What is good social strategy; is fundamentally changing. Instead of everyone wanting to match competitor's social strategy (they have a blog and Facebook so I should have a blog and Facebook.)

We should be creating unique social experience that differentiate us from competitors. Apple wants their products to be unique from other computers and Abercrombie wants their shopping experience to... [read more]

What is good social strategy; is fundamentally changing. Instead of everyone wanting to match competitor's social strategy (they have a blog and Facebook so I should have a blog and Facebook.)

We should be creating unique social experience that differentiate us from competitors. Apple wants their products to be unique from other computers and Abercrombie wants their shopping experience to be different from other stores....Why shouldn't we want social experiences to be different enough from competitors that the experience itself becomes part of the brand?

Powerful example = NBC's local TV stations where they swapped out comments on news articles for a custom feedback system where people register their mood for how an article makes them feel. This exponentially increased interactions and gave people a new way to find local news. Instead of browsing random categories like "Around Town" NBC visitors find news in their city that people are laughing at... or news people are furious about.

The unique interactions have rocketed NBC's numbers in a commodotized space (same boring stuff on ABC, CBS, local newspaper, radio) In just 12 months they DOUBLED registered users to 12 Million and TRIPLED traffic in an industry that is lucky to get a 10% increase: http://bit.ly/bd2dpD