Connor BrookeAt the recent Wharton Global Alumni Forum, hosted by the presitgious Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the subject of “disruption” was front and center and the fact that “… a fundamental shift is taking place online, from an information-based web to the ‘people web.'”
I don’t know about you but when I was a kid being slapped with the label of “disruptive” wasn’t exactly one would put on their resume but apparently in s
ocial media’s case, it’s a good thing… a very good thing.
“Whenever we use the word ‘disruptive’ in the business we’re in, that’s a positive thing,” said entrepreneur and Lotus 1-2-3 designer Mitch Kapor who was a speaker at the aforementioned forum. He was joined on the panel entitled “New Directions for Social Media” by Ethan Beard, Facebook’s director of platform partnerships; Wharton Digital Press executive editor Shannon Berning, Bryan Srabian, director of social media for the San Francisco Giants and Travis Katz, a former MySpace executive and founder and CEO of travel recommendations site Gogobot.
Accoridng to Katz, “Web 2.0 was centered on user-generated content, where anyone could be a publisher. We’re now in the third wave — I call it a social wave.” He is referring to of course to the social media revolution or as Beard puts it “… the fundamental shift taking place online, from an information-based web to the “people web.” I would change the tense in Mr. Beard’s statement just a tad and say that the fundamental shift has already taken place.
In either case, social media has caused a massive disruption in businesses both small and large and all points in between…
“The question is no longer ‘Why?’.’ The conversation has shifted into, ‘How do I do this and how do I do it well?'” said Beard speaking of the urgency businesses now have in determining the best use of social media in their overall marketing strategies. Katz agreed, adding: “If you are in a consumer-facing business, you need to be on social media because people are talking about your business, and you need to know what they are saying, and you need to be solving problems.”
The bottom line in ALL of this is social media has made and will continue to have a profound effect on everything a business/advertiser/company/etc does now and in the future for the simple fact that people, not information, are now driving the bus. One of my recent posts (How Social Media Affects Search Marketing) brings this to light in terms of Search Marketing and the impact people, AKA social media, have on what was previously thought to be information-generated only, Search.
Some questions for marketers, business owners, etc…
- Are you using social media to be “disruptive?’
- Or broadening the scope, are you “disruptive” at all i.e. challenging and questioning the accepted norms?
Sources: Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Knowledge @Wharton, Google Images, How Social Media Has Disrupted The Internet
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Connor Brooke.
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Great article definitely the web 2.0 is emerging and social media can’t be ignore anymore qualifying the new generation of social wave is so true cause new research has found that social networking is growing every seconds