Shana over at Collective Thoughts has written up a great analogy of social media to high school. You have your popular crowds, your club and even the goodie-goodies and bad boys. Let’s stretch out the analogy a little further, into the world of causes and politics.

Many years ago we held mock elections at my school. I was active for one of the major parties. We held lots of meetings, put up posters and took part in some heated debates. Come election day, we were cautiously optimistic. The result?

We got two votes.

The winner, by a landslide, was the Monster Raving Loony Party. Putting aside the difficulty of competing with a party platform that included all-day pub openings (and this was in the UK), what would I advise today?

Use the social circles already in place. With one or two advocates in each crowd - a few in the drama club on your side, a nerd or two to argue your case in ones and zeros and of course a cheerleader, support will spread through the natural circles of influence. Kick start this by getting your supporters involved in the crowds! Send them to math club, to play football or to study photography. Pretending won’t work though, or they’ll be out in no time: participation in social circles requires honesty, authenticity, and hard work.

Skipping through our analogy back into the world of social media, the rules are the same! Entire social circles of influence are already in place: millions are reading and talking back on their favorite blogs, finding their news on Digg and watching videos recommended by YouTubers. Why aren’t they talking about you?

Reach out to social media communities. Connect with your advocates already in the crowd (there are more of them than you think). Encourage your own supporters to get involved in social media: they will benefit from the chance to socialize and you will benefit from increased exposure. Use the natural circles of influence and get people talking. Talking about you.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 8:14 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.