I happen to fall on a web page that had this mathematical formula to describe aptitude of an individual in social media. When social media is all about relationships, it seemed funny to read relationships aptitude described as a mathematical formulas.
Social Media Aptitude = Intrinsic Value X Relational Competence X Conversational Competence
All I could understand out of this formula is, if you or your organization doesn’t have anything of value to offer, social media will not help. It may just work against you.
Even if you offer something of value, if you cannot build meaningful relationships with the people you are serving, social media will not help.
Even if you offer something of value AND you can build meaningful relationships with the people you are serving. If you cannot engage the people in meaningful conversations that enrich your relationship, social media WILL NOT HELP.
Why is this formula Incomplete?
I believe, before anything else, it is insane to even try formulating social media aptitude mathematically; as it will end up with some debatable imperfections, like this one.
Can we assign numbers to each variable and multiply them to get an aptitude score? Absolutely not! It is hard to assign values to value of a product / service, the relational and conversational competencies. And no theory has ever proved whether these variables are directly proportional to x power of variables.
However, the three basic variables on which one’s social aptitude can be judged are rightly correct. I couldn’t think of any other variable that are not included in these three.
So, what is your take – Do you think Social Media Aptitude can be purely gauged using a formula ?