Social Media: A Collaborative Effort

Prior to joining Collective Bias as an intern, I had my own mental picture of what social media was. I knew how to use it—clicking “Tweet” is really not that hard—and I was quite active. It was a sad, sad
(yet enlightening) day when I realized I had been going about the whole thing wrong.

I had been creating a whole bunch of content, but I wasn’t really engaging anyone. There weren’t
any conversations and I certainly didn’t seek to join any. I was more concerned with people
listening, or rather, reading what I had to say.

I remember when I had my “ah-ha” moment. I was participating in my first Twitter party in the office. I had been put on “spam control,” yet I was still trying to keep up with the conversation zipping by on
my screen. Then, it happened. It started with a single announcement: “WE’RE A TRENDING TOPIC!”
Soon, the entire office was buzzing with cheer and applause. I joined in the fanfare and merriment until
it all sunk in. “Wait,” I thought to myself, “we made a trending topic.”

That’s right. Not one person, but a group of people from all over made a trending topic. Even better,
it all occurred from natural conversation. Of course we in the office noticed our accomplishment,
but everyone else in the Twittersphere was busy chatting away. They were engaged. They weren’t
concerned with making a trending topic; they were concerned with having a conversation.

Creating conversations is essentially what Collective Bias is about, connecting shoppers with brands
by setting up the playing field for them to come together. It’s not about how many times we can tweet
or how many blog posts we can write. It’s all about REAL people talking to other REAL people about REAL brands. It’s truly what makes social media so social, and that’s precisely what I had been
missing—social.

Social media isn’t about one person talking; it’s about a group of people talking. It’s collaborative. It’s
engagement. Just like you can’t expect to make avocado dip with just avocados, you can’t expect to
create a trending topic on your own. If people aren’t coming to you to talk, go to them to talk. If people
aren’t responding to your content, find out what people are wanting or find where your content is
needed. Simply, it’s about bringing together all the ingredients to make #awesomesauce, and to that my friends, I say “bon appetite.”

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