How To Grow Your Own Social Media Ecosystem
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Social Media Ecosystems, Growth & Strategyby
Placide Saul Severe
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An ecosystem is generally an areawithin the natural environment inwhich physical factors of theenvironment, such as rocks andsoil, function together along withinterdependent organisms, such asplants and animals, within thesame habitat to create a stablesystem. Ecosystems can bepermanent or temporary.Ecosystems usually form a numberof food webs.
In regards to the social web people serve as the interdependentorganisms with the technological tools and services serving as thephysical factors of the environment. Social platforms such as Facebook,Twitter, YouTube and the like serve as the various types of physicalenvironments.
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What is a social Media Ecosystem?
A Social Media Ecosystem is an amalgamation of
interrelated social media communities, services and
technologies that function as a single organism
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In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system (such as animal, plant, fungus, or micro‐organism). In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole
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According to Durkheim, the more specialized the function of an organism or society the greater its development, and vice‐versa. ‐ David Émile Durkheim
All elements of a society or social organism have a function that maintains the stability and cohesiveness of the organism
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“Build a platform ‐ prepare for the unexpected... …And you'llknow you're successful when the platform you've built serves youin unexpected ways. That's certainly true of the lessons I'velearned in the process of building eBay. Because in the deepestsense, eBay wasn't a hobby. And it wasn't a business. It was ‐ andis ‐ a community: An organic, evolving, self‐organizing web ofindividual relationships, formed around shared interests.”
Pierre Omidyar
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There are many different types of social media platforms, technologies and social communities that emerge within these various platforms. A social Ecosystem is a unification and interoperable functioning system whereby these diverse social tools and communities interrelate in very specific ways in order to serve a greater overall function and/or purpose for the community and the brand
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Strengths of the Social Ecosystem
Each organism, no matter how simple or complex, has around it a sacred bubble of space, a bit of mobile territoriality which only a few other organisms are allowed to penetrate and then only for short periods of time.Edward Hall (also Halle) (c. 1498 – 1547),
Greater social influence..
Deeper more meaningful and impactful reach into multiple social communities....
Greater relevancy in terms of dialog and social engagement
Increase in revenue potential
Let’s Build a Social Media Ecosystem
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- Identify Your unique Social
Purpose
What social experience do we want to provide in terms ofopportunity, function and or purpose to our target audience thatwill empower or build upon what they already value?
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Listen and learn what your target audience is saying, not saying, and sharing. Identify the core values as well as the peripheral values that they hold. There are a variety of ways that this can be done, one of which is performing a Brand Audit with a social monitoring tool such as SM2.
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Own your own Community
According to Durkheim, the more specialized the function of an organism or society the greater its development, and vice‐versa. ‐ David Émile Durkheim
Establish a Core Value or Community Purpose & Function
* We have learned that social communities are more engaged, committed, influential and have a much higher viral growth expansion rate when there is a very tangible purpose or function that each person can contribute to from within a social group or community.
* The purpose or function of the “community engagement” should be an extension of the core values inherent within the identified communities. Purpose and tangible contribution toward that purpose empowers people and thereby engages them in a deeper way and for a longer period of time.
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One Serves the other
Symbiosiscommonly describes close and often long‐term interactions between different biological specieswhere both individuals derive a benefit.
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Facebook + YouTube serve very different functional purposes however both systems serve the other. Without Social Networks like Facebook , MySpace and others the growth capacity of YouTube would be greatly limited.
Vice versa social technologies such as YouTube provides more than the ability to share videos but aggregates the various types of video communities categorically thus providing deeper extension of relevant communities within a platform based community such as Facebook.
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= Symbiosis
Multiple Communities = Deeper Reach
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- Work with Influencers
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Community Development Structure
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• Clearly identify which initiative/s are being served/addressed• The core initiatives will serve as the premise for all strategic activity, and in turn provide the premise for the KPI’s that will be used to measure the activity.
Core Initiatives
• Identify target communities‐(i.e. Families)• Segment the communities into smaller niche communities (i.e. ‐‐‐‐Mom/geek‐‐‐‐IT/geek etc…)
Identify Communities & Segment
•What are the core values for this social group?•What types of communication forms are popular? (Blogs,Chat,Microblogging,forums…)•Who & What are the influencers for these people?
Research Social Culture
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• Clearly identify which initiative/s are being served/addressed• The core initiatives will serve as the premise for all strategic activity, and in turn provide the premise for the KPI’s that will be used to measure the activity.
Plan & Design Engagement Activity
• Analyze magnitude of impact by measuring against KPI’s• Adjust as necessary according to the analytics and Key Performance Indicators
Execute
Community Development Structure
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Social Community Engagement
Utilization of PR/Collateral
Blogs/Forums
Ecosystem Relationships
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• Influencers • Other organizations• Collaboration w/ other communities
Participating organizations and
companies share and expose the social service with others
• Collaboration w/ other communities
• Members act according to their purposes and functions
Partners Join the social service • Recruit , Engage,
Proliferate ....
Partners recruit people into the
service
Social Community Growth Cycle
Full Ecosystem Development Cycle
Study Community
Define Purpose of Community
Partner w/ Influencers
Develop complimentary communities
Analyze / Empower
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[email protected] .......http://www.linkedin.com/in/placidesevere
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