Jay Baer presents a solid case why you and I may be thinking of different images when we use the term social media. If I asked 10 different people to define the term, I’d receive 10 different answers. Ditto if you asked 10 other people. Jay argues we should focus on other descriptors of using the social web, such as public relations, inbound marketing, and community branding instead.
We are killing social media, he writes:
In our zest and zeal, our warm embrace of the transformative power of social communication, we’ve thrown everything we can think of into a bucket, and slapped the “social media” label on it. Our natural desire for compartmentalization and shorthand has caused us to kill the value of “social media” as a descriptor.
You’ll perhaps remember that “social media” was originally coined to reference user-generated content. And our modern definition of “social media” still includes that component. Problematically, however, the “social media” moniker is now also used to describe a great many things, similar only in that they are online, and involve some form of interaction between customer and company.
The difficulty in telling your boss that social media isn’t a fad is magnified substantially by the fact that you and she may be looking at social media through entirely different prisms.
Amen, brother!
This is precisely why Kasey Skala and Rachel Kay disagree every PR official needs to use collaborative networking (is that an oxymoron?) sites like Twitter. Fact is, everyone has a different vision of what Twitter means.
They should take a cue from John Moore who is on the money why social media training is essential, recollecting a talk he gave to a roomful of business executives:
What struck me as I did my presentation and conversed with the audience was the fact that many of us are living in a world unto ourselves, far from the mainstream where people have never heard of people like Robert Scoble, Chris Brogan, Jeremiah Owyang. When I mentioned these thought leaders to the audience, most people had no clue who they were. Now…. I do not favor building a country of devoted social media junkies but I do favor a society that understands the need to market their skills, their capabilities. Many of these people have no idea how to raise awareness of who they are much less why they might want to do so.
What if we stopped using the term, “social media?” What if we stopped using it today, right here and right now? I’ll start — but I need your help.
I’ve branded AriWriter for the past 18+ months as a place to offer strategies and tips on social media and online marketing. I suggest a new headline, away from “social media and online marketing.” But what to use in its place? Got an idea?
About Ari Herzog
Ari – How about conversational marketing or Communicable Conversations?
.-= From Jeff Esposito to you: Five for Friday 4.23 =-.
Communicable conversations? Sounds like a disease.
Although you make a good argument against continued use of the term “social media”, what else can be used? It would be great to see this term replaced or at least broken down into categories that more accurately describe marketing and communication by way of socially interactive websites, but “communicable conversations” won’t work (yes, does sound too much like a disease). As the web evolves, perhaps terms for different categories of “social media” will arise.
.-= From Chuck Edwards@Weight Loss Tips to you: Obesity In America =-.
There are those who suggest everything digital will converge with everything that is not digital — to a singular existence that would be near-impossible to live without.
Steve Woodruff argued last year that social media will be molded into that thing we call life to the point we won’t be able to distinguish between connecting to people with it because it would be part of who we are.
Ari,
I’ve had the same concern: last year I argued for the term “Networked Communications”
http://brandimpact.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/good-bye-social-media/
…which I still think is better!
.-= From Steve Woodruff to you: What Are We Doing…Really? =-.
Hey Ari – I’ve always thought ‘social media’ was a misleading and silly label for what amounts to the internet or a bunch of marketing tools (depending on how you look at it). I’ve written about it on my blog:. I talk about it when I do presentations. The trouble is that most people are familiar with this silly term so if you start using another description folks get confused. For that reason I say in my workshops something along the lines of: I think ‘social media’ is a stupid term but I’m going to use it because it’s familiar to you.
.-= From Liz Hover to you: VIDEO: Katie Paine on measuring social media =-.
As long as you can bring order to chaos, why not be confusing?
How exactly do you equate being confusing, to bringing order?
.-= From Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing to you: Comment Contest: 5 Days Left! =-.
“Social media” may be one of those terms that has a broad definition and means different things to different people depending on their understanding and experience.
I do think it is a useful term, even though we may develop more precise terms for certain aspects of social media. Some terms will always be bit slippery, but are still necessary.
.-= From John Soares@ Practical Life Design to you: Learn to Say NO =-.
What are other slippery terms?
“Justice” as an example.
Different people may have different ideas of exactly what it is, but there are common elements of the term that most people recognize.
.-= From John Soares @ Time Management Techniques to you: Learn to Say NO =-.
Since the words “social” and “marketing” really have nothing in common why not use business media in place of social media.
There is a real distinction between the objectives of people who are using “social” media to stay connected to their friends and business which isn’t social at all but is interested in promoting their “business” venture.
Business media is not for me since that is no different than social media. Media is better — but that’s not quite what I’m after, either.
Hi there Glen,
Not sure I’d agree that “social” and “marketing” have nothing in common. You still need a financial end result at the end of the day, and that comes from marketing, advertising, content strategy or similar.
It may be a different approach, with more inbound as opposed to outbound business, but it’s still marketing at the end of the day. Social is just another facet of the overall campaign.
