social media conversation

When two or more people talking communicate ideas, we call that a conversation. The dynamic of a conversation works most successfully when the people sharing their thoughts reach a balance of contributing and exchanging ideas. It’s been said that conversation, “dialogue,” is the highest form of learning because it allows immediate response and clarification as questions are answered and messages are sent and received. Great conversations connect people on point of knowledge, values, and feeling.

Wikipedia suggests that conversation takes four major forms:

The Majority of conversations can be divided into four categories according to their major subject content:

• Conversations about subjective ideas, which often serve to extend understanding and awareness.
• Conversations about objective facts, which may serve to consolidate a widely-held view.
• Conversations about other people (usually absent), which may be either critical, competitive, or supportive. This includes gossip.
• Conversations about oneself, which sometimes indicate attention-seeking behaviour.

In the real world, few conversations fall exclusively into one category. Nevertheless, the proportional distribution of any given conversation between the categories can offer useful psychological insights into the mind set of the participants.

In a fluid, flexible conversation no one is in constantly in control. Control passes as the conversation moves from speaker to speaker. Ideas and thoughts attach and change the direction of the conversational thread to take in a direction the the speaker wants to go.

In online social media experiences, conversation is often input via keyboard within the context of a blog comment box, a Twitterstream or a social networking site thread. Not all such social media inputs really qualify as conversations. Individual comments that stand alone are better defined as remarks than as conversations.

Here’s how some folks define their online social media conversation.

@hdbbstephen: “To start with it doesn’t work like this http://bit.ly/AlTEr”
@nanpalmero: “a two way conversation begun on some type social media platform”
@storyseeker: “A conversation with everyone but only the intelligent and good looking reply.”
@gerlaineTalk: “Social Media Conversation definition? Good question. Hmmmm…. A talk of interest and creation of buzz.”
@Thandelike “SM conversation: starts publicly,@lizstrauss, at any point new interlocutors feel free to join in, embellish, pursue with their own ppl.”
@Matthew_T_Grant : ” its a combo of eavesdropping, broadcasting, and direct address (narrow-casting) – public intimacy”
@bethbeck : “Social media: Some call it noise, chatter. 4 me: enlightening, informative, eye-opening, boundary-less. World @ my fingertips!”
@storyseeker: “A conversation with everyone but only the intelligent and good looking reply.”
@tomaplomb: “Listening to a stream of voices, inserting yours into that stream, and watching the ripples.”
@BranislavPeric “There is no such things as “social media conversation”. Conversations, using digital tools, are social media.”
@Matthew_T_Grant : ” its a combo of eavesdropping, broadcasting, and direct address (narrow-casting) – public intimacy”
@lindsaydavies: “Social media conversation is a bit like morse code, short & useful but you really need to be involved to understand it.”

How do you define online social media conversation?

For more information see:
Princeton WorNet
Wiktionary
Wikidpedia
Discussion on Conversation (powerpoint)
Etymology and definition of the term “conversation”

SEE ALSO:
What Is Social Media?
What Is Social Networking?
What IS a Social Community?

Got more to add? C’mon let’s talk.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!