What is Social Media? No, really, WTF?

February 28, 2007

I have been thinking about this question for a couple of years and have a few thoughts around a coherent answer which I have talked about through this blog and through comments on other people’s blogs. I have talked about it in a beercast with Mike Hudack and I have talked the ears off of people like you who are passionate in your like and dislike of this language to describe what is happening. Of course, the whole thing has blown up a couple of times lately inside the mediasphere, with these posts from Jeremiah Owyang, Robert Scoble, Brian Solis, Doc Searls and many, many others. Today, I am beginning a new journey, to co-create with you, a very clear answer to this question, from which we may all benefit.

Rather than diving into the 3-4,000 word post I was trying to get posted today, let me get to the point and propose my initial draft of an answer to the question:

Social Media is redefining how we relate to each other as humans and how we as humans relate to the organizations that serve us. While it is commonly represented by blogs, podcasts, vlogs, wikis, user generated content and social networks, it is not about those specific things as much as it is about what happens around and because of those things. This includes most notably the ability and desire to easily share with each other, to build upon that which is shared and to discover people, places and things that are of interest to you, because the sharing of these things with these new tools, is making visible that which was previously unknown.

While the early days of the Internet talked about the Three C’s of Content, Commerce and Community, we have come to realize that this era of our evolutionary growth has it’s own Three C’s, which speaks more closely to the fundamental needs of society beyond the interest in the technology for its own sake. The “Greater Significance” of Social Media is a newfound understanding of the importance of Context, Communications and Collaboration. The context of what we are trying to accomplish and why we are passionate about it is the starting point for our conversations and the basis of everything else. Communications in its traditional and emerging forms, references how we come to understand and connect with each other. Collaboration is about how we work together for our common and individual interests within the various contexts in which we invest our attention.

While this definition is still a bit long and not fully refined, I think it does move us forward in the right direction. Ian Kennedy’s insight from the Stirr mixer last week was crucial in bringing me back to these important points, which I first made at a Net Tuesday event with Mena Trott what seems like a very long time ago. Also deserving a mention here is Giovanni Rodriguez who told me during our Social Media to Corporate Media workshop in October 2006 that he felt we should be talking about “socializing media” instead of Social Media. While our choice of language here is seemingly one of convenience for many, I feel it is indeed the most fitting and appropriate in light of the greater importance. As I have said elsewhere, in a few years, it will just be referenced as media and people will talk about the “early days of the Social Media era.”

The backbone of the New Media era (aka Web 1.0), while constrained by limited connectivity to the network, complicated software for tinkerers, expensive tools and simple Web pages, was conceptually centered around edge activities. Today, in the era of Social Media, the limitations on participation defined by those prior constraints are largely, but not completely, lifted, moving a greater number of those activities to the core of society. Because participation is more broadly available across society, it is the contexts in which we interact with others that is most crucial - within those contexts we communicate with each other and if through those communications, we reach agreement to trust one another, we can collaborate towards common goals. As I have stated many times, in the knowledge economy, the greatest barrier to value creation in the enterprise and between them, is the inability of smart people to get along with one another.

In September of 2006, I sought to answer the question “Why is Social Media important?” - it was a powerful question which is informative here in trying to answer the current question. In trying to define anything by what it is very specifically as some have tried to do, we restrict the possibilities for what else may be considered in that same light - in trying to define Social Media by what it is not as Robert Scoble did in comparing what is different today, we are being more expansive in allowing for new possibilities to emerge. In that this is an emergent term, I think it appropriate to more broadly define the term rather than trying to be restrictive, though many will disagree. In defining Social Media by what it is not, we make it easier for people to understand the concept by the comparison to other known things, but we also do not fully impress upon people the “greater significance” of why this is important. This is ok - really it is - for the 90% of society that may never fully participate in online communities or contribute to our greater social wisdom, they need not think of what they are doing in the same way we, the early adopters are - they only need gain the benefit and enjoyment from within their specific contextual frame of reference. Does grandma need to understand the broader impact of social media, or does she merely care about the fact that she can read about what is going on in your life and stay connected to her grandchildren?

As the Cluetrain Manifesto rightly pointed out, “Markets are Conversations”. Social Media and the tools we use to create, consume and connect with each other are making those markets, and those conversations, more visible, and as a result, laying bare in plain sight those people and organizations we can trust, and those we can not. It is why I still think David Brin’s Transparent Society is such an important read. It is why many of the ‘folks like me’ are so optimistic about the potential for Social Media to empower ideas like The Noble Pursuit and more broadly create economic opportunities while delivering on the original promise of information technology to provide true market efficiencies.

So let’s see how well we can communicate and collaborate here within this context - the definition above has been posted to the Social Media Club Wiki for you to edit and refine. Love it or hate it, I want to see how you can make it better. If we do well with it, I suggest we ask our friend Jimmy Wales to consider the resulting definition to replace the current entry in Wikipedia. If you want to propose your own separate definition, or write more about this separately of the wiki page, please use the tag whatissocialmedia so we can all follow along. Either way, as the very wise Howard Rheingold says, “What it is –> is up to you.”

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