Technology Matrix: Abandoned Communities and Groups Provide Opportunities

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Abandoned Communities and Groups Provide Opportunities

Over the past few days, I have been having some discussions around the idea of Social Media Maturity. People have, over the past few years, decided to jump onto the social media bandwagon without too much thought while opening the business up to quite a number of risks. In some cases management have excitedly patted them on the back and applauded them for their efforts. Well done!

Today, is reminiscent of the past era of Web 1.0 when a website was considered to be an important component to businesses both large and small. While a lot of those sites were good in their day, their current existence is a historic relic in need of replacement. You see, the internet promised to make us all rich, well, that is what we were thinking.

With the rise of Social Media the game was about to change yet again. Marketing guru's have been selling 'snake oil' concepts and then leaving town. Today, the internet and Social Media platforms are littered with discarded communities, groups and Social Media accounts. Do not get me wrong, there are many great success stories, but there are far more failures.

I am reminded of a ghost town. Typically a place where settlers established a community but where the people, over time, got up and left. When you look around you're able to find all sorts of treasures which have been discarded and left to the elements.

On LinkedIN, I also suspect other Social Media platforms, there are a lot of groups which have been setup and are no longer used or have never gained traction. The interesting thing is that these groups sometimes have a membership in the hundreds or even thousands. There they lay to waste. In the picture which I have included with this blog post, you'll see that I am the top influencer of a LinkedIN group. This group is not providing any great value to it's members so my status is easily achieved.

I then decided to take a look at a group which had been set up by a company as a way for them to interact with their customers as a followup to courses which they had provided. I am not sure how I ever got accepted into the group as I have never attended one of their courses. However, I have access to about 80 of their customers. What makes it even worse for this company is that they left a comment saying that they would be closing the group and yet the members are still subscribed to the group.

So, here is the "opportunity." Walk into the ghost town and take your place of residence or even the place of Mayor. In most cases, all you need to do is start a conversation and you'll become even more influential than the group or community manager. At the end of the day, the community manager is not the person who initially opened the group, but it is the person with the most influence.