And Ike, as he is apt to do, always elevates the conversation. Click through and read his gray zone post. It all makes a lot of sense in conjunction with this discussion.

hi — Grant sitting on my lap wanted to type. That’s from him.

Adam Baldwin’s character, amoral muscle for hire Jayne Cobb, was part of a well-developed and deep ensemble. Joss Whedon asked him how he played Jayne.

“Jayne thinks he is the real hero of the show. Everyone cases themselves as the hero.”

It might not be an original concept, but it is brilliant, and it applies.

“Everyone is a Genuine User.” In their own mind and experience, they are there to give as much as they get. Few will ever cop to gaming the system. But the real measure of the Greedy-Gravy-Genuine continuum is external. And it’s measurable.

If one sits on Greedy for too long, they get ejected from the community. At the very least, their opportunities for transactions (or conversations) of value are diminished.

As agents for a particular organization, the best you can do is find the Gravy train. Be accepted for what you are, and participate *more* than enough to deflect questions about your motive for being there. Ideally, if something is going wrong with your reputation, you want members of the community to say “Hey, let’s ask Jason about this.”

http://occamsrazr.com/2007/07/23/pr-and-the-gray-zone/

We want to get into the Gray Zone, but the Authenticinazis will eject us out of hand. Best to get third-party endorsements from the community in the Cyan Zone.

Kat — Thank you for chiming in as well. I like the rephrasing of “personal” but it ruins my whole 3Gs thing (heh). And we’re in synch on the personal benefit while achieving it professionally for clients as well. Can’t wait to have lunch. I promise I’ll be on time this time!

I would argue, even the Genuine Users are not so much “Genuine” as “Personal”–their use of social media sites is exclusively for personal value, rather than professional value. The Gravy Users (of which I’d consider myself one) get both personal and professional value from the site.

On Mixx in particular, I contribute content that I think the other users will enjoy. Of course, that’s also sometimes going to include my own or a client’s content. It would seem counterintuitive to omit only content where I had a professional connection.

But noooooo, I don’t think social media is something for the marketing toolbox ONLY.

I think social media is a great set of relationship building tools. : )

Thanks again for chiming in.

Well said. Just to clarify my version of the gravy user … we feel the community rules, norms and expectations are not to be compromised just to hock product. While I know if a client said to me, “go put my content on Digg, Mixx, etc.” I would beholden to them, I would work with them on the front end to ensure the content was something those communities would be interested in.

That rule certainly won’t apply for all gravy users all of the time, but I think we hold the community standards to be of utmost importance since damaging our standing there ruins any future success we might have with our client’s content.

Great response and points all around worthy of a kudo or three!