Exploiting vs. Exploring
ByWith the communication landscape getting bombarded with tons of new media like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the like, we all have a very important choice to make.
Are we going to exploit these new media, or explore them?
Here’s an idea of how exploitation works in these instances: You create a Facebook page. You quickly befriend anyone with a PC. You constantly push your company in ever status update. Sometimes it’s blatant (“I’m looking for 10 people who want to make six figures selling acme bricks”). Sometimes it’s just shy of that (“Sold five acme bricks today. Cha-Ching!”). But it is never social. Exploiting is not looking to create relationships; it’s looking to make the medium work for you. To take advantage of it.
Exploration is different. It’s being curious about the medium, and diving in to figure out what it’s all about. It’s about being you in that medium, and as you do, people who are interested in you are naturally drawn to you, and vice versa. And because you’re just being you, and because the work you do is part of that, then your message gets out there plenty. In a way that doesn’t annoy.
In the midst of all the social media riff-raff, be sure to remember first and foremost that it’s those who are using the media to be social that are gaining the most from it.
Speaking of, here are my ‘Big 3′ social media accounts, in case you want to befriend/follow/link:
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3 Comments
March 17th, 2009 at 4:18 am
Good distinction here, I think a lot of it has to do with motives. Exploiting is bending and manipulating things on the outside to conform to my inward perceptions and expectations while exploring is bending and manipulating my inward perceptions and expectations to be open to outside possibilities.
March 17th, 2009 at 4:20 am
Bill – so I guess it all comes down to who/what is getting bent or manipulated, yes? Maybe the new golden rule for us marketeers should be “‘Tis better to bend and manipulate thyself than others.” Run with it.
March 17th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I think the real idea here is that Marketing, like new web applications, means talking WITH people. Not AT people. Engage everyone in a conversation, not a one sided pitch.