Can we always count on the social graph for true perspectives

As a marketer and someone who truly values unbiased and raw consumer perspectives, it used to be the case that I could count on the social graph to provide just that. People would post their uncensored and pure perspectives not just in general, but specifically on brands. From these postings and dialogues, we could find out what people REALLY thought, and not in some isolated controlled environment like a focus group. In fact, it was this very behavior that simultaneously drew in and repelled companies when it came to social media marketing. Uncensored perspectives are both valuable and frightening.

But, are we starting to censor ourselves some? In just the last year or so, participation in the space has grown exponentially so that more and more people who may not be used to this kind of behavior are taking up a greater portion of the digitally active. Couple this with tendencies for companies to use social networks to keep track of their employees, vendors, and prospective talent (we’ve all heard the stories of job candidates who were shoe ins suddenly get the cold shoulder due to their would-be employer discovering some misbehavior of the candidate via social networks) and people begin to think twice about what they post. After all, most of us are accountable to someone.

Personally, I’ve become much more sensitive about what I post, knowing full well how easily a comment could get into the hands of someone I wouldn’t necessarily want it to. I’ve seen prolific posters curb their comments as well for fear of a quick status update coming back to haunt them.

Certainly, there will always be people commenting about products, companies, and brands, and doing so in an honest and intelligent way. This won’t go away. But, I am curious about what this will look like in the future. Will people always tell their full story? Will it be more thoughtful? And what will this mean for companies and individuals like myself who rely on honest perspectives to understand how best to develop brands that can actually affect people’s lives (hopefully in a good way)? My worry is that we’ll start to experience what we’ve already gone through with traditional research which is watered down perspectives biased by real or perceived group pressures.

To be honest, if things get too tame, I would be one of the first to miss some of the stronger more vehement harangues in the social space. They’re what makes the space fun to begin with.

Personality Profiling in Social Media

There’s a great quote in High Fidelity (the movie and the book) where the main character Rob says (something along the lines of) “It’s not what you ARE like, it’s what you LIKE that matters.” Books, movies, music, essentially our interests and passions define us. This point was made even further in a book based on a somewhat similar premise titled Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You by Sam Gosling.

I got to thinking about these ideas as I was coming through several Twitter feeds to see what people were talking about and linking to. It’s a quick way to understand what people are interested in because when someone posts a link, for example, they are telling us that they have taken the time to look for, find, read, and SHARE a piece of content. This is essentially shorthand for saying “this is what I am in to.”

As we think about using social media as a research tool, it becomes a great way to get a deep profile of the people we are interested in connecting with. What they talk about is, at least in part, who they are.