17.05.2009Streams in digital media for business by Rob Smith
2008 to 2009 is really the emergence of streams into the common culture.
Let me explain what I mean. A stream is simply a set of information that is updated all the time by events, communication, conversation, anything that could be occurring right now. Generally a lot of people are now signed up to Facebook. The information you get when you sign into Facebook is effectively your Facebook life stream. It’s what you and your friends are doing, saying, feeling, thinking right now and it’s constantly updated. Twitter is another even faster moving example of a stream.
So if you’re a business – what does this mean to you? Well you need to think about what opportunities, if any, there are to fit into that stream. The online store Zappos does this really well. Anytime someone mentions Zappos on Twitter they reply to that, with a human response, saying thanks, or offering help. Great service, great response, great customer engagement. don’t go too far though or people will think you’re invaded their space – banks for instance are organisations that generally try to push their message, not listen to their audience and so can get caught out by this backlash of personal intrusion.
So, think about how your organisation could fit well into a life stream – but don’t push it. The best way is to use the stream to help a person or to spread word of mouth recommendations (of course this can work the other way!)
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