world. When was the last time you heard “And in other news, several million people had a great day today!”

We are still to measure the impact of time spent online, the possible repercussions of virtual social networking and the inevitable chain reactions that always come out of some new phenomena. Our ancestors were probably saying the same thing about the Gutenberg’s press and the telephone. Lighten up folks, what we really need to be concerned about is that we are looking, a lot of the time, at social media and social branding from the completely wrong angle!