I didn’t know whether to laugh about this article at Mashable or to take it seriously when I read the title, “Most People Don’t Use Social Media to its Fullest Potential” My first thought that of course, we aren’t using anything to it’s fullest potential let alone a relatively new tool that half the population is only just now beginning to understand. It’s kind of like saying that we aren’t using radio to its fullest potential back in the early 1900’s with just a few radio stations broadcasting. They hadn’t completely figured out advertising models, penetration, sharing of airwaves, regulation of said airwaves, etc.
But on reading it, I saw they had a great infographic and some solid points.
The same people who are rushing to sign up for these networks said they find “real life” interaction to be richer, yet they are not using social media to facilitate face-to-face meetings.
“All of us Internet users are fast becoming social network users with more than 60% of us belonging to an online social network,” JP Clement, founder and CAO of The Marketing Distillery, tells Mashable. “But that social online behavior is not translating to an increase in social behavior offline.”
I like the idea that on average, we belong to 1.8 social networks from a variety of choices like facebook, pinterest, linkedin, youtube, Google +, etc. It made me wonder, if everyone in my business belongs to an average of 8 social networks, what does that mean about the rest of the world’s average???
Interesting take, thanks. I read that same article and had a similar reaction. What do you think it would look like if we indeed use social media to its fullest capacity? For me, it would have to do something with being able to address everyday problems. For example, healthcare and education are terrific areas where things like simulation modeling are being used to improve such things as patient readmissions or improved test scores. Understanding these programs including their potential could be one answer to social media’s role(s).
It’s interesting you used simulation modelling as an example. I had two first thoughts. First is that big data is transforming social media. The inherent knowledge in large amounts of social media posts represents an only partially tapped resource. My second focuses on the more intimate approach and hits the social networking side of things. We all have habits of how we use technology and ingrained habits mean we don’t think of the best way of doing things, just the most common way. If your habit to finding the right resource is to ask Jane who knows everything and everyone then you probably missed an opportunity to do a search on twitter, your company social network etc.