Tools Define Culture
Author: Ed
Permalink| 4 Comments »
25 Feb 09
Unlike traditional marketing,
conversation implies that you know
your audience.
Social Cultures
Envision social domains as environments—geographical destinations with varying demographics, practical uses, and cultural inclinations. Hi5, CyWorld, Twitter, LinkedIn, Xiaonei, Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, and to a lesser extent Ning sites and IM aggregators, are macro-cultures with diverse market proclivities and subcultures.
Social Tools
The way we conduct ourselves within those subcultures is akin to a dialect or preference. The tools we use are the words and media we employ.
The tools we select reveal us as finish carpenters (Laugh aloud) or rough framers (lol). Grammar, the words we use, the language we speak; our topics (or lack of same); the videos, pictures and links we post; to whom we speak and who responds all combine to classify and define us within a given subculture.
Social Sharing
If businesses and marketers fail to invest the time to understand the accepted tools and nuances of the specific culture they hope to reach, they won’t be welcome on the ‘job site.’
As with traditional marketing, “Know thy audience.” But, unlike traditional marketing, conversation implies that you know your audience; that you live and work among them in a culturally appropriate manner, using culturally accepted tools.
That knowledge and those tools will certainly vary, domain to domain, culture to culture.
This article began as a comment on Beth Harte’s post, Social Media, It’s About the Tools Right? on The Search Engine Guide.
Image: tashland
