One of our favourite models of social media here at NM Towers is Forrester’s excellent (although cringeworthingly buzzwordy titled) ‘Social Technographics Ladder.’
Don’t let the name put you off – this model is just a simple and useful description of the different types of behaviour that people have come to adopt using social platforms and tools on the web:
- Creators: Publish blogs; upload video; create articles etc
- Critics: Post ratings and reviews; comment on other content; take part in forum discussions
- Collectors: Use RSS feeds and social bookmarking tools like Delicious and Digg
- Joiners: Maintain a profile on social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn
- Spectators: Read, watch, and listen to social media content but don’t actively participate
- Inactives: Do none of the above
It’s described as a ladder because the participation becomes more active as you progress from Spectating to Creating.
I was thinking about structuring a presentation on social media around these behaviours but it occurred to me that the important social behaviour of ‘sharing’ doesn’t seem to neatly fit in the model. For example sending a viral video to your friends by email or via a social network; sending links to colleagues and peers using Delicious; or embedding someone else’s content from YouTube or Slideshare into a blog post.
It’s definitely closely related to publishing, but you’re not actually creating anything new so it doesn’t fit at the top of the ladder. It’s also closely related to the Critic behaviour because you’re performing an action on existing content, but again, you’re not adding anything new. I think sharing is a cousin of collecting: Posting to Digg is a form of sharing, but to me, collecting is about taking, whereas sharing is about giving.
I posted a question about where sharing fits in the model on Twitter and got back some helpful replies:
Lauren wrote: “Good question. Facilitated by creators, but think it deserves its own rung. Need to identify how to turn critics into sharers…”
Steve replied: “On every rung I’d say. Creators share by publishing, critics share by commenting, collectors distribute their collections etc etc”
Dave said: “somewhere between “critics” and “collectors” I reckon, but it seems like an omission to me…”
I agree with Steve that there’s something over-arching about sharing that applies to the other behavious as well, but I do think that Dave and Lauren are correct that sharing deserves its own rung on the ladder. This isn’t about getting hung up on definitions in a navel-gazing way. If Forrester created a new run for sharing, they could specifically survey for this behaviour so we could see what its adoption was like within our target demographics (which I think would be much higher than the 5% of UK Internet users who are currently collectors,) and it would help to prompt us to look at ways to turn people lower down the ladder into sharers.
What do you think?
3 Comments
Interesting post as there is clearly a differentiation to be made between originators and distributors, but I’m not sure that this is what Forrester were trying to convey when they built the ladder.
As they say themselves it’s a framework to allow individuals or business to “create a social strategy based on that profile” when thinking of engaging in social media activities so sharing isn’lt integral to the ladder.
Sharing is implied, but in this model they are talking more about the processes before creation. It’s creation which is nirvana here – that stage beyond just distribution or response – where individuals are so engaged that they orginate.
This is where success has to be measured – not as a retweet or a favourable comment – but where those individuals motivated enough (and presumably therefore more influential) publish.
Excellent, I love it when people see our work, and think about it, and build off of it, and you’ve done just that.
Let me see if I can help. First of all, note that people can participate in more than one behavior –except for inactives.
Yup, Steve is on to it.
Sharing is actually done through a few of the behaviors. Creators, critics, collectors, and to some degree joiner behaviors are actually sharing content.
As they publish, comment, social bookmark, Facebook with each other, they are sharing content with others.
Where is sharing NOT occurring? Well in spectating (they are reading, listening, or watching only) and of course inactives (they do none of the above)
So, to answer your question –sharing is certainly included in the ladder.
As models go the ladder is really simplistic although a good tool to get businesses thinking about how the social web may be applicable to their customers and at which points they can step in and engage. Which I guess is what it’s designed for.
It seems two dimensional to me. I’d like to see the model expanded to signify the crossover between rungs and to include sharing. It might also be more useful if it included other attributes of users such as engagement level (voyeur, participant, influencer etc).
Back on the topic of sharing; I see it as an activity that all rungs of the ladder take part in.
Question: Inactives; are there really any? Or does this signify non web users?