For interactive marketers, the comment may be the single most-feared aspect of an online social network. If you don’t allow comments, you risk being seen as anti-social, thus defeating the purpose of your presence on a social network. (The Web is predicated on conversation, after all.) The fear of what people really have to say about us is something we have got to get over, and quickly. There are missed opportunities in comments, when you see comments for what they really are: the online equivalent of gossip.

That’s a conclusion I arrived at after reading today’s BoingBoing post about the science of gossip. Evolutionary psychologists exploring why we gossip share their latest on why we can’t stop ourselves from dishing:

In many popular online social networks, the comment is the currency of socialization. If you post a funny photo to Facebook, I leave a comment on it. If my band posts a new song to MySpace, we know how well it is liked by the comments we receive, and by how many other users add that song to a playlist.

As smaller groups within networks become more established, they also tend to self-regulate. For example, Consumerist.com hired a Comments Moderator who regularly updates the site’s Comments Code – which has actually brought back readers who abandoned the site after experiencing inappropriate comments from other users. The code reassured site members of the accepted norms of this community. Smaller special-interest groups like this, and the measures they take to reinforce a sense community, resemble the workings of tribal culture from which modern civilization evolved.

Translated to online social networks: your brand may be the stranger who’s wandered into a small group with little or no proof of membership. That’s when it’s time to start speaking the language.

If comments are a form of gossip, and
Gossip is proof of membership in a group, then
Comments are proof of membership in a group.

Brands that want to fit in on social networks should take note. Consider leaving some insightful comments out there, and forget what your mother taught you about gossip being all bad.
 

There’s a lot of talk (and type) about how “social media is the new customer service”. Let’s consider that for a moment.

In the same way many people use the term “media” incorrectly as a singular, there may be as many or more people mistaken about what constitutes a “social medium”. Buzzwords and grammatical errors aside, all media are inherently social. Calling anything a “social medium” is redundant. (There is no such thing as an anti-social medium!)

Man invented media because he needed them to help us socialize and spread culture beyond the confines of vocalization and gestures. From cave-paintings and hieroglyphics to the alphabet and printing press; from the telephone and fax machine to VOIP and SMS, media are invented, optimized and improved upon to serve the spread of our culture. Interactive or "social" media allow better fidelity and more immediacy – which are huge improvements over more primitive media, but still serve the same basic purpose when it comes to customer service.

Merchants needed ways to learn what satisfied or dissatisfied their customers, and couldn’t always ask in person at the point of purchase. Customer service has always depended on “social” media to achieve its purpose. But it’s not a medium, it’s an experience. That said, I think the intention of the quote was more like: there are many new means to achieve better customer service, and many of those are proving to be digital media. It’s no secret that our culture has gradually shifted from mass-media to media-of-the-masses. Read just one page of Consumerist and it’s clear that customers aren’t experiencing better service solely because of interactive media. Customer service representatives don’t magically become more sociable just because they have new technology at their disposal. It's not the medium, but you use it that matters.

Buzzwords have the tendency to obscure more meaning than they grant. “Social” media are not replacing customer service, but they are opportunities to improve it. The right media for a given company depends on the type of transaction or service provided. For example, when I had an issue with the repair warranty on a home computer, I called an 800 number and spoke to a customer service representative directly. A website’s FAQs or company Facebook profile is useless if my computer is broken. Once my computer was fixed by a repairman who came to my home, I got a follow-up call to make sure I was happy, and an email summary of the repair. That was the single best customer service experience I’ve ever had.

Likewise, if I can’t find a store in a mall, I’ll check the directory map near the entrance. If I’m at the pub with friends and I have a random question I want answered before our next round arrives, I’ll call or text chacha.com (thanks for the tip, Liz). Customer service is about being there and being useful, wherever and whenever it is that your customers are in need.