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Online Social Networks Are Not Mailing Lists
By Michael C. Gilbert, July 17th, 2008
Communication Centered Planning - the methodology I both teach and use to help organizations take advantage of new media - is inherently network centric. By this I mean that it doesn't just look at the one-way or even two-way communication between an organization and its stakeholders, but rather at the full range of real world communication in which both organizations and stakeholders are embedded. On the surface, this seems like an approach that would be helped along by the features of the "online social networking" platforms that have risen in popularity in recent years.
Setting aside for a moment the reprehensible "walled garden" nature of the large online social networking sites, this much can be said in their favor: They build on the many-to-many, network centric features of the Internet itself. They put powerful communication tools into the hands of every user. They make visible the social connections mediated by those tools.
But this isn't how many nonprofits treat these sites. Instead of being a platform for the organization's support and participation in communities of practice, instead of being a tool for empowering the connections and voices of their stakeholders, to many nonprofits an online social network is just another mailing list. With forwarding built in.
Once the idea of "online social networks" starts tugging at their sleeve, these are the unfortunate kinds of questions that nonprofits start asking: How do I get new audiences? How can I get my message out? What will get people to link to me? What will get people to forward my messages? What will get people to sign up? What will get people to use my donate widget?
In the worst case, nonprofit attitudes towards online social networks (or any other virtual gathering place) reminds me of how large political rallies can attract the presence of opportunistic groups who didn't help organize the rally and who may not even truly support the cause around which people are gathering. Like t-shirt vendors, they are there because they have something to sell. Or perhaps, more charitably, maybe many nonprofits are at online social networks for the same reason Jesse James robbed banks. That's where (they think) the money is.
None of us want to be seen as some kind of leech, but unless we approach communities - and the online social networks that support them - with genuine respect, that's exactly what's going to happen.
One way to find out if your organization is ready to pursue the opportunities of online social networks is to look at whether you're a good citizen of the communities with which you are already engaged. Here are some good indicators: Do you skim and read what other people are writing online about the issues of concern to you and your communities? Do you encourage your stakeholders, your leaders, and even your staff to write about those issues in their own voice, in their own blogs and elsewhere? In your own new media communication, especially on your website and in your email newsletter, do you link liberally to places other than your own website, where interesting observations and conversations are going on?
If your answers to these questions are no, then no matter how much you may talk about online communities, you are positioned to fail. There are probably plenty of habits and pressures within your organization that encourage you to look for short terms gains, to treat communities as means rather than ends, as channels (like a mailing list) rather than as networks. The genuine respect that is the key to success takes this form: First use your resources to build community and only secondarily use community to build your resources.
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