Cheers.
.-= From Danny Brown to you: Geek Group Hug – A Social Media Success Story by Chris Favero =-.
The same day you posted this, a post on TargetX suggested the term “social creative”. By focusing on the media being used we’ve lost sight of where the value gets created–in the creativity of the individuals connecting in these spaces.
http://www.targetx.com/ithink/?p=2409
@BarbChamberlain
Ari, Social media is a robust term. It has very broad dimensions. I cant imagine any other group of words replacing them. The market is pretty competitive and people use social tools for different purposes. Its not only for marketing, but experts come up with totally new strategies. I sincerely wanted to join the movement and stop using the term, but at the same time I would like to know what is the equivalent term we can use going forward. Gr8 find bro. I thoroughly enjoyed excerpts from Jay’s musings.
Interesting discussion! I think there needs to be a distinction between social media and social media marketing when talking to clients.
When describing any media providing social interaction, I couldn’t recommend a better name. However, the name of the media does not need to describe what we are doing with it. Because so much is being done with social media, is it any wonder that individual connotations for the term vary so much? We distinguish between television and commercials, newspapers and clip-out coupons, email and spam. We should also be distinguishing between social media and the different ways we use it. As an example, I tend to use the term “social media engagement” to describe actively participating on these websites. Clients seem to understand what this means, and what differentiates it from “social media advertising”. Both are subsets of “social media marketing”, and none of these are the media itself.
.-= From David Weedmark to you: Attention to Detail & the Post-Privacy Age =-.
Your solution is to use more words. I seek to use less. Neither is correct and neither is wrong.
Yes, your question had me puzzling all morning. And as soon as I sent out my own thoughts, I’ve begun puzzling some more… By no means did I want to imply that this wasn’t a conversation worth having. I’m actually now considering “interactive marketing”, and simply because it is less wordy, I’m beginning to like it a lot. Ha!
.-= From David Weedmark to you: Attention to Detail & the Post-Privacy Age =-.
Ari,
I don’t think there is anything wrong with the term “social media” serving as a bucket for various Web-based interaction. Media has always been a term used to describe vehicles of communication – books, newspaper, television etc… The term social was added when we became able to interact with the media that lives online by sharing it, adding our own opinions etc… It covers many things, and there is no clear definition, but I’m not sure how a name change is going to make it all clear. In addition, not all social media is marketing – interactive marketing is its own sub-category of social media. The titles we give feels inconsequential (not unlike people relations vs. public relations.)
Rachel Kay
If you are correct and social media is about interacting with media, then Facebook and MySpace and Twitter are media, no different than the New York Times or CNN.
I disagree with that analogy.
Ari,
I mean all types of interaction that the media generates and the tools enable, be it through the ability to comment, share it, discuss it with other. How else would you define what makes it social?
Rachel
Perhaps the question is what do you define as media?
You wrote, Media has always been a term used to describe vehicles of communication – books, newspaper, television etc… The term social was added when we became able to interact with the media that lives online
If we agree the New York Times and CNN are examples of media, then by your definition, MySpace and Twitter are also media. I disagree, and that’s why their inclusion as social media is stupid.
If you remove the internet, you can still share media with other people. Book clubs and radio call-in shows have their internet analogies in Facebook groups and BlogTalkRadio.com. Would the offline examples be social media, too? Or are book clubs not media and thus not social? See the dilemma?
I do see the dilemma now. Plus, all the different ‘social’ websites differ in purpose and functionality too, so some may roughly fall under a ‘media’-type definition while others wouldn’t.
.-= From Linda Dobson @ Miraclesuit Swimwear to you: Miraclesuit Swimwear – A Story =-.
You are absolutely right different social media do different things, and hence need a different name. But calling “Social Media”, something else like “Networked Communications” or any other term doesn’t fix the problem. As Shakespeare wrote “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
What we need is clear terms for the subgroups of “Social Media” that break them down by function. I came here from Dennis Edell’s blog where the discussion was about what Social media he should use. I pointed out the Blog Engage or Stumbleupon are a very different type of social media than Facebook. The first two are clearly blog promotion tools, Facebook can be used for that but has a wider (and harder to define) purpose.
I believe Social Media is a fine term for the entire class of internet media we are talking about. In time I believe these tools will evolve in to natural groupings and names for the these groupings will also evolve.
But none of that or most of the comments above answer your question! ! !
I say stick with what you have. Like it or not most people use the term social marketing. That is the term people are going to use to find you. Unless this blog is aimed at a particular niche of social marketing, then of course pick terms that will relate to the niche.
Or, be a contrarian. Use one of the Keyword tools to find a different term people would use to find a site about Social Marketing. You cold dominate the different term.
But changing you marketing slogan because you don’t like the term “Social Media” and you want everyone to stop using it, that’s not an approach I would take. I guess I don’t get the point.
.-= From Ned Carey@Real Estate Investing to you: Marketing tip from Walt Disney =-.
What would Walt Disney say?