I love talking about Social Media and lately I’ve had some great conversations that started with the question: “What is social media?”
With that said it went suddenly quiet and I looked across the room of concerned faces staring back as if to ask, “Is that a trick question?” No, I laugh. Not at all.
Then the responses began to chime out... Facebook Twitter Blogs FourSquare Linkedin Activerain Biznik Youtube...
But these are the tools and the platforms. They are not social media and even though these new technologies placed us smack dab in the middle of the biggest paradigm shift in communication history. Social Media is what we do with them.
The tools and platforms are what we use to create Social Media. It gets even more interesting when we add ‘marketing’ to that phrase and our purpose. For many, adopting social media marketing is taking a giant leap of faith into the unknown. As scary and potentially overwhelming as it can be in the beginning, “We are not going to Mars today.” Social Media is not somewhere else, or something else, or the future. It is the right here and now.
Our questions and concerns about social media are important and how we frame them depends a lot on our age, how connected we feel (or don’t feel) to technology, and our own convictions about relationship and issues of privacy. Stay concerned, keep asking the questions.
“What is social media?”
To me there’s an aspect of it that’s kind of like going to a big reception with a huge buffet. There may be one in the crowd attempting every dish at the table, but for most of us, we’ll gravitate to the familiar even though on occasion we’ve been known to break habit when hearing,
“OMG you have to try this. It's to die for!”
With shared experience and common interests we’re much more likely to engage in conversation. If not we’ll move on, especially when our comfort zone is challenged. People naturally congregate to smaller groups. If the reception has 100 people we may do a few things all together like,
“Come on, let’s all sing Happy Birthday to John now!”
But for the most part we’ll tend to cycle through the conversations via the sub groups. Like being at a party with (live) music, everyone doesn’t dance to every song. Social Media is exactly the same way. Our conversation online is public and it’s most always with the many to the many. People jump in and out of the conversation at any time and you never really know where that may take you.
The long tail search idea is evolving into a behavior model. As searchers, it’s not just what we’re looking for but what we reveal about ourselves along the way. Now days the criteria for engagement might be the fact I identify with you based on experiences and opinions you’ve shared in your blogs. For me that could be, you like dogs (not all, but especially Spaniels), once lived in Seattle, play the piano, have kids, been divorced, and you once drove a real VW Bug back in the day.
That’s me and it’s just the way I roll.
Having something to say is of course important. You won’t get very far online just watching. Saying it from the heart touches people and that is a gift not only to your audience (no matter how many readers you have), but to yourself. What that something is that’s worth sharing is always the $50k question.
Who are you trying to reach? Who are you talking to? Why are you talking to them? You’re only as good as the value of your (last) conversation. Life online is public and not unlike show business in many respects. It has all the trials and tribulations a public career entails.
Like thinking about the future, life is still the same amazing puzzle it has always been.
afterall...
“We’re not going to Mars today.” We’re just talking about Social Media.
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