It’s all about emotions, silly

Picture 2

Today, London saw its first snowfall of this winter season. As the white powder from the sky changed into sizable, more distinct flakes of snow, everyone in our office got excited and many (including me) moved to the windows for a few minutes to witness it. Now, on one level, it isn’t anything special, but on another much more wide-ranging level, there’s something about Nature’s magic that draws everyone to it – that makes people go ‘Ooh!’ and ‘Aah!’.

I guess most successful social media projects have that special something that draw people to it again and again in the same way. It’s about what they can make people feel. Twitter makes me feel like I’m part of a huge community of people, many of whom share different interests of mine. Facebook makes me feel connected to my friends and family. Songkick makes me feel like I’m part of this music community, some of whom live on music even more than I do, and Dopplr makes me feel like I’m fulfilling my desire of going to new places.

UK Snow has hundreds of people tweeting right now about how much snow they’re seeing in their part of the UK. It’s a fairly simple app that Ben Marsh created during February’s blizzard this year, and it’s probably a go-to site on days like this, when the snow makes everyone go ‘Ooh!’

Because on those days, a site like that makes us feel like we’re part of a snow community of sorts.

Sounds silly perhaps, but given the fact that as I type this, #UKSnow is a trending topic, perhaps not.

3 comments

Author: Sara Williams saradotdub

“Because on those days, a site like that makes us feel like we’re part of a snow community of sorts.”

I don’t think this sounds silly at all, Anjali. If you ditch the words ‘snow’ and ‘of sorts’, you’re left with a sentence that perfectly describes what good social apps do: they facilitate a feeling of belonging.

I think the vignette you describe demonstrates a couple of fairly significant forces.

Firstly, people like to belong.

Those of us less connected to traditional communities (and I think the chunkiest Twitter demographic certainly ticks this box) rely on digital communities to meet this need. And beautifully, digital communities keep on evolving in ways that support our nontraditional (in historical terms, anyway) lifestyle whilst enabling us to stay meaningfully connected to all sorts of people in ever more ways.

Secondly, there’s a geolocational element in your example that I think we’re going to see more and more of (especially in mobile).

Digital has enabled the definition of community to evolve from something almost purely locational to something completely location-independent. But you can’t fight your instincts. Most of us still want to know about ‘people near me’, and I think geolocational tagging supports and satisfies this need.

Finally, life gets tough sometimes, and something a little bit special is worth getting excited about and sharing with the pack.

It’s the end of the year, the days are short, dark and cold, and most of us are equal parts keyed up and worn out. So #uksnow turns some weather into community buzz and a resurge in belonging? Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Author: Anjali Ramachandran anjali28

What a lovely, detailed comment Sara, thank you.

I absolutely do believe that geolocational elements will be big next year. Foursquare is good but maybe people are looking for something bigger. You’re right about people wanting to know about ‘people near me’. I’m not quite sure what that geolocational app is that will do the trick like Facebook has done for social networks, but it’s got to be out there somewhere, and I think it will surface sooner rather than later.

I don’t know about others but winter certainly brings out the feeling of wanting to associate myself with others more, in me – family and friends especially. So something that makes me see that others are experiencing snow, just the way I am – there’s something that speaks to our human instincts there. Let it snow indeed!