Social Media Is Not Like A Cocktail Party

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I want to dispel the popular notion that social media is like a cocktail party. I shall pontificate.

There are 2 big differences between offline and online interaction– amplitude and permanence.

a mere tweet

At an IRL cocktail party, we cozy up to someone (or a small group) and start sharing. As we connect with THAT person or group, we open up more of ourselves. But there is not a microphone broadcasting our conversation to everyone else at the party, as well as those outside the party, thanks to Google. And even if there were eavesdroppers at the party, they are few– those eavesdropping on social media/Google number in the potential millions. That ability to amplify is one distinguishing feature of social media. That is unlike any cocktail party I’ve ever attended. (Although at the Crazy Country Club in Brooklyn, they used to have microphones in the bathrooms, but that’s another story.)

Also, the IRL cocktail party is transitory, it ends, and conversations vanish, like words writ on water. There is no permanent cocktail party record– only a memory. And memories fade– most folks will forget you danced half-naked on the bar to Super Freak in a drunken haze. Social media, on the other butt cheek, makes permanent your conversations, etching them in Google’s cached memory. That twitpic of your booty on the bar will be there in Google perpetuity. Again, I don’t recall a cocktail party where pictures of your past indiscretions are kept on the wall.

Technorati Tags: social media, cocktail party

jfsellsius

Congratulations on the book, Jim. While I see some basis for comparison of social media to a cocktail party, the differences are such that the comparison does not fit well, based on the characteristics of the medium, permanence and amplitude. And because of these characteristics, the rules of behaving properly are different. I'll give you 2 examples.

If you include laws as rules of behavior, then the legal rules are different between online social media and offline cocktail party-like social interaction. If you have a conversation with a person face to face, it is IMPOSSIBLE to defame that person. If you have that same conversation on social media, you risk defamation because of publication to third parties, EVEN if you didn't mean to do it and it was a mistake.

In a non-legal sense, the rules of behavior are also different. For example, if I have a conversation with a close friend(s)at a cocktail party, we can exchange confidences and very personal information. You would not do this on social media, even with your close friend, because of eavesdroppers. Social media is not an intimate medium and I think we can agree that what the rules permit in an intimate context are not the same on a public street corner.

http://mashable.com/2009/06/01/twitter-related-...

{And while you might court a woman at a cocktail party and ask her for a date and her phone number, I'd say the rules against tacky behavior say don't do it on social media. Hey, but that's just me.}

Jim Tobin

I agree with Miamism. In fact, I wrote the book "Social Media is a Cocktail Party: Why You Already Know the Rules of Social Media Marketing," (http://shortn.it/book/) and it's about how to behave in the social space.

The analogy really holds up. Which is not to say that your points about amplification and content living forever are not entirely accurate. They just don't change the rules of behaving properly, which are very different than the rules of advertising or PR.

miamism

I think the cocktail party metaphor started from accepted and expected social behaviors. You just don't interrupt a conversation at a cocktail party with your banter....you listen and then contribute to the conversation. The idea of broadcasting that same conversation IS definitely what makes social media so powerful. (...and permanence....that could be a big EEEsh for many - or taking single tweets out of context too)

Ken Montville

Interesting first comment there. Hmmm.

Anyway, the cocktail party metaphor...I'm thinking that social media guru types are using the cocktail party metaphor to discourage the proliferation of "Hey, I'm a Realtor. Are you thinking of selling or buying a house? Use my services. I'm really good." type of marketing. The social media gurus want us to "cozy up" to the millions of others on the social media pages as if we were all buddies pounding back the mojitos (social media drink du jour, evidently). We all speak the same language, IMHO, and enoy a good LOL or even ROFLMAO (which would never happen at a IRL cocktail party).

Who knows? It may not be that much longer before the IRL cocktail party chatter is all snippets of 140 characters or status update equivalents - "Work sucks. Wife doesn't. Getting divorced. You?"

Sellsius real estate marketing blog

Social Media Is Not Like A Cocktail Party