Sunday, November 25, 2007

We're All In This Together!

Tamar Weinberg, blogger on techipedia, makes a genius comparison between social media and Charles Darwin's survival of the fittest concept. You may have heard this before, but I thought it made perfect sense. Those who will adapt to social media will survive; those who do not jump on the wagon will fall behind. However, there is one difference: no man has to survive alone; we are all in this together.

Weinberg further explains that survival without the help of others in social networks is almost impossible. Social media communities flourish from neighbors of similiar interests sharing ideas and skills amongst each other. As you journey through the blogosphere, you must adapt to your surroundings and the people in them. Success gets minimized when you only submit your stories and vote for your friends' blogs. Weinberg suggests being a community participant that not only submits on a regular basis, but comments and studies the culture of social media.

She comments:
"Go out and help those within the comminity who you feel add value to it. Don't use the social network as grounds to complain...we're a great group of people, albeit with strong opinions and a desire to create a useful community, but at the end of the day, we'd like you to be part of it too."

Jeremy Pepper, director of communications at The Point, would probably agree to Weinberg's analogy. We all know from our Skype conference call with him that he is an advocate for online communities and believes engaging in them is of the utmost importance.

Understand. Engage. Expand your affiliations. Become a rockstar!

2 comments:

Tolu O. said...

I love the High School Musical analogy.

When I first entered the blogosphere, and joined any conversation, I felt very unsure of myself.

It does not seem that there are many people willing to help, but there are.

We can see from all our social media spotlites that there are people willing to help and lead us in some direction.

My survival (or motivation to survive) in the blogosphere was heavily dependent on Dr. Sweetser, and now I feel like I've taken my first steps and walk around it with some ease.

Now I feel like singing the High School Musical song.

k said...

Tolu: We should all break out in a HSM song!