So, What Is Social Media, Really?

Last night at the Link Greater Green Bay meetup, someone asked the question “so, what is the definition of social media,” which we should have prompted a more thorough response than I gave at the time.  I was approached after the meeting and asked for a more thorough response.  Now, for the ‘social media experts’ out there, this may seem like a rhetorical discussion, but isn’t this the very think that you should be sharing with your clients?  This is important stuff. So, with that, here are a few ways of looking at it.  Please comment with your own perspectives on how you define social media.  I’d love to hear them!

First, in my experience and opinion, social media is not (and should not be) defined by the tools that we use like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and the like any more than being an auto technician or the entire profession of automobile mechanics & technology is defined by wrenches, sockets, impact wrenches and hammers (or diagnostic computers).  Rather, social media is a technological and cultural phenomena that’s simply ‘enabled’ by the aforementioned tools.

Let’s first take a look at the definitions of the two words “social” and “media”, as Webster defines them.

Social = “of or relating to human society, the interaction of the individual and the group, or the welfare of human beings as members of society”

Media = “a medium of cultivation, conveyance, or expression”

One could combine the two and come up with a definition something like this:

“A medium of cultivation, conveyance, or expression propagated by members of human society to further the interaction of the individual and the group for  the welfare of human beings as members of society.”

That’s a mouthful, but it’s getting there…  Let’s look at a longer, but more tangible definition from Wikipedia.

According to Wikipedia (because Webster hasn’t defined social media yet), social media is:

“…information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It’s a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologue (one to many) into dialog (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal and business. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).”

Let’s take a closer look at a few points in that definition.

1. Information content (media) created by people (rather than by industry, which would then be industrial or ‘mass’ media) — This is ‘stuff’ that we create in social media, such as blog posts, linked in Q&A and twitter messages.  It’s also the ‘tangible digital artifacts’ that we find online such as user profile in linkedin & facebook and personal blogs.  There’s a ‘permanent’ aspect to social media content (profiles & blog sites) and a ‘fluid’ aspect (updates, blog posts) as well.

2. The “using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies” is the part of social media that we think of most. These are all of the tools that we’re familiar with.  LinkedIn, facebook, blogs, etc.   Highly accessible means that we don’t need (much) specialized knowledge and anyone can access them for low or no fees.  Scalable simply means that they’re designed to accommodate millions of users and participants with the capability of being easily expanded or upgraded on demand.

3. Finally, “It’s a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologue (one to many) into dialog (many to many) and is the democratization of information” underscores that most important point about social media.  Sociology and technology are components of innovation and progress.  We all know of technologies that have gone the way of the Dodo because they didn’t fit into our sociology (the science of society) or culture.  Social media technology is a compatible match with the sociology of the current era, which is why we see the ‘explosion’ of social media adoption and usage.  Moreover, the “monologue to dialog” point can be seen right her with our own newspaper.  The news has gone from a one-way reporter-to-reader medium to a reporter-to-reader-to-commenter-to-reader and so on.

In contrast, for those of you who understand things better by “what they are not”,

Social media are distinct from industrial media, such as newspapers, television, and film. While social media are relatively cheap tools that enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information, industrial media generally require significant financial capital to publish information. Examples of industrial media issues include a printing press or a government-granted spectrum license.

“Industrial media” are commonly referred to as “traditional”, “broadcast” or “mass” media.

We could go on and on with this, but at the end of the day, it’s all about individuals, groups and businesses engaging with each other through accessible tools and a level playing field where we all have a voice.

What are your thoughts?

Here’s a great video on “social media in plain English”