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I used to research. Now I retweet. And I’m not alone.
Learn how I, and millions of others, make Social Media our new priority Search sources. And why you, as a marketer or Brand expert, should care.
I used to Search. And I used to NetWork.
Now I NetSearch.
Once upon a time, long ago, in times like 1995, we netizens began to research a topic via an online database. Then we began to research our topics via an online Search engine (and Google became a verb in several languages). Sometimes we netizens would even end up in a database, provoking a fit of nostalgia (Ah, JSTOR and my university days). Now the era of the database is, well, not past, but somewhat passé.
Students, my littlest bro, still in uni, tells me, still go to the database to find the citations to back up the ideas for essays that they’ve already written “on paper” (a.k.a., in a Microsoft Word document). Students search and cite as they write, switching between “windows”, that is Windows’ Word and online Search windows. I only wish my professors had permitted me to cite via hyperlink rather than footnote. I submit that hyperlink citations would make professors’ jobs easier. They could clickthrough to check the source, rather than “Google scholar” the footnote. (Yes, beloved Profs, we know you use Search engines too. Libraries are just too time-consuming when you’re on a deadline.)
Now, students, marketers, and I don’t need to research or Google Scholar or even just Google most of the time. I follow people on Twitter. The people that I follow tweet, I tweet, and we all retweet. And we decrease exponentially the time we once spent on Search, scholarly or otherwise. We don’t have to Search–we “NetSearch” via our networks.
Twitter and Facebook are my personal favourites.
On Twitter, I follow many of the people who follow all the subjects that I need to know about. They follow the people that I can’t or don’t follow, and these people also follow the subjects that my followers and following want to know about. It’s my Twitter NetSearch. Twhirl provides constant computer headlines giving me the latest, up-to-date “NetSearch” info in small bubbles found at the right-hand corner of my computer screen.
Facebook I use to post the articles that I feel require small group discussion. I send an article to my Facebook friends who would, I think, want to discuss the article topic. They “send all” to reply with their thoughts. We Facebook Friends create our own little online mini-discussion groups.
I do the same thing via my personal blogs and favourite bloggers, responding to commentors who, in return, respond to commentors, who reply, who respond…These are people I “know”, or we “know”, people who, through time and NetSearching have come be sources that I, and the people who trust me, that is, we trust. We/they are content creators our online networks have verified and learned to value over time.
This is no longer search or research. This is NetSearch.
It’s social, it’s media, and it’s online. This is the social search that makes up the buzz that Attentio’s tools monitor and measure, making NetSearching easier for you and your Brand.
from Onemanandhisblog.com
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