Social Media – the new Chess

Blog for Australian Small Business Centre Pty Ltd.

I was thinking this morning of how there are alignments between the aims, goals and strategies of the game of Chess and the game of Social Media.  While the game may be played the same the outcome for the winner is very different.

Firstly the goal of both is to defeat the leader of the other pack.  In Chess it is to ‘box in’ the King so he can’t move –  in social media it is to show the world that we are king and can move anywhere, at any time and take our minions with us.

There are a range of tools.  Chess has the King, the Queen, Knights, Towers, Bishop, pawns etc. and each has strategies of their own. E.g. a knight can make a forward and right angle jump in one move, a queen can move in any direction over countless squares, pawns can only march forward one square at a time. In brief Chess is about ‘taking’.

Social Media has amongst its arsenal Facebook which shows a public profile, Twitter that whispers an urgent message – short and to the point- and Blogs which consolidates on friendships built and often shares information to help the reader understand where the writer is coming from as well as building their knowledge of the subject matter. In brief Social Media is about ‘giving’.

When one is skilled in the game of Chess, strategies are planned and executed in order – as long as our opponent does not counter a move in which case new strategies must be found.  Social Media has strategies that interact with each other so two or more strategies may be running together and in fact interact with other strategies – sort of like having two armies on the go at once with wireless connection and interactive communication. So it would seem that while Chess and Social Media DO have similar strategies, the way they use those strategies are very different.

Chess strategies are well documented and well known by the masters in that field – unchangeable. Chess comes from a history of military and strategies are locked in.  Social Media is new, ever-changing, with new strategies and variations on those strategies evolving even as we speak. Let’s look at Facebook.

According to Wikipedia Facebook is a social networking service  which was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes

As of September 2012, Facebook has over one billion active users,^[6] more than half of them using Facebook on a mobile device. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as “People From Work” or “Close Friends”.  To set up a Facebook account go to www.facebook.com.au

Twitter started in 2006 when the podcasting company Odeo realized they needed to reinvent themselves and began brainstorming new creative ideas. Jack Dorsey introduced the idea of creating an SMS(short message service, texting for example) that would allow a user to communicate with a small group of people.

Twitter was first called “status” until the group looked in the dictionary for names and found twitter which fit it perfectly. The original product name was twttr.

The project work began on March 21, 2006, when Dorsey published the first Twitter message at 12:50 PM (PST): “just setting up my twttr”. The prototype for twitter was tested as an internal service for Odeo employees but later launched publically in July 2006.

http://profilerehab.com/twitter-help/history_of_twitter   To set up a twitter account go to www.twitter.com

SMS (Short Message Texting) This SMS is a communications protocol that permits small pieces of information, called data packets or messages, to be delivered between devices.

SMS was created in the late ’80s by a Finnish engineer named Matti Makkonen, to support another digital technology called GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications). The idea arose in 1984 during a conversation with two colleagues at a pizzeria in Copenhagen. Makkonen aimed to develop a very simple messaging system that would work even when the receiving device was switched off or was out of its coverage area. No one could have predicted what would happen with SMS in the future. Makkonen did not keep the original design documents and did not even bother to patent the invention.

The first SMS message was sent in December 1992 from a personal computer to a cellular phone on the Vodafone GSM network in the UK. Usage has grown exponentially since then: Current volumes now exceed 2 trillion SMS messages per year — just in the United States! In 2008, The Economist magazine recognized Makkonen by honoring him with their Innovation Award for his invention.

http://www.mobilepronto.org/en-us/the-history-of-sms.html

Blogs and RSS syndication, two of the backbones of the web were invented byDave Winer. After playing around for years with various programming languages, Dave bounced off an idea of Marc Canter, the father of multimedia, and started creating scripts to send out some of his own ideas.

http://gizmodo.com/5926282/why-dave-winer-invented-the-blog

Social Media has built many ‘empires’ and many ‘kings’ and ‘queens’ (all experts in their particular area of social media)e.g.  Pam Brossman Queen of Digital Marketing http://www.facebook.com/pambrossman  , Mari Smith Facebook Marketing Guru, http://www.marismith.com , Michael Stelzner – Social Media Examiner [mike@socialmediaexaminer.com],  Bloggers on Social Media Social Fresh, the brainchild of Jason Keath, provides quality social media content from a community of bloggers. Boom Social, where Kim Garst regularly shares useful and practical information that’s easy to read and understand. Jeff Bullas consistently provides quality content that generates good conversations on the topic of social media.  If you wish to see the rest of the top 10 bloggers for 2013 contact Michael Stelzner.  For beginners learning how to blog there is the blogging course on http://www.australiansmallbusiness.com.au/courses/wordpress-website-design-and-blogging-course/

So we have compared the games of Chess and Social Media. Are they similar? They do have the same goal but they are coming from a different mindset. We no longer use force to prove a point. Social Media will continue to change our world as the world of social media twists and contorts there will be more mediums of communication. The world will never be the same as yesterday – we have entered the world of chaos. Information channels are changing and everyone is a communicator.  It may be a simple twitter or a well thought out blog.  Which parts of Social Media will support your marketing? Which role do you want to play? Where do you fit in? It’s time to decide and then to act.

Maggie Richardson

30^th January 2013

Note: I wrote this blog at the request of the new owner of the Australian Small Business Centre Pty ltd.  Then  he didn’t want to pay me for my services.  His reason?  He had decided that I wasn’t a ‘professional’ blog writer. What is your view?