Companies want to make money using the social web. I get it. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I’d like to share a few of my observations about the intersection of money and the social web.
When MySpace was acquired by Time Warner all that anyone talked about was how they were going to monetize it. I no longer felt like they’d be interested in anything other than how to make money off of me. I began to distrust their motives at MySpace, or what they were going to do with my information.
If your primary agenda is to make money off of us and you make that known, you’re going to have a hard time. Here’s how I see it. I may be wrong but this has been my observation in addition to how I feel about it.
To succeed in the social web you have to focus on how to provide value.
If you do that, we don’t mind if you make money off of us.
We expect it, but only because we get something out of it.
The monetization can’t come first…at least publicly; it breaks our trust. You have to be part of the community and put us, your customers, first and foremost. This is what many companies forget about these social sites and why so many acquisitions fail. They see people and dollar signs $$$ but they don’t care about the people. The beauty of the social web in my eyes is that it put much of the power back in our hands. The social web is our turf, so play by our rules.