Few people realize the significance of the emerging trend we call “Local Social”. As we learned from the emergence of Broadband technology, the “last mile” will be the final piece of the puzzle to scalability, integration, and monetization.
When Social Media becomes a tool that allows communities to organize, everything will change. A new generation of business plans will emerge to deliver everything from education to advertising. Engagement Marketing is becoming serious business. These new business plans will integrate social media directly as a means of empowering communities.
On another increasingly related front, community currencies are on the rise. They still suffer from adoption issues and accusations of protectionism – but they are on the rise. Look for correlations between community currencies, Social Community Organization and the slow steady evaporation of government currencies.
The fine Folks at Strategis Advisers provided the following cheery analysis of the world emerging around them. Keep in mind that Strategis is articulating what a real community sounds like. Real implication for the sensitivities of real people. Don’t expect this to sound like “Bernanke speak” any time soon, because it isn’t and that’s the point:
By Strategis Advisers
In addition to the page and the group page, Facebook now has community pages.
This function will separate the brands and businesses from pages like MY SISTER SAID IF I GET ONE MILLION FANS SHE WILL NAME HER BABY MEGATRON, and I hate it when I flex and my shirt rips.
If the community page gets thousands of fans/members, it’ll turn into a wiki that is managed by members of that community.
Also from Facebook this week, you will soon “like” brands rather than be a “fan” of them. Mashable explains here. This is a band-aid to the problem created when i would like information from The Official Days of Our Lives Page , but I don’t want my friends to think I’m a fan . I’ve got an image to maintain, ya know.
It would seem that all currencies have an Image to maintain
If people get spammed on their Facebook activity, I would expect the romance to be short lived. It is important to see what Facebook will do with all of the data that they’ll collect. Remember, Local Social does not need a big platform like Facebook but Facebook needs the micro platform that is “Local Social” in order to monetize.
If Facebook provides consumers with the same information that they supply to corporations; CEO name and address, preferred music, groups joined, etc. Then we’ll see a level of opportunity and accountability that is required to support a universal social currency. That is where adoption issues and accusations of protectionism will be resolved.
It’s up to Facebook now.
