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Every day you hear more and more about "Social Media". You hear more about what people and companies are doing with Social Media. A lof of the artilces and stories that you see and hear tend to focus on Twitter and Facebook, or how the use of this medium if growing. A recent search for "Social Media" at the American, British, and German versions of job search giant Monster revealed 50, 15, and 7 pages of jobs for those key words, this only goes to show that Social Media is starting to emerge, become more known and in demand. Almost without exception when I mention Social Media, I get a lot of blank faces or people will mention one or two famous Social Media sites, but to those of us that know anything about it how do you explain it to people with limited or no knowledge of it?
I originally wanted to call this article, "Social Media: The Clean Sheet of Paper And a Big Lump of Clay" but soon realized that the title was too long and ackward. Because I see how Social Media can be many things to many people, much like you create all kinds of things based on what you write or draw on a blank sheet of paper or you can mold a lump of clay into an endless possibility of things (artistic and otherwise), I liked the idea of referencing both of those objects. Another thing that I like about the clean sheet of paper and the lump of clay is that there is a certain amount of effort to make something out of either one, they don't just change into something. Upon further consideration I liked the term "amorphous" because Social Media is currently morphing into something yet to be fully comprehended or determined. According to Merrriam Webster.com, Amorphous is having no definate form (shapeless), being without definite character or nature (unclassifiable), lacking organization or unity, and having no real or apparent crystaline form. All of these things fit Social Media pretty well I believe.
Definition of Social Media?
So, do you have a good definition of "Social Media"? I would argue that you can come up with thousands, if not millions of definitions of what is it. What I think that we can agree on is that it is "social", meaning that it is meant to be shared between people and that "media" is a form of communication. In the last century we've tended to think of media as being broadcast (television and radio) and print (newspapers and magazines) and that is basis for what is sometimes called the old media. There are a limited number of "distributors" based on some barriers of entry (the largest being cost). As the web has developed and become more accepted, we find the explosion of more and more possibilities for user generated content with very little barriers of entry. There are tons of articles about how more and more people are getting their information from the internet from sources that didn't exist 20 years ago and the landscape of the "old media" is drastically changing. Social Media is allowing companies, organizations, and people to get their "message" out and it is allowing them to make all kinds of relationships and to communicate in ways that weren't possible even 10 years ago.
Social Media: More Than Facebook And Twitter
Occasionally I've heard people referring to Social Media by saying "Oh, we'll just do some Twittering" as if that is really how they think that Social Media should be used. If peoples' rush to join the party, they more often than not don't really think about what they want to accomplish or what Social Media can do. While Facebook and Twitter are very big in the whole Social Media landscape and some amazing things are happening with both, Social Media is so much more than either of them. A prerequisite to "doing" Social Media should be to think about what you want to do and where you want to go. If you know those things you can then start to think about how you can use Social Media to take you there. Social Media can drive what you're doing, if you give enough thought to how you want to use it.
The Sky Is Not The Limit
There is something exciting about a clean sheet of paper or a lump of clay that you can mold into what you want or where the possibilities are limitless and only limited by your imagination. I hate to use the cliche about "the sky is the limit" but even that is not truly a limit as man has built planes and rockets has gone into space! How do you define Social Media and what does it mean to you?
Have you ever wondered what Social Media was or how you might be able to explain it to someone that didn't already have any knowledge of the subject or perhaps someone that had only heard some of the buzz words? Since a picture is worth a thousand words and can be so much better in getting our point across, I created the mind map above to try to make things clearer.
What Does Social Media Mean to You?
When explaining social media to someone it is good to get an idea of where they're coming from and what it means to them. Maybe they have a good idea of what it is already and only need to have some minor things explained or maybe you need to start a square one.
The Old Media And The New Media
Have you ever bought or read a newspaper, watched television, listened to the radio, or read a book or magazine article? These are all what could be considered "the Old Media". Newspapers are going out of business at an alarming rate, and there are lots of reports that suggest that more and more people are getting their news from the internet. This is where social media comes in. Almost anything that you want to "sell" or communicate is already being done on the internet via social media. The New Media makes use of many social media tools and will hopefully become a little clearer after reading this article and looking at the picture above. Social Media allows you get your message out in ways not even imagined even five years ago. I created the mind map based on an article that I saw in wikipedia on social media, so my structure started from there and I branched out a little. I used FreeMind to create the mind map. The mind map does not include every facet or tool available because there are many but it does give you a good picture of social media. I put a cloud around things that I use or are more famaliar to myself and possibly others. These are also areas where people might wish to start when there are lots of other options in any one area.
Communication
Communication is at the core of social media and all media for that matter. In the mind map it is one of the branches that includes:
Blogs- A blog (a contraction of the term "web log") is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. (according to Wikipedia). You're in fact looking at a blog now. For the mind map this is referring to various blogging platforms like Blogger, LiveJournal, Open Diary, WordPress, Vox, ExpressionalEngine.
Micro blogging- This is a smaller version of a blog that is easy to do and maintain. While Twitter is probably the most recognizable member of this category, it also includes: Plurk, Tumblr(I use this to share links and other things from my blogs), Jaiku, and fmylife.
