So many attempts to define, describe, deconstruct and analyze social media, I thought I would piece together an article speaking to the relationship of social media in our everyday lives. Here is my humble attempt to share my thoughts on social media.

Unique heads /Unique Hair styles

I thought this was a particularly funny and interesting one to start off a discussion about social media and visiting a hair stylist. Everyone has their own unique head. Big heads, little heads, weird shaped heads, Bumps, dents, big foreheads, little foreheads.This means that we can’t all have the same sleek hairstyle of Anderson Cooper. How does this relate to a discussion about social media?

I was a participant at the Ad:Tech Shanghai 2008 social media breakfast sponsored by RazorFish. If you were one of the fortunate few that got up earlier enough, it was unprecedented access to some of the coolest social media campaigns out there. I posed a question to Royce Lee of e-crusade (A Razor Fish Co.) on the issue of the size and scope of a social media campaign as it related to the size of the company. Well, just like a good hairstyle, each customer will be unique and require fine-tuning. Different methods and approaches will need to be considered for small-to-medium sized companies than the global scope of larger companies such as starbucks or ford.

Word of Mouth: The madness of all the chit chatter of a hair stylist.

Just like a good social media campaign. The hair stylist job is to have his/her ear to the ground and listens to their customers. They start the conversation and gain insight from their customer feedback. In most cases, the strength of the hair stylist is that they get instant reactions and feedback from the victim sitting in the stylist chair. Social media advocates strive for meaningful conversations and I think I will point you to Brian Solis and his excellent article on online conversations for further ideas and insights.

As we talked further, my guy was quite insistent on the level of buzz that he was able to get from word of mouth. He is growing his business but he was also aware of the negative impact. Just a like a negative service review on twitter( See: Shel Israel and review of U-Haul) can have a damaging effect on business so to can the people that leave the stylist having finished a negative session and feeling they’re opinions on the style weren’t taken into consideration.

I think social media advocates have all benefited in increased visibility and the co-branding of social media tools. Most recently it has been twitter driving a lot of my word of mouth for “Our Man in Shanghai”, business partners and friends. A retweet is a valuable piece of both word of mouth and part of the social media mix – especially, if you didn’t ask for it. The Word of Mouth Association has a handy Word of Mouth 101

There ya have it! A simple breakdown of my experience at a hair stylist merged with the social media ongoings of “Our Man in Shanghai”.