Exploring social business strategy

I’ve been trying to immerse myself in the world of social media over the last few months, and it has been quite an eye-opening experience. As I’ve navigated this remarkably inter-connected little world I’ve probably read several thousand blog posts on the topic, and most of these – predictably – seem to focus on the people Malcolm Gladwell would call the “mavens” and “connectors”.

For the six of you that may not have read his book, “mavens” are the intense gatherers of information and impressions that are most likely to pick up on new trends, and “connectors” are people with a broad network of acquaintances that trust their opinion. Whether the actual term used is “trend setter”, “nfluencer”, “bzzagent”, or any of the many of the others you are likely to come across in the social media blogosphere, the focus seems to primarily be on how these two types of people are using new social media tools.

Seeing this led me to ponder a simple question – what about everyone else? What about that staggeringly large group of people that are neither mavens nor connectors (and particularly those one might call anti–social) – are their social media appetites distinctly different, and if so what are the implications for companies pursuing a social media strategy? More pointedly, will this great mass of people slowly get in line with the adoption curve that mavens and connectors are setting in social media, or might they do something totally different – something that would put some of the prevailing theories regarding cohort behavior into question? To begin looking into this issue, I wanted to start with a particular application where I sense line is being drawn in the sand – Twitter.

The mavens discovered Twitter quite a long time ago, and the connectors were quick to jump in as well – what better way to influence an extended network of people than through micro-blogging your thoughts throughout the day? However, based on a very unscientific poll of people that I know, I’ve found that a lot of people that are typically quick adopters of new technology have reactions to Twitter ranging from hesitation to downright loathing. In short, they don’t want to open themselves up to the constant stream of thoughts that seem to pour out of Twitter– even if it’s from people who’s opinion has (whether they admit it or not) been influential to them in the past.

Stating again that this is just a hunch I have and it may be totally off base, my sense is that this new platform that is quite adored by connector-types in particular is not necessarily a way that a large proportion of people want to be connected with – which to me raises some interesting questions about the adoption curves of certain social media tools and applications, particularly for companies looking to move some of their marketing spend in this direction. I’ll also note that, based on what I’ve been reading, someone that says they’re “in” to social media, but doesn’t like Twitter, is similar to someone saying they’re “in” to the Red Sox, but doesn’t like Manny Ramirez David Ortiz.

So the question goes out to wikinomics readers – is anyone else seeing this? And whether the answer is yes or no, does the topic of “social media for the anti-social” seem like an interesting idea to pursue? Could the interests and behaviors of people outside the network of mavens and connectors be pointing towards an outcome few are expecting? Will the “anti-social” group just avoid social media all together, simply opt to use it in a different way – or are they going to grudgingly “come around”?