I decided to focus on all things related to the online community around the end of the 90’s until now. Many developments happened, nowadays, it would seem out of date if we do not know what is social media. Even though the gap on time is long and a lot of progress is still happening, but the core of everything has not changed much: community management.
The thing that changed is the medium. The first time I got to know community management, the popular media back then was mailing list while nowadays, the hip one is social media.
Brian Solis’s writing on August 2007, Social Media is About Sociology Not Technology, makes me look back and have to agree to what he described in his writing. But if I may add, there is also Psychology aside from Sociology that plays a very important role in the management of social media.
I’m sure that most of you would agree if I categorized social media as a container, just like the mailing list in 1997-1998. Although time passes, I can say that in most cases, human beings have not changed much. Human character in interacting with each other has not changed much. Once again, the only thing that changed is the media.
In his writing, Brian Solis says:
The bottom line is that we have to understand the sociology of social networks before we can either write them off as a useless tool or more importantly, participate in them.
Many brands and management service providers determine the activity of social media that they want to use in the early stages before they decide on what they want to do. As a result, many are panicking because of market response to the opening of the public channel. Yes, that’s what would happen if the decision to plunge into social media is not preceded by a proper introduction to the brand character and the selection of a suitable social media. Even sometimes, a brand does not need a social media.
Communication skills, ability to interact (sociology) and the ability to recognize character (psychology) of a community will remain as the foundation of all your online community activities, whether using social media or other media that might emerge in the coming years. So stop focusing only on the technology (media) without equipping yourself with knowledge and skills in managing online community.
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Abang Edwin is a practitioner of online community management since 1998 long before the term of social media / social networks appear in the internet world. He began his journey by experimentation with several online communities which eventually successful at that, to this day he still gives consultations about knowing character and foster online communities for brands / agencies and individuals.
He was at Yahoo! for over 4 years as a community manager. Currently he is Country Manager – Indonesia for Thoughtbuzz.net, a social media monitoring company.
