The 6 Laws of Communication Critical to Social Media Strategy Part 2

6iconmanThere are 6 Principles or Laws of Communication that are critical to Social Media Strategy.  I introduced these as part of my presentation to the Chicago Chapter of the Scleroderma Foundation, a non-profit looking for guidance on how to get started in Social Media.

Earlier, I covered the first 3 laws:  1) Open and transparent communication is best 2) Two-Way Conversation and 3) Listening is more important than talking.

Here, I’ll cover the final 3, but first, here’s the list:

The 6 Laws of Communication Critical to Social Media Strategy

1 – Open and transparent communication is best

2 – Two way conversation

3 – Listening is more important than talking

4 – Everyone has a different style of communication

5 – Adding more people to the conversation requires more organization

6 – The message is impacted by the method

Law 4 – Everyone has a different style of communication

Law 5 – Adding more people requires more organization

Law 6 -The message is impacted by the method

So those were my 6…what did i miss?

  • Jon

    To Law #5 – I think it needs some work. Simply saying that organization is necessary without offering any ideas isn’t all that helpful. Especially since this is one of the biggest problems with social networks – too much information everywhere.

    1) I think the need for a high powered search engine to dissect all the tweets for usefulness has become increasingly more necessary.

    2) More ways to organize – I feel like this is a double edged sword. On one-hand, I think more organization is necessary to keep your sanity. On the other hand, everyone has their own way of organization and if social networks try to accommodate all – then the organizational tools will need organization.

    3) There are two forces at work – you want to see the things most relevant to you, but you don’t want to miss anything. This presents an interesting problem. hopefully someone will solve it.

  • Jon

    To Law #5 – I think it needs some work. Simply saying that organization is necessary without offering any ideas isn’t all that helpful. Especially since this is one of the biggest problems with social networks – too much information everywhere.

    1) I think the need for a high powered search engine to dissect all the tweets for usefulness has become increasingly more necessary.

    2) More ways to organize – I feel like this is a double edged sword. On one-hand, I think more organization is necessary to keep your sanity. On the other hand, everyone has their own way of organization and if social networks try to accommodate all – then the organizational tools will need organization.

    3) There are two forces at work – you want to see the things most relevant to you, but you don’t want to miss anything. This presents an interesting problem. hopefully someone will solve it.

  • http://www.successmarketingandselling.com Chris Brooks

    I agree that there is a need to stay in the loop but is it really as important as we think it is to know everything?

    There is the saying in the military to focus your firepower, same is true in marketing and social media. You have to focus your efforts in order to make the most of it. Focusing your firepower is possible through Tweetdeck and other methods like that. Even with the best search engine you are still going to have to do a little sifting though.

    The method a message is sent cannot be overstated. How hard is it really to just talk to someone face to face as opposed to sending an email.

  • http://www.successmarketingandselling.com Chris Brooks

    I agree that there is a need to stay in the loop but is it really as important as we think it is to know everything?

    There is the saying in the military to focus your firepower, same is true in marketing and social media. You have to focus your efforts in order to make the most of it. Focusing your firepower is possible through Tweetdeck and other methods like that. Even with the best search engine you are still going to have to do a little sifting though.

    The method a message is sent cannot be overstated. How hard is it really to just talk to someone face to face as opposed to sending an email.

  • http://www.benphoster.com Ben Foster

    @Jon – I agree with you that too much information is a big problem, and the dispersion of that information makes it hard to handle. I really like what sites like FriendFeed are doing to organize all your social activity in one place.
    Distributed Social Networking in the next generation in this aggregation of information, and smart strategists are coming up with ways to take advantages of this.

    @Jon, your idea of “meta organization” is interesting too…organizing the organizing. I’m looking all over the place for a way to read all my stuff on my mobile based on my location. There’s got to be a way that a phone can sense where you are, and then deliver you your feeds based on that.

    @Chris – Focusing is key which is why you see companies try a bunch of different things and then let the crowd determine where the conversation is most relevant.

    @Chris – Do you agree with this try a bunch of ideas with minimal resources, see what works, and then focus your resources on what is working?

    Great discussion guys, I appreciate it.

  • http://www.benphoster.com Ben Foster

    @Jon – I agree with you that too much information is a big problem, and the dispersion of that information makes it hard to handle. I really like what sites like FriendFeed are doing to organize all your social activity in one place.

    Distributed Social Networking in the next generation in this aggregation of information, and smart strategists are coming up with ways to take advantages of this.

    @Jon, your idea of “meta organization” is interesting too…organizing the organizing. I’m looking all over the place for a way to read all my stuff on my mobile based on my location. There’s got to be a way that a phone can sense where you are, and then deliver you your feeds based on that.

    @Chris – Focusing is key which is why you see companies try a bunch of different things and then let the crowd determine where the conversation is most relevant.

    @Chris – Do you agree with this try a bunch of ideas with minimal resources, see what works, and then focus your resources on what is working?

    Great discussion guys, I appreciate it.