FEATURE Web 2.0
Integrate, not separate, social media
In 2006 when Charlie Rapple last wrote for us about Web 2.0, the term was new and rather mysterious. Five years on, it’s become part of the strategy of many scholarly publishers. She shares some tips about how to make best use of what this technology offers
to pin down its meaning (‘social’ use of the web), its potential applications (data tagging and sharing, community building, content discovery, apps and mashups), and its weaknesses (issues around authority, trust, adoption and business models). Looking back at the article now, I’m relieved that it still reads sensibly. However, my main reaction is to marvel that I could have written 1,500 words on the topic without any of them being ‘Facebook’ or ‘Twitter’; both services that had just about gone public at the time of writing and have since dwarfed those that I did mention (which are at least all still extant, if not household names – Rollyo, anyone?). I suggested that usage of the term ‘Web 2.0’ would decline, and indeed it has been largely superseded by the term ‘social media’. Given our community’s continued preoccupation with the latter, it seems a
F 20 Research Information DEC 2011/JAN 2012
ive years ago, I wrote an article for Research Information about Web 2.0 in scholarly publishing. At the time, ‘Web 2.0’ was the buzziest of buzz-phrases, and I attempted
sensible lens through which to scrutinise our five-year-old concerns. What has changed, and where are we now?
Critical mass Of course, the most recognisable change is the levels of penetration and awareness that social media have achieved since those heady, early days. You know the stats – Facebook would be the world’s third largest country, with 800 million ‘inhabitants’; 90 per cent of journalists use social media to find stories, 90 per cent of millennials use social networks. I’d add a rough estimate that ‘90 per cent of publishers have set up a social media account’, and a harsh-but-possibly-true ‘90 per cent of them aren’t sure why.’ Social media has moved from being the preserve of the early adopters to become the remit of the marketing department, but although it is well aligned, strategically, with other marketing trends – toward personalisation, recommendation and advocacy marketing – its deployment is typically not well structured around core objectives. At the same time, there has been
a continuing shift in end users’ expectations, whether that is in terms of accessibility of content or in terms of responsiveness of providers, which can also in part be addressed by effective engagement with social media.
Brand control Given the breadth of its relevance, it’s important to consider how social media can serve – and should fit with – different strategic perspectives. At the highest level, there are brand implications – both in terms of how brand values are conveyed in social media activity, but also in terms of how social media moves control of the brand from its owner to its audience. This is perhaps the most significant aspect of the social media ‘revolution’ (indeed, is perhaps the only sense in which social media actually represents a revolution, rather than evolution of the existing approaches). This is at the heart of why many organisations
remain cautious about engaging. The ease with which a brand’s audience (for example, a journal’s readers, or a publisher’s customers) can now find each other and discuss our
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