Bernaisesource

And I thought I left high school 25 years ago.

Did any of you read Janet Kornblum's piece in last week's USA Today about "friending" -- MySpace users who obsess about building a robust list of MySpace friends?  Apparently, competition for friends among the younger set can be fierce. Too few friends, and you are like way uncool. 

I am glad that when it comes to links and Technorati rankings we adults don't worry about things like that.

Apparently, though, friending has become big business.  And I don't just mean the upwards of a $1 billion price tag that Facebook might fetch according to a Wall Street Journal front page story.

Rachael King recently reported the following in Business Week:   "As companies try to build or keep relevancy among young people, they're increasingly tailoring marketing campaigns specifically to social networks. These go far beyond placing banner ads on a site, and involve interaction with users over time in what companies hope will be a memorable way...Burger King, for instance, created a MySpace page for the King, the weird character that appears in their commercials."

King (the reporter) goes on to report, that Burger King's King has collected more than 120,000 "friends," or fellow MySpace users.  Of course the King she writes "buys his friends with free episodes of Fox shows such as 24 and American Dad."  Fries with that?

I am having a hard time digesting this "friends" concept.  I remain skeptical about whether those 120,000 friends of the King (Burger King) are actually meaningful.  

There are some who think it is no longer a matter of numbers anyway.  There is an emerging school of thought that says - when it comes to social media -- the level of customer engagement is the more meaningful metric.

I am currently reading Henry Jenkins’ book Convergence Culture. Jenkins writes:

"In the past media producers spoke of 'impressions.'  Now they are exploring the concept of 'expressions,' trying to understand how and why audiences react to content."

It is the quality of the engagement that is most important.  A vocal and committed few help drive the brand more than a non-committed majority. 

More broadly, however, I am not sure whether a transactional relationship really constitutes a friendship anyway.  Brand loyalty clearly exists, but the foundation will always be shaky when dollars must first exchange hands.  Just like a manager can never truly be a friend of his or her employees, I am not sure a company can be friends with its customers or a PR professional with reporters that cover them (and I like the folks who work for me and the reporters who cover us).  Committed yes, honest for sure, but friends?  

I think we need to formulate a new term somewhere between friend and customer to reflect the new types of relationships spawned by the dynamics of social media.  

Personally, when it comes to my friends, I have learned to pick them carefully.  I am going to avoid succumbing to popularity contests. 

See ya in homeroom.

Technorati Tags: PR; Social Media; MySpace; Friending; Burger King; Henry Jenkins; Facebook;