The Discussion About “Social Media” as a Meme

February 17, 2007

Once again, the use of the term Social Media is under scrutiny by some of the loudest voices in the blogosphere. Robert Scoble’s post “what is social media” seems to have reignited a thread that Jeremiah Owyang started a couple of weeks ago that I responded to with my post, Is It Really Called Social Media, Yes!. Yes Dare Obasanjo is right, the Social Media entry in Wikipedia is woefully lacking, and there are many other very insightful points to consider in that conversation which point out reasons to be vigilant. Rather than diving in to a tit for tat on everyone’s points which would take me all day, I had a great conversation with Brian Solis this morning about a post he is writing which lead me to write this comment for Robert’s blog, which I decided to post here as well…

Many early adopters are worried that the very idea of authentic human engagement, based on trust and conversations between individual’s via the Internet will be corrupted in the way that the original spirit of netiquette was corrupted by spammers – that real world social problems like greed and predatory behaviour will infect our idealistic utopia, ruining it for everyone. They surely have reason to be concerned, even though they are not being completely practical - nor are many focusing their anger at the right people. As Brian Solis pointed out to me this morning “most of the people that need to hear these things, are not even participants in this conversation, and therein lies the problem.” Worse, those other people will see many of the angriest voices as indicative of a more serious problem with how things are today and won’t ever respond in a way that will let them really understand why it is important.

This is why we need to come together, acting like paramedia, in groups like ours and others with their different and overlapping interests, to illuminate what is right and and to point out what is wrong – to have conversations like this in our global neighborhood around the question of why things are and how we think they should really be. To hold up those who really ‘get it’ as examples to be followed and analyze things like WalMarting Across America for why it is so wrