I’ve been thinking about the terminology that we use to describe our relationships on various social networks. I “follow” people on Twitter and people “follow” me back. I have “friends” on Facebook. I am “linked” to people on LinkedIn. The “follow” relationship is the one I find most fascinating.
When you “follow” someone, you:
Accept them as a guide or leader
Imitate or follow their example
Watch their movement or progress
While I understand that my “followers” on Twitter probably don’t see me as a leader, there are certainly people on Twitter who I “follow” because I consider them thought leaders and I want to know what they’re reading and thinking. Think about it. We never say that we “follow” a Web site, company or newsletter, but we do say that we “follow” someone’s blog. I know I consider it a high compliment when someone tells me that they “follow” my blog.
In the book Tribes, marketing guru Seth Godin tells us it’s human nature to want to be part of a group that shares a common passion and recognizes the same leader; in other words, most of us want to be part of a tribe. Further, Seth believes that using the Web and social networking tools, everyone can now find or assemble a tribe and lead it.
So I say to each of you and your organizations: People want to follow, are you ready to lead?
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Last week, I attended and spoke at the International Foundation’s Technology and Benefit Communications Conference, held in Boston, MA. I spoke on the topic of “Next-Generation Tools to Enhance Your Communications,” or next-gen tools to communicate benefits to employees. At the end of the conference, there was an Open Forum, during which select speakers took questions from the in person and...
Text to speech free is above. Text to speech with Polly is below. Using Joana neural voice. [tta_listen_btn] Listen to this article I've been thinking a lot about work 3.0 and how to make sure that my company continues to foster collaboration and create social capital, even though we're all remote. I found this great article in Forbes by Dr. Gleb...
I’ve been thinking about the terminology that we use to describe our relationships on various social networks. I “follow” people on Twitter and people “follow” me back. I have “friends” on Facebook. I am “linked” to people on LinkedIn. The “follow” relationship is the one I find most fascinating.