Harnessing Social Media

A session from Intel.

Social Networks work as long as they are based on users using a shared environment with shared interests.

43% of users feel as strongly about their virtual 'lives' as they do about physical communities.

It is important that social networks establish a feeling of trust from the very start. Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self-Interest

Intimacy is the most difficult element to create online, therefore more effort should be put in to build reputation and effort.

Social networks facilitate communities, but they are not communities themselves - they remain technological in nature, rather than inherently social.

Must communities have real-life touchpoints (I debate this! What about Facebook and MySpace? I suppose you can create meetings of groups of people in real life locations, but don't people use social networks to abstract some of their relationships?)

Community -> Advocacy -> Opinion Forming -> Community

Word of mouth is a channel, not an outcome, but it is an advantageous outcome. (No, I don't get that either.)

Corporate blogs should be encouraged, but those blogging must be on brand and on side.

Trust is the strongest binder of a community.

In terms of corporate blogs, there are already people discussing your products online - why aren't you?