Media in the New Millennium

posted by Doyle

I remarked to my co-workers the other day that I was tired of newbies on Facebook “pelting me with snowballs, buying me drinks and begging me to work on their farm.”

Upon further reflection, my comment was off base.

What I was wrongly complaining about is the natural evolution of social media that comes with increasing adoption, and that’s a good thing — I’ll talk about the etiquette I’d like to see develop next in a moment.

What is this natural evolution? It’s the simple fact that the larger the number of people that use anything, the more ways to use and enjoy that thing will be discovered. In the early days of television, there were only two or three choices of programs to watch, so everyone watched pretty much the same two or three things. Now, the choices are nearly limitless, and tastes vary widely. Outside of football, two of the top-rated programs for the week ending Jan. 10 were “Desperate Housewives” and “The Biggest Loser.” There’s not enough beer in Boulder to get me to watch either of those, but clearly, millions of people enjoy them. Does that mean they’re wrong? Are they TV newbies who just don’t know any better? Not at all. It means those people like something different than I do.

The same thing is happening in social media. Twitter recently published the top trending topics in a variety of categories, and I was quite surprised. I’m on Twitter quite often, and my peer set didn’t discuss the large majority of those topics. (I’ll admit I had to Google “Glee” to find out what it even was!) Again, these people aren’t misuing Twitter, nor are they ill-informed newbies, they’re talking about what they want to talk about.

So, what if you’re like me and have no interest in Mafia Wars, Farmville or the nitty-gritty details of American Idol? I hope the answer lies in a continuing evolution of social media etiquette. It’s simple: you don’t walk into a room full of friends watching TV and change the channel without asking, and if someone asks you to change it back, you probably should. The same idea holds true for social media — don’t change the channel without asking, and if some of your friends don’t respond to repeated snowball attacks and gift offerings, maybe they’d like a different program.

The first thing we should do online — as companies or individuals — is listen. Pay attention to what your friends and online acquaintances are telling you, both directly and indirectly. There are thousands of viewing choices on TV and thousands of ways to use every social network. Just as you have friends that like to watch football and friends that like foreign films, you’ll have friends online that love games, for example, and those who hate them.

Listen. It’s the most important part of social media etiquette.

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