Social Technographics

As it seems that some of TEC CHers are interested in exploring the use of social media in the field of cultural heritage, I found useful to share some ideas I found interesting in article from Charline Li for Forrester research about ladder of participation - Forrester’s new Social Technographics report. In the report, the author categorizes social computing behaviours into a ladder of six levels of participation and analyses the population according their participation to these levels. Presented as “Social Technographics” the result is an useful set of data that helps understanding how people use social technology. In the result they “group consumers into six different categories of participation – and participation at one level may or may not overlap with participation at other levels. We use the metaphor of a ladder to show this, with the rungs at the higher end of the ladder indicating a higher level of participation.”

This distribution, according to the level of participation, is interesting since it allows companies to understand how audiences are likely to get involved with social media, hence helping developing a relevant strategy. For example, a teenager and a senior will both interact with social media but will participate in very different ways. Young people will be more actively involved with these tools while adults will be more “passives”.
Understanding the audience is at the core of any social media strategy. It is very important to define who the target is before choosing the tools that are more likely to match their audience expectations and social media usage.