We have succeeded in making the web social, though it could be argued that it always was. It’s just become easier to participate. Talk, listen, collaborate, learn, connect, sell… all of which have made us victims of our own success.
Social web content has proliferated just as more traditional web content proliferated in the web’s previous generation. Additionally, social web tools make it much easier to target messaging to people, rather than just publishing and praying.
And so two kinds of activities and tools have evolved. One kind intended to improve opting in, and the other intended to improve opting out.
Companies are figuring out how to manage and measure social web content — their own and and that which users and customers create relating to them. And there are a number of companies hard at work in this space developing tools to help better measure what matters and engage with the right folks (the PostRank team included).
But what’s good for the Facebook-posting goose is good for the tweeting gander. Those folks who are commenting and creating content and with whom companies want to engage have their own tools to aggregate and filter and whittle down the information fire hose to manageable levels. Uh oh.
It’s a bit ironic when you think about it. How do we better use automated tools to more efficiently manage our surfeit of human interactions? 
Those of us in the business of social web management need to start thinking about the next generation of tools while the first is still evolving. Not in a devious, get-around-the-filters way, but in ways that better connect the people who want to talk over the topics they want to discuss.
I got thinking about all this yesterday thanks to a section from Mitch Joel’s The Dirty Little Secret of the Twitter Elite blog post:
“The next generation of the Social Web is all about filters and aggregators, so don’t be insulted.
Moreover:
Countless Blog posts and Podcast rants have covered the discussion that a real personal brand is not scalable, so this is what it comes down to. People have finite time and limited ability to engage full-on in conversations (afterall, they do have to earn a living at some point), so the individual who can best manage their personal brand and the myriad of conversations is faced with the reality of having to be ruthless in their Social Media diet.
The bigger question is this: how much longer can we continue to use the words “Social Media” if every day, the majority of the power users are doing everything they can to filter out and aggregate their personal preferences — essentially rendering them less social?
It’s a helluva quandary for companies, agencies, community builders, etc. How do you reach those who are not only quite adept at filtering using their own brains and eyes, but also have tools comparable to your own to manage social web content, be it carpet bomb general or very personally targeted?
It’s an equal quandary for those of us building social web management tools, and one that I think relates to discussions I’m starting to see lately. Sure, one could go about it in black hat fashion, employing the aforementioned deviousness, but the internets aren’t stupid, and the socially web savvy are even harder to fool for very long. (And when you make them mad, they tell people… who tell more people…) It’s not a winning strategy.
I think the right strategy is actually a continuation of what we’re already starting to suss out. We’ve largely figured out how to gather and analyze data of all kinds, but the next generation (or, perhaps, just iteration, given the speed at which the internet conducts its affairs) of tools needs to help us figure out what to do with that information in specific situations.
When is it a good idea to engage — or not? What sites or voices are up-and-comers and would be good to engage with asap? Where do we tend to get the most traction with our messaging, and do we want to encourage or try to shift that? Social web management tools will have to help answer these questions to truly be valuable to those using them.
Those answers are already the key to higher quality and more effective engagement — being transparent, conversing rather than broadcasting, etc., but it’s also the key to social web filter management.
Addressing genuine issues, as opposed to generic blast messaging or possibly feeding the trolls, shows savvy in addition to taking initiative in “joining the conversation”. We’re all inclined to listen more to people who appear to have a clue what they’re talking about.
Those with much to say and ambition to become influential in a particular sphere will be more receptive to offers and input than those who already have all the speaking gigs and book contracts they can handle.
And understanding where dedicated communities gather, as well as their cultures and hierarchies, demonstrates respect for and familiarity with those who do you the favour of being passionate about your work.
Interestingly, while the current generation of tools may, by necessity, be making us effectively less social, I think the next generation of tools will help us become more effectively social again, in a way that’s less quantity and more quality, with those who are, as Havi Brooks calls them, our Right People.
*Photo from Rick Mercer’s “BlackBerry Helmet” sketch on the Mercer Report.
