A brief introduction to Social Media: What is it, and how does it work?
(This is the first in our series of Social Media posts for the month of October. We look forward to your feedback on this series.)
A lot of folks who claim they don’t know a thing about this “Social Media” business are actually using it everyday, many times without even realizing it.
For example, whenever you check Craigslist to see if there’ve been any new listings of lawn furniture you’re engaging in Social Media.
Whenever you go to Cnet or some other site to research mp3 players, cameras or printers, and you see a host of ratings and reviews (both good and bad) from people who’ve bought the model you’re considering, you’re engaging in Social Media.
Whenever a friend emails you a link to a YouTube video and you’re so entertained by it that you view other videos from the same contributor or forward that video link on to someone else, you’re engaging in Social Media.
Whenever you accept a friend request on your Facebook page, you’re engaging in Social Media.
And whenever the florist you bought last year’s Mother’s Day bouquet from sends you an email offering 10% off on an early Mother’s Day purchase, guess what? Yep, Social Media.
In short, anything you do in the online space that allows others to converse, contribute, add to, distribute or give feedback on is considered Social Media.
In Social Media, our audiences are not just the “receivers” of our efforts, they are also the “medium” (by spreading our efforts forward) and in many cases even “creators” (adding their own spin on our information or integrating it into a greater piece).
A few misconceptions about Social Media campaigns: Social Media is not about getting selling messages out to as many individuals or groups as you can. Nor is its primary purpose to drive traffic to your web site.
Instead, successful Social Media can be described as a platform that is based on relationship, community and permission. At the core of every Social Media campaign is an implicit trust—the trust that you can help the customer solve something. It is taking part in a two-way (or multi-way) conversation (as opposed to the one-way communication of traditional media or an information-only web site) that all parties get some sort of value from.
To repeat, any time you use the online space to converse with an individual, group or community, and all sides extract some value from that encounter, that is considered Social Media.
As an exercise to demonstrate how natural and universal use of Social Media has become, I ask you to monitor your own use of the Internet for the next few days. Recognize what your Social Media encounters are, and what value you are getting from each one. Recognize the other participants. Are they people you know (either personally or through reputation), or are they totally random? When do you do the initiating? When do others come to you?
By the way, if you found this post of value, and would like to pass it on to others (yep, that’s Social Media too), just use one of the “share” links below. Feel free to submit questions (they will be visible to all visitors) and we’ll do our best to answer them.
Posted by Mickey
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