Social Media Boulevardiers

 

Several of you wrote to ask what a “social media boulevardier” is. Let’s not get hysterical, I’m not trying to go all Umair Haque on you and invent my own jargon to make you feel stupid. A boulevardier was a fashionable Parisian man of old, who dressed well and lived well, flitting from place to place to see and be seen. More often then not, however, the boulevardier spent little money and was an observer rather then a true participant. A Parisian cafe-owner, for example, would love to have a few of well-dressed boulevardiers sipping absinthe at the bar– it made the place look fashionable and provided a nice backdrop. The last thing he’d want, however, would be an entire restaurant full of skinflint nobodies taking up all the tables. Likewise, lots of community-based sites struggle with users who flood the site with pageviews, but do little to increase actual value. Keeping the boulevardiers happy while still bringing in the regular customers is a tough balancing act, and one that every site needs to juggle.