How Wikipedia discourages community

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OK, a quick aside; I use Wikipedia frequently, it’s a great resource and this is not an attack on Wikipedia’s content. Instead it is a post that questions the communal nature of a supposed web 2.0 precursor.

I’ve evangelised far too much about the importance of community, relationships and two way communications, it’s the bedrock of my interest in social media. That’ll be the last mention (yeah right). The biggest issue that I have with Wikipedia is its huge barriers to entries (see what I’ve done there) and its arrogance.

Sentences such as “there is no way that you can accidentally damage Wikipedia” are patronising and massively irritating. Yes your online encyclopaedia gets over 684 million hits a year and has become a byword all over the world for information, but internet fads come and go and to steer clear of the ‘fad’ category you must have a legacy. That legacy should be the Wikipedia community. But does Wikipedia have a community? The mass of pages regarding what Wikipedia is and is not, what it does and does not and who should and should not suggest that it’s less of an open community for sharing and development and more a dictatorship that’s run by sixteen geeks in San Francisco.

A frequent line that’s preached is that ‘anyone can edit it’ – well, let’s unpack that shall we? So, someone writes an entry about me (it’ll never happen, but go with it), they write ‘Jed Hallam, 22 from Nottingham, UK’ fine up to this point. Then they write ‘died in a tragic unicycle accident earlier this year’, not fine and under Wiki regulation, I’m not allowed to alter this. Slowly this entry trickles over the internet and distant family and friends think that I’ve died and begin to call my immediate family – can you see what I’m getting at? I oppose the idea of corporate wikis becoming sales pitches, of course I do, but leave it for the community to decide. After all, Wikipedia is all about mass collaboration, not sixteen people calling the shots.

The upshot of this rant is simple. While there is no question over Wikipedia’s popularity and its usefulness, it is NOT an example of community. If anything it’s a negative example of how a community can be discouraged. When a small number of people instruct the larger community to follow a stringent set of rules that discourages organic community growth. In order to have developed a community and build foundations for a legacy, Wikipedia should have maintained the site, developed the idea and then released it into the community to grow outside of the San Francisco glasshouse.

What is ‘Social Media’?

I read an excellent blog post today by Rebecca Caddy. Understanding Social Media asks the question that many people in the echo chamber of online public relations often ignore; what is social media? This is a question that needs a secure definition, if not for industry development, then for potential clients.

Social media is such a fluid term. People use it to label Facebook, to describe the comments section of a newspaper’s website or to pigeonhole a blog – but which is right? The truth is, they’re all a part of social media.

My definition of social media is simple:
“Social media is any form of text, video or audio that is produced, critiqued, distributed or supported by a community of people online.”

This community is built up from a massive variety of Internet archetypes (hat tip to Chris Norton). There are experts, contributors, commentators, critics and the passive audience. Each plays their part in crowdsourcing and helps to develop an idea. The expert talks through the idea using their network of peers (expert interacting with contributor), they then write a post (which has already been affected by additional ideas) and publish it online, then the commentators and critics help to redefine and polish the original idea. Here you see one idea that has been initiated by a single person but has been developed by four different groups of people.

A little deviation there, but unless you understand the mechanics behind a community developed idea, then you’ll struggle to understand what makes social media such a powerful tool – a tool that global media powers are now turning to reinvigorate ailing newspapers.

What makes social media so powerful is the fact that the people that create the medium are consumers. A brand must realise that it is no longer possible to ‘not bother with online stuff’ because your consumers are already talking about your products, your service, your USPs and your flaws and if you don’t engage in that conversation, they’re going to migrate to a brand that does care what they say, that does react to suggestion and criticism and one will reap the rewards when it steals the market share.

Social media isn’t comparable to ‘dead tree’ media because never before have we seen the empowerment of the individual. Spin no longer works because if someone doesn’t like what you’re saying in the newspaper, they’re going to go online and express their opinion – will you be there to hear it?

The Social Media Bottleneck

‘What does this mean’ I hear you cry? Well, the social media bottleneck is a situation that we’re currently in.

Social media is a relatively new field, maybe not for the early-adopters but for most people it’s a new strand to public relations. This is especially true for clients.

The social media bottleneck represents a group of early-adopters forming social media divisions or companies and then all vying for the small pool of clients who are quick to adapt and understand the benefits of social media. We face a situation where only two or three divisions/companies actually have exciting clients – the rest of the social media sphere have to scrap around for smaller, less exciting clients.

This could have one of two effects;

The two or three original break-through social media companies/divisions retain the majority of high calibre clients because they have the case studies and experience of working on social media projects with high-level clients leaving the remaining divisions/companies to either close or only retain small clients. This would (potentially) create a dualistic environment in which the few divisions/companies were able to charge unreasonable prices and offer a relatively pedestrian service. This would hinder the development of social media, who needs to advance a medium if you’re already making a lot of money from it?

OR

As social media develops and the original clients become seen as trailblazers, then less experimental clients become more willing to take their chances with social media divisions/companies therefore leveling the field and spreading the big clients more thinly over a wide range of divisions/companies. Thus ceasing the bottleneck and increasing the need for competitive advantage in social media companies, ensuring the client always receives the highest level of service for the best price. This outcome represents the ‘age of community’ and would help develop social media beyond it’s current capabilities.

Personally I believe (and hope) that the bottleneck eases and social media begins to represent what its ideology is based upon – community. It’s the only way in which we can truly progress and help clients to integrate themselves into social media – thus encouraging less-forthcoming clients to take ‘the risk’.

Jed Joins Wolfstar!

Hi, I’m Jed Hallam, the newest edition to the Wolfstar pack. You might know me from such famous campaigns as ‘Jed on Twitter’, ‘Why Wolfstar Should Hire Jed’ and ‘Rock Star PR’… Or you might not know me at all.

For those that don’t know me, I thought I’d tell you a little about myself.

I’m a young PR and social media account executive, I love finding new social networking tools (that offer something new, of course) and I’m a massive advocate of complete brand transparency – something that PR 2.0 (#shudder#) is helping with!

I’m a textbook PR boy really, I never intended to work in PR, I just loved writing and making friends with people. So when I found out that PR was just writing and making friends with people, it all fell into place! Wolfstar is my second industry job, my first being an in-house role with an education company who gave me a great introduction into traditional public relations. I’m hoping to combine my experience in traditional PR with my love for social media to achieve some great things here at Wolfstar.

When I’m not working (which is rare these days!) I’m listening to music, reading a book or catching up with friends.