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- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Its been a year now since I started the OpenWine Consortium and during that time I’ve spent many many hours thinking about social media, whats good, whats bad, and how can OWC be great. I’ve learned more then I ever imagined and OWC has grown to 3000 people making all sorts of connections, business transactions, business expansion, and even helped to launch a fledgling magazine.
Among the many lessons I’ve learned though, one thing is making me focus OWC and make it even better – SPAM. As a part of trying to make OWC better, I study other sites and social media to understand what makes them particularly effective communications tools. One thing keeps coming back over and over again – MOST of these sites really are driven to create revenue for the owner and almost every one without exception sees the only path to revenue as advertising.
I am the member of dozens of these sites and almost without exception new social media sites are being used as a place to capture your email and send you advertisements.
I started OWC with the mission of creating value for the wine industry by opening new avenues of business and networking using these new tools. I created an “ideas marketplace” where smart people in the wine industry can connect and create new things (profitable or otherwise) or make their existing things better. I plan on forging partnerships that continue to add and deliver more value and push the envelope for the community.
The interesting thing with focusing the site (granted, OWC is more of a virtual trade association than a business and I don’t rely on it for my livelihood so that makes a difference) is that by understanding that a social/business networking site creates value without creating huge “hits” or “uniques” is what seems to make OWC special. I’ve talked to owners of other big sites – social and business – and what I get back more often then not are a series of “hits” and “uniques” and “members at all costs” talks.
It seems to me that people are creating social networks not to further benefit a business or community, but all to often targeting a community that may be inclined to connected in order to drive “hits” and “uniques”. The inevitable byproduct of which are traffic generating techniques, which to the untrained ear sounds cool but to the uncreative site owner it turns a potentially interesting community into a fancy mailing list that gets persistent SPAM.
I guess I’m just a little sick of sites that say “its really good to connect here because of XYZ” when in reality they want your “hits” and will use tactics that border on incessant spamming to get them.
Put up a site with a purpose that creates value for the community and you’ll make your money one way or the other. There are no short cuts in life, and that includes in social media.
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Joel Vincent 
