There Are No Rules In Social Media, Be A Guide Not An Expert
by
on July 26, 2008,
The latest trend in the Twitterverse seems to be one of rules, rules, rules. This trend toward a kind of social media home owner's association is driven in part by ego and part by a desire for control and power, and it goes against the grain of social media.
Social media and the internet it plays on is organic by nature. Organic concepts scare the pants off of people and companies, especially big enterprise. After so many decades of an economy based on control, this constantly changing, shifting and, above all else, accessible new media has the mental suit wearers cowering in fear.
Over and over again in recent weeks I have cringed in my chair as I watch people on Twitter, Plurk, FaceBook, FriendFeed and other services ask "Well fine, what are the rules, then?" in reply to comments like "you Tweet too much" or "you're doing ___ wrong". The only acceptable answer to that question is that social media is inherently organic and personal, even for companies using it, and there are no rules.
You can't force your rules onto someone else in social media because they may not be using social media tools for the same purpose or in the same way that you do. Whether your tool of choice is Twitter, Plurk or even the much maligned MySpace, each person or company uses each tool in a different way, for a different purpose, that is inherently unique. The beauty of social media, and what I believe will ensure its success, is that it allows for this individuality and keeps working - it grows and changes with any type of use.
It is my opinion that the organic nature of social media is a very basic type of user driven artificial intelligence. By being able to shift on the fly with the people who use it independent of rules, social media becomes more powerful. Enact rules and regulations and limits on how people use it and the growth of this internet infant is stunted. People tend to want to control what they don't understand. In social media, where the near daily changes preclude "experts" and "gurus" and lend themselves more toward "guides" instead, people used to a hierarchy of competition find themselves lost.
These lost bureaucrats will always try to dampen your style and control the world around them, even when they don't understand it. They were the hall monitors in school, the tattle tales, the puritans. If social media users concentrate on the team building and community building that is currently going on, and make a concerted effort to change the landscape of ebusiness from that of the expert, always competing, to that of a guide, always leading and learning, social media will thrive. It is up to the users of social media to use it in whatever way works for them, exercising common courtesy and ignoring the naysayers.
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Svetlana Gladkova
Bighorn
Opensource 
Michael Fidler 
I agree. There are people that want to be experts in social media. But there is a lot more talk than expertise. I don’t think that’s a problem, except for the people who want to convince other people that they are experts.
I think there are plenty of people with something to teach us. I think I have something to teach. I also think that there is still much to learn, which is why I shy away from rule setting and from calling ourselves “experts”. I think the term sets us up to fail by missing change and opportunities. Call me a “guide”, a “leader” or any term that shows I have knowledge to share but am still learning and that makes me happier.
Thank you for the post. I will include it as a reference for a Web 2.0 educational blog post I’ll be doing soon. Apart from that, this is a tangential thought that crossed my mind in regard to what you have posted and it is more concerned with the effect of social media as it represents chronological western thought. It occurs that as more people embrace the less hierarchical philosophy (postmodernist) of shared leadership/teaching, ie, “The Guide” but not “Expert”, there is a contrasting culture on the other side of western thought that retains the top-down approach but is NOT servant-leadership-oriented (which is the benevolent, but orderly top-down approach). This particular culture is rather radically hierarchical in a non-benevolent top-down, no questions asked, approach which is the “quick and dirty” way of getting things done with brutal efficiency. Some would characterize this philosophy that I am describing as patriarchal, but I would interject that view needs qualification. Some hierarchical systems (experts/leaders) are darkly patriarchal (as is what I am describing) and some are not. But either way, they achieve consensus faster. This is extremely important to take notice of while small in impact as philosophical methodologies tend to morphs across the other disciplines and activities of life. They rarely stay put where they emerge. So when “The Guide” methodology gets to positions of defense against aggression, you and I will not want a guide, we will want and need an expert and a leader but who is also a servant. Because then, at some point, something needs to be decided as absolute. That very position is diametrically opposed to all that the “guide, shared leadership, postmodern relativist” would espouse. But I would assert that such a position would seem a matter of mixing up our “tools” of thought in order to avoid small conflicts at the expense of creating larger and less easily addressable conflicts . I think we must be careful not to mix up our “tools” in the toolbox and use one “tool” all the time because it appears to “fix” a past problem, ie, abuses. Such is what we now appear to be doing with our attitudes about leadership, teaching, learning, and abuse. There are dangerous implications to such linear movements in our thinking.
Hi Leslie,
I agree with your post, but would choose the phrase “more familiar with” rather than “expert.” My job is to help clients with their social media strategy, but I’m not an expert. I have been using these tools for a while, so feel very comfortable with them, and confident that I can “guide” (good term by the way) people in using them.
Cheers,
John Carson
Senior Digital Media Specialist
GCI Canada
Thanks for the response here and in email, everyone. The words we use to describe ourselves will determine how successful this social media wave is, in part, and I’m keen to promote the concept of us as guides and leaders, working WITH people, not experts dragging them along behind us.