Reading David Byrne's (of Talking Heads fame) book How Music Works it got me thinking about how as people we love to personalise our entertainment.
In my younger days I would spend hours recording songs from the radio on to a mix tape - because I loved to listen to what I wanted to listen to rather what the radio stations wanted me to hear. The interesting thing is that this aspect of personalisation didn't stop me from still purchasing music.....infact...I bought the Kindle book by David Byrne following reading a blog post about it!!!
Why I love the social web is that it has widened that concept across my whole life. I can create the mix of social interactions that I want to have with the outside world. Again contrary to what people say, that doesn't mean that I only ever interact with free apps or free offers on the web....
...It just means that I can have a social mix of interactions - some paid for with money (blogging), others paid for through access to my personal data (Facebook).
From a business perspective this means that brands can use the social web to interact with me to showcase their latest "hits", then I can pix and mix the choice that makes sense for me as a consumer. It means that brands can offer a free insight to engage me to buy the
whole album of ideas!
Brands are almost like the bands of my youth....showcase on a social platform then let me decide. However this shows up one key factor.....Google has become the new disc jockey!! So if you are not offering content to Google ( or Bing etc) then your ideas will never be "aired" and I will never get the chance to choose your idea.
For a small business my social mix tape is a cross between me as a person and me as a company -
What would your social mixtape say?