Social Networking- There is a good chance that you're already using one or more of these sites that include: Bebo, Big Tent, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkutt, Skyrock, Hi5, Ning, Elgg, and Drupal.
Social Network aggregation- These are sites that aggregate or consolidate your various social network activities into one location. FriendFeed and NutshellMail are two examples.
Events- These allow you to promote and share events with others and include: Upcoming, Eventful, and Meetup.com.
Social Networking Tools- These are tools that can be used to update one or more of your social networks and they all allow you to update Twitter (which as been listed under Micro blogging). Ping allows you to update several sites without having to log into each one individually. TweetDeck is an Adobe Air based tool that allows you to do all sorts of things with Twitter and is quite amazing. HootSuite is very powerful because you can use it to do a lot of things in Twitter but you can integrate it with Ping so that you can update several sites at once and you can schedule when your updates appear.
Multimedia
Multimedia is probably as you'd imagine it and includes:
Photo sharing- Flickr, Zoomer, Photobucket, SmugMug, and Picasa.
Video sharing- YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo, and sevenload.
Livecasting- These allow you to broadcast an event live over the internet and include: Ustream.tv, Justin.tv, Stickam, and Skype
Audio and Music Sharing- imeem, The Hype Machine, Last.fm, ccMixter, and Blip.fm
Collaboration
Collaboration allows you to work with other people and includes:
Wikis- According to Wikipedia a wiki is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor; are typically powered by wiki software and are often used to create collaborative websites, to power community websites, used in corporate intranets, and in knowledge management systems. Wikipedia is by far the best recognized within this category but it also includes PBwiki, and wetpaint
Social bookmarking- Is a method for Internet users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources. Unlike file sharing, the resources themselves aren't shared, merely bookmarks that reference them (according to Wikipedia). Some sites include: Delicious, StumbleUpon, and Google Reader.
Social news- Refers to websites where users submit and vote on news stories or other links, thus determining which links are presented (according to Wikipedia). Digg is probably the most recognisable of this type of site but it also includes: Mixx, Reddit, and Now Public. When an article or link reaches the front page of Digg, there is the potential for a lot of web traffic to it, something most people putting content on the web want.
Opinion sites- inludes: epinions, and Yelp.
Reviews and Opinions
Reviews and Opinions focus on reviews, opinions, and getting answers to questions that you might have and include:
Product Reviews- Includes: epinions and MouthShut.com.
Business Review- yelp.com is an example.
Community Q&A- These sites allow users to submit questions and get other uses to answer them. Yahoo! Answers, WikiAnswers, AskVille, Google Answers are examples.
Other
Other here is referring only to...
Information aggregators- These are typically sites that collect information from a variety of sites and sources and include NetVibes and Twine (website).
RSS Feeds
RSS (Really Simple Syndication)- is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format (according to Wikipedia). This allows publishers to easily notify subscribers when there is new content or something has been updated or changed and it allows people to easily follow their favorite blogs and websites without have to check all the time if there is anything new or updated. RSS Readers allow collect the "feeds" from the sites and blogs you've subscribed to and include: Google Reader, NewsGator, FeedDemon, NetVibes, Sage (Firefox extension), and Bloglines. RSS Publishers allow websites and blogs to "publish" when there is new content or something has changed, one of the most widely used RSS Publishers is FeedBurner.
Entertainment
Entertainment includes:
Media & Entertainment Platforms- Cisco Eos.
Virtual Worlds- According to Wikipedia a virtual world is a computer-based simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and interact via avatars. These avatars are usually depicted as textual, two-dimensional, or three-dimensional graphical representations. You might have heard of Second Life, The Sims Online, or Forterra.
Game Sharing- sites allow multiple users to play each other in various games are becoming more and more popular all the time. Miniclip and Kongregate are a couple of game sharing sites.
Podcasts
Podcasts is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and downloaded through web syndication (according to Wikipedia). There are a thousands (if not millions) of different podcasts about a variety of subjects. More and more companies and people are seeing podcasts as a way of marketing themselves. In my mind map I broke podcasts down to:
Search- These sites allow you to search for podcasts and include: Podcast Alley and iTunes.
Subscribe- Allows users to download new podcasts that they're subscribed to. One of the more famous is iTunes.
Conclusion
Social Media is at its heart, social and provides a variety of channels in which you can communicate ("sell" and "market") your product, service, or idea. Unlike the "Old Media", you have a lot of possibilities of doing it yourself and aren't dependent upon the old networks to distribute your message. You have a message that you wish to get out and you want to find an audience that wants to "hear" your message, with Social Media you can find these people and they can find you, and better still is that it happens 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Social Media allows communication and conversations that never existed with the Old Media and people that receive your message can let you know what they think about it, maybe how you can improve it or what they like about it. Reaching an audience with Social Media is way easier than via the Old Media and getting your message out is a lot less costly to do than via the Old Media and you have a better chance of reaching your target audience. Because everyone has some sort of message that they wish to get out (regardless of if they realize it or not yet) the people making use of it and those that become active in the field will only grow. I've embedded a video put together by Common Craft that gives an even higher level simple view of Social Media below and I've written (and will continue to write) about several social media topics at this blog, so why not subscribe in your rss reader of choice or via email.
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