Charlene Li at Forrester Research has introduced a new buzzphrase: social technographics.
It’s all about using the right technologies to build relationships.
Social Technographics Reaches The Audience
Just because you can videoblog doesn’t mean you should. For one thing, Vanessa Fox isn’t going to watch it.
For another, it may not be the best fit for your audience.
Li co-authored the latest look at technology in the increasingly social aspects of the Internet.
Their strategy suggestions regarding social technographics consider some factors before encouraging deployment of the latest and greatest technology to arrive:
Many companies approach social computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed – a blog here, a podcast there – to achieve a marketing goal. But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.
Li and co-author Josh Bernoff said there are six types of participation that take place online:
Creators – publish sites, blogs, or other content like video Critics – comment on blogs and post ratings Collectors – collect RSS feeds and tag web pages Joiners – the social networking crowd Spectators – read blogs, listen to podcasts, watch peer generated videos Inactives – non-participatory
To get the most out of their social technographics, a business has to understand its audience.
“It’s my belief that not everyone is cut out from the start to be a Creator; nor is everyone inclined to jump with both feet into social networking,” said Li. “Companies seeking to engage customers with these new tools need to understand where their audiences are with this categorization.”
