I checked google trends to see how many people are searching for ‘delete facebook account’.  No surprise there, massive growth in this search over the last few weeks.  There were also surveys done regarding who is considering leaving facebook and in some cases up to 60% said they would consider leaving it.  I actually don’t think this will happen because Facebook will make an announcement soon that will roll back some changes regarding privacy but in a world where information spreads very fast a  number 1 player in a market could be black listed by the community very easily.

There’s a project started up in the US called Diaspora, pointed out to me by my good friend Dermot Daly, (picture of the team above) which claims to be a privacy aware, personally controlled distributed open source social network (launching soon!).  Their idea is that why would you register all your details with a third party social network and then they are making decisions about how they share out that data.  Why don’t you have your own piece of a server and on this server store all your information and then you make a decision who to share that with.  You own the data and you have full control over it.  The best of luck to the 4 people behind the project you may hear of it very soon.

So could Diaspora be the next Facebook?

Who knows will Diaspora be successful at this stage.  Maybe they’ll take some traffic from Facebook, maybe they will take huge traffic from Facebook maybe they will become the next Facebook!  My key message is that tools may come and go so when you’re thinking of social media don’t start thinking of the tools. Think of your business strategy and think of how online will support this strategy.  Then think of all the components of your online strategy and consider how social media fits into this.  When you figure out what to do and what content you are going to provide then think of what are the appropriate tools that will support this strategy.  Social media and social media tools will continue to change rapidly but your strategy should be longer term.

Of course this is just my opinion and I’d love to hear yours.   Do you think that Facebook’s presence will reduce in importance?  What do you think of a company like Facebook having such control over your own data?  What do you think of the Diaspora project?

Connectors – A connector is someone that knows everyone and is great at linking people together. They have special social power because of their extensive network. When linking up with connectors don’t always assume that the quantity of connections is the only factor to consider, you need to consider the quality of these connections also.

Mavens – A maven is someone that has a lot of information on products and services and passes on this information. If you look at statistics up to 90% of recommendations for products or services from friends are trusted and up to 60% of recommendations from people you don’t know are still trusted. Having mavens spread these recommendations is an excellent way of getting your product purchased.

Salesmen – These are the type of people that try to persuade us to buy a service or a product when we are not convinced. You know the way sometimes you walk into a store for a tie and end up coming out with a suit. How many times have you said “That was a really nice sales guy”? What you really mean is “That was a really good sales guy”.

So if you’re on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn today really think about the people you are connecting with. Take a good look at their network and who they are connected with, look at the messages they are communicating.

If they are connectors they will have lots of connections but are these quality connections?

If they are Mavens they will tweet a lot but are their tweets about making pizza at home or key data that is relevant to your audience? Get the quality right now, start off slowly with the right connections and build over time.

I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this, what do you think? I really want your personal opinion. What is it? What type are you?