What's your role in the social-media ecosystem? - SmartBrief

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What’s your role in the social-media ecosystem?

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Brands & Campaigns

Today’s poll-analysis post was written by Mike Sansone, a social-media consultant who specializes in coaching leaders to use various media to promote conversations. Follow him on Twitter.

SmartPulse — our regular reader poll in SmartBrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social-media practices and issues.

Our most recent poll question: What is your most important role in the social-media landscape?

  • Content curation: You share news and information you find with others — 43.12%
  • Content creation: You publish your own thoughts and views —  21.10%
  • Information consumption: You research and track the pulse of content and conversation — 19.27%
  • Conversation participation: You ignite and engage in conversations with others — 16.51%

Jack Johnson sings, “It’s always more fun to share with everyone.” He’d fit right in today’s social-media landscape. It’s no longer who you know, it’s what you share.

In the earlier days of blogging — back before Twitter and public Facebook — it was so easy, right? We published our opinions and responded to others in comments.?? With the explosive growth of Twitter and Facebook, along with other social-media networks and mobile applications, content gets shared in so many ways that maintaining a healthy diet of information consumption can, at times, seem like a losing battle.

I asked our SmartBrief on Social Media readers what they see as their most important role is in social media. The results show that the term “content curation” (43.12%) has become more than a new catchphrase, as the role garnered almost half the responses. “Be the resource” seems to have become a mantra across social networks, as it shows awareness and influence.

Content creation (21.10%), or being considered a thought leader, is still a leading role, though closely contested by the researchers and data miners — the information consumers (19.27%).?? Conversation participation (16.51%) takes a back seat. Interesting results when you consider how Twitter and Facebook relied upon conversation at their outset. But the results show how important sharing news, resources and cool tools has become in social media.

Will the rising use of video and hashtag-themed chats change our social-media participation habits? ??And what of mobile-device use? With it becoming easier to create and publish original content on the move, can content creation creep back to the top?