What is social media??

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 in Social Media by Chris Calitz

After visiting search engine strategies London this past week there was a clear and increased interest in Social Media at the conference. So we thought it would be good to discuss how you should integrate social media into your business. Before we can do this though we need to help you understand what social media is.

Well this isn’t as clear-cut as you might think as social media has been confused as being certain social platforms used to generate social media. For instance when you mention social media most people immediately think Twitter or Facebook. While both of these are social media platforms social media is not just about the platforms users use to generate social media.

Social media is seen as media that is social in nature. Thus generated by people and not only by corporations, as was the case in early stages of the Web’s existence. This description form Wikipedia sums up Social Media quite well for me – “Social media is content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies.”.

This means that any platform that allows users to publish information online is social. Even Wikipedia’s 3,202,005 articles, which have mostly been generated by the public, is a form of social media.

So now that you have an idea of what social media entails would you consider the following example as a form of social media? A UK based online bank has taken customer ratings made online and started posting it in it’s offline advertising on underground trains. Is this still social media or has it become traditional media?

Customer ratings are a form of social media that most companies don’t even recognize as being social. For a lot of companies this might be a customer service agent on it’s own as it encourages people to buy products by using comments gauge if a product will suite them. In the same manner this may discourage customers from buying a product that doesn’t meet there needs. Because customers don’t buy product that will fulfill their needs it indirectly lowers after sales customers support.

So now that you have an idea of what social media is we will show why you should be implementing it in your business and who it will benefit your business. Our next post will be on why you should be implementing social media in you company.

ChrisCalitz

Andgodsed

Well we would hope that companies would start engaging with their clients through these forms of media but the truth is that most corporations are still not using these tools to their full advantage.

As to who owns the content I would have to say that is a tough one as this is generate by users outside of these platforms. I would have to say nobody owns it as it's not been copyrighted. Interestingly have a look at this person he talk a lot about who owns content online.

http://www.mediafuturist.com/

andgodsed

If I understand you correctly Chris, there should be a clear distinction between SOCIAL MEDIA and the TOOLS USED TO GENERATE IT.

To use an example from your blog: Wikipedia is the TOOL, and the articles are SOCIAL MEDIA. Twitter is the TOOL and your tweets are the MEDIA.

My question is this: Who owns the "social media?" If it is really "social" in nature, should it not be part of the creative commons? May a bank (as in the example you used) use social media for its own gain? What about those who provide the tools to generate said social media, don't they have a legitimate claim to at least partially owning the content generated by people using their tools?

I think that the case where the bank has used the socially generated ratings in an ad campaign has a third option: The bank is now participating in social media. It has now become (at least as far as this campaign goes) part of the "society" of it's clients. The good thing of viewing it like this is that the banks responsibilities become much more personal - it is no longer a faceless corporation, but a member of the "village" and thus more approachable, and more open to dialogue.

Is that not what corporations are striving for? A way to appear more "alive" and "interactive" to the customer, and hence more trustworthy?

Imagine: "Hey they used one of my comments in their ad campaign, maybe I should check them out..."