View from 30,000 feet

I just started following Mike Arauz on Twitter @mikearauz, and while browsing some presentations on social media, I came upon his chart:

which refers to the spectrum of online friendship.  I think this is a very interesting chart as it creates a quanitifiable way of looking at the relationships between people online and ultimately how they evolve.  Now mind you, I do not see this as an absolute since it doesn’t factor in many aspects of “online friendships” and it does look at the primary relationships in somewhat of a vacuum, ie I stumble upon a site/feed/microblog/etc and begin to take even a cursory view of the content, and then become immersed into a relationship with the author, and if we keep that as the thesis, then the chart makes a lot of sense, and we can then apply it to a relationship with a brand and thus becomes another evolution of the standard marketing funnel.

Now I wouldn’t take the spectrum of friendship as the be all and end all of social media relationships to CRM, but you can derive a considerable amount of strategic influence from such doc.  I created a starting point for you to consider. Though not ideal, when you begin to look at social media as marketing it take a bit of the mystification away from it

Below is Mike’s blog post in deeper details, also please note the caveots on the bottom of his post, very relevant.

Mike Arauz: Spectrum of Online Friendship

Blog: Stream of Thoughts
Spectrum of Online Friendship
Update: Part 2, responses to comments here.

“What is a friend?” This question is constantly echoing across the internet. But, digital relationships (just like non-digtal ones) are not absolute. They are fluid. And online friendship is better described along a spectrum defined by the actions people take and how we feel about them. The more useful question for individuals and brands who are interested in cultivating online friendships is How do I move my friends from acquaintanceship to “best friendliness”? (as I called them on my Friend For Hire flyer PDF)

Last week I wrote about how online friendships are different from what we’ve traditionally called friendships. Digital technology has affected the number of relationships you can maintain, and the intimacy of those relationships, effectively enabling us to create fans who feel like friends.

I wasn’t finished thinking about the nature of online friendship, though.

Click for full size image

Mike Arauz Diagram

Passive Interest
This is the easiest level of engagement. It asks the least of your friends, and achieves the least commitment from us. But, it’s the crucial starting point. I follow my curiosity to you, I’m interested in what I find, and I choose to pay attention. e.g. repeat visits, blog readers, fans, followers, etc.

Active Interest
This is when I care enough to let you know that I care (in a nice way, not in a stalker way . It’s a small step, but a big opportunity for you to identify key members of your audience who are candidates to move along the spectrum. We don’t yet expect a response, we’re just letting you know that we’re listening. e.g. people who leave comments on your blog, wall comments, @replies on Twitter, etc.

Sharing
At this point the audience member starts to become a fan. You and your work become part of my identity as I use it to talk to my own friends about what interests me (remember that we share content for social reasons). I also have made myself more valuable, because I am now partly responsible for the spread of your ideas. e.g. social bookmarking, retweeting links, posting links and content to my own sites and profiles, etc.

Public Dialogue
This is the first phase that requires action on your part. I have either demonstrated an Active Interest or have Shared your work with my own friends. You foster a relationship by responding to my interest in a public forum. By doing so, you make the rest of your friends aware of my existence, and welcome me to the group. e.g. public @replies, referrals in a blog post, and references posted to our various sites and profiles, etc.

Private Dialogue
At this step, we begin to transform mutual interest into mutual trust. We are willing to share thoughts, ideas, experiences with each other directly. We trust each other with direct access, which has increasing value in an increasingly always-on world. e.g. exchanging email, TXT messages, IM, and direct messages on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, etc.

Advocacy
At first glance, Advocacy looks a lot like Sharing. But, the crucial difference is that Advocacy means that I am making an explicit recommendation of you to my friends. It’s too easy now to simply share, all it takes is one click on your bookmark tool bar. Choosing to actually say, “This is important. It’s worth my friends’ time. And I’m willing to risk my own reputation to convince my friends to check it out.” e.g. same tools as Sharing, but different language; usually entails recommending the person or brand, and not just a specific piece of content

Investment
The brass ring of online friendship. This is the most difficult achievement to recognize or quantify. But it’s the most important because it represents the willingness of your friends to take action on your behalf. In the words of former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, “I know it when I see it.” e.g. Your wins are my wins.

The last tier, Investment, became clear to me in the wake of well-wishes deservedly showered on David Armano after his announcement last Friday of his move to the Dachis Corporation. I was one of those well-wishers myself, and was genuinely proud and excited to hear about his new gig.

When I think about people (or brands, or people-brands) who have had success at moving their audience from one end of this spectrum to the other, Armano is one of the first examples that comes to mind. This is why he was able to raise over $15,000 in one night for a friend in trouble. And it’s why thousands of people offered up congratulations when they heard he had taken this new job.

Look at what most brands are measuring in this space. It rarely goes much farther than the first tier, Passive Interest. We count visits, friends, fans, followers, etc. Unfortunately the reasons for these limited metrics have more to do with efficiency than efficacy. These metrics are the easiest thing to measure and they return the biggest numbers. But, as you can see there’s so much more value to be had as we move beyond those basic actions.

Your online ambitions can only be as grand as the quality of the relationships you foster. What would you like to accomplish online? As you move your audience from Passive Interest to Investment the possibilities grow.

Caveats:

* In the digital world, none of these behaviors, even dialogue, requires a reciprocal feeling of friendship on your part. I can be your friend without you being my friend.

* These phases are not absolute gateways. It is possible occasionally to skip over one action or another and to advance to the next phase.

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