I have been watching people use various networks for years and for the average user their contributions and participations have multiple motivation factors. For the power user, the marketer, the brand, or the promoter it seems clear to me that their goal, even though they don’t actually know it or define it as such, is to get to the broadcast position.
Clay Shirky talks about the broadcast position in his book “Here Comes Everybody”. In his breakdown of the power law distribution and the impact it has on communication Shirky talks about how conversations shift.
As in normal power law distribution, most writers have few readers. Such readers and writers can all play similar amount so of attention to one another, forming relatively tight conversations clusters. (This is the pattern of small groups of friends using weblog or social networking tools.) As the audience grows larger, into hundreds, the tight pattern of “everyone connected to everyone” becomes impossible to support-conversation is still possible, but it is in a community that is much more loosely woven. And with thousands of people paying attention, much less millions, fame starts to kick in. Once writers start getting more attention than they can return, they are forced into a width versus depth tradeoff. They can spend less time talking to everyone.
In looking at a network like Twitter (which is the example site de jour lately) you can see a lot of users building their accounts to get to the broadcast position. Initially there is a lot of interaction with their followers but as they strategically grow their account it shifts more towards where they are selectively interacting with mostly other power users and using their voice to broadcast. These users can spend less time interacting and building and more time promoting, which is you see some of the larger twitter accounts this is strongly the case. (A lot of the users fall in the 5,000-10,000 follower range.)
In that past, as in the early days of blogging, this popularity would be built around the authority of the account holder but with the tools that are available out there and with the barrier of entry so low there are plenty of people in the broadcast position built off of hard work not authority.
Does getting to the broadcast position give you authority?
Without a doubt it gives the account creator some sort of social proof and authority does come with some sort of popularity but what number that is depends on the network, the niche you are in, and who your competition is. I have seen a number of blogs that show off a twitter friend counter rather than subscribers as a form of social proof to create authority. After looking at their traffic scores and links from various services you can see that the blog would have very poor authority using the older definition. But using their twitter account as social proof allows them to create the air of authority through different means. (It is vastly easier to gain twitter subscribers as opposed to subscribers.)
Using social media and getting to a broadcast position in various networks allows the user to manufacturer their own authority as opposed to having that authority created by a deeper endorsement of their work be it links, subscribers, or sharing of content. Achieving the broadcast position and authority is now an achievable goal through various channels. Watching how some of the newer mediums are being used, specifically micro-blogging, you can see how this has become a driving force and changing how authority can be created and perceived.
Perhaps for some, the goal is to get into the broadcast position. I don’t think it is for me, partly because I’m not there. Instead, I cherish the conversation. I believe it is the conversation, the give and take, and not being a broadcaster that makes it so that I have something to say.
It may all be part of some larger cycle. People become powerful. Power corrupts. They begin broadcasting instead of conversing. People get bored and move elsewhere, and the broadcasters 15 minutes of fame slowly dies.
I agree that the conversation is the most enjoyable part.
I think you are onto something with the cycle idea. I agree with the boredom and lack of interaction that their star will decline…
One can spend their entire day attempting to position themselves by camping out in social media sites but to what end? IMO those who are climbing their way into a broadcast position will eventually discover that it’s the discussion that takes place on blogs that have faithful and growing readership that truly matters. By then they will have a time management problem because they have geared themselves to using their broadcast buddies to climb to the top of places like twitter, rather than to creating blog centered relationships with readers.
That kind of goes along with my thoughts on the effort that Robert Scoble has put onto friendfeed. Granted he already has authority and a massive audience but he hurt the main part of his social media experience (his blog) by investing too much time in additional places.
Excellent article. I found the concept of using social media to manufacture one’s authority intriguing, “as opposed to having that authority created by a deeper endorsement of their work be it links, subscribers, or sharing of [your] content”. Kinda makes you laugh (I think you hit the nail on the head)!
Thanks… and yeah your should come out of there… whoops.
Interesting stuff, I think I would much rather be a real authority and forgo the fame.
Exactly… if you are an authority the fame comes… Fame without real authority is an empty trick that won’t last long.
Being famous maybe the main goal of many people, but many of them using a negative action to realize it. They do spamming, do massive flood promotion, but never create and understand what is authority itself. Being famous without no contribution.
I think popularity will be follow people who has contributions automatically. This post should be read by many spammers out there, and they have to understand about how to be a real broadcaster (being famous because their contributions). Thanks for a nice post.
I don’t think it is just for spammers… I think a lot of misguided people that don’t understand the value of creating good content or misunderstand the goal of social media should read it as well.
Thanks for the kind words about my post.
[...] read a good blog post “Is the real ultimate goal of social media to get the broadcast position?” There are very good points about how users are with accounts at Twitter can eventually reach a [...]
Did not get the point. So is twitter counter better than subscriber counter? What is bigger authority, reader base, loyal visitor attractor?
Barnabas Nagy
http://barnabasnagy.net
It isn’t better it is just a different form of social proof. People can pump their twitter numbers faster than subscribers so they are using that to show they have some sort of audience.