If there's an echo in here, it's time to step outside

That image has found its way into more than a few crayon presentations. 

We use it to caution clients -- and maybe to remind ourselves -- that as important as social media is in the world of new marketing, it is all too easy to get lost in the echo chamber, preaching to the converted, or getting alternately over-excited and prodded into panic over the things that catch the attention of the biggest guppies in the social media fishbowl.

In other words, the real magic of social media happens not when you get a bunch of bloggerati chattering about some esoteric new service but when the positive chatter breaks out of the echo chamber and attracts the attention of lots of so-called normal people who may not even know what social media is but who certainly might find value in one Web 2.0 platform or another.  It seems to me that if we fall short of that tipping point, we may find that we're doing nothing more than talking to ourselves -- when what we really should be doing is talking to people who simply don't "get it," and may not even want to get it (maybe they're too busy or their interests lie elsewhere) but might actually stand to benefit if we could only convince them to give it a shot.

A couple of interesting anecdotes from my travels over the past week provide a nice illustration of this principle in action. Or more precisely, the downside of forgetting the principle altogether.

At Podcamp NYC 2.0 this weekend, I attended a session during which Laura Fitton (@pistachio) extolled the virtues of Twitter to a roomful of devoted social media types.  She spoke about the power of online connections and the importance of community.  She talked about how Twitter helped revitalize her business and mentioned that it had, quite literally, changed her life for the better.  Compelling stuff and, in her place, I'd probably say most of the same things.  But when I really think about it, I'm not sure that someone who is new to Twitter (and maybe even social media in general) would have left Laura's session with a clear sense of what it is, how it works or why anyone would spend their time posting frequent updates to the timeline.

So what if you asked someone who had never even heard of Twitter to take a look at the service and give you their newbie impressions of what it is and how they might use it.  While leading a social media workshop last week for a group of marketers from all over the Pacific Rim, I did just that and the output was eye opening.

I'm paraphrasing here, but after playing with Twitter for a bit and conducting some online research into the service, the audience reported back that it seems to be a way that stalkers can use mobile devices to follow -- and potentially creep out -- a bunch of people they don't even know.  In fact, at least a few workshop participants were, themselves, somewhat creeped out by Twitter and thought that it might be a disaster waiting to happen.  Few, if any, saw any reason to use it (as marketers or as consumers.)

By this point, I'm sure at least a few social media eyes are rolling.  It all sounds off-base to those of us who "know better", but you have to admit that this is a very different picture than the one painted by Laura Fitton at Podcamp NYC.  And I'd suggest that the -- shall we say -- somewhat less enthusiastic assessment by a roomful of social media outsiders holds a more valuable lesson for those of us who are maybe a little too close to all of this Web 2.0 stuff.

I'm not saying that the latter perspective is more valid than the former.  And like many of the social media platforms that we evangelize -- virtual worlds, social networking and even foundational technologies like RSS -- Twitter is much easier to comprehend after you've devoted a healthy amount of time, energy and brainpower into developing a deep knowledge of how it works and how the community uses it.

But let's at least acknowledge that if a roomful of savvy marketers can look at Twitter and walk away unimpressed, the same could happen with a country (or a world for that matter) of regular consumers.  Yet rather than find ways to educate (and potentially attract) the masses, we're probably spending just a bit too much energy telling each other that what we're doing is of game-changing importance.

I'd love your thoughts on this.  Your client -- or your mom or your dentist -- thinks Twitter is a social network for stalkers.  How would you explain it to them, shift their opinion and demonstrate why it really is something worth watching and (more importantly) using?

How about all of the other social computing tools you love but your drinking buddies don't seem to understand?  How would you get them on-board?

Chime in.