Brian Solis is a PR guy. Naturally, he doesn’t refer to himself as such, becasue “digital analyst, sociologist, and futurist” sounds so much better.
Speaking of sounding so much better, Solis does us the favor of distinguishing between today’s Facebook “Like” and the old “Fan” motif that FB used to employ.
In Facebook, it’s not just about who we’re connected to, it’s about those we’re not. What started as “Fans” has evolved to “Likes” and in that simple shift in phraseology comes something quite profound. “Fans” implies a hierarchical relationships where brands publish at will to a community that feels a bit more like a traditional audience. “Likes” begets a linear form of relationships where we earn the endorsement of a social consumer, but in order to foster a community, we have to continue to do so. This introduces a peer-to-peer (P2P) dynamic where rather than program our Facebook activity from a top-down perspective, we now have to consider an active participatory role in earning Likes, attention, and hopefully advocacy much more frequently than we may have anticipated initially.
Solis himself is busy earning attention with his new YouTube channel, BrianSolisTV. Here’s an early episode:
Which leads me to wonder about YouTube’s own “Like” button. It can’t be as good as Facebook’s. And really, is there room for more than one “Like” button in your life?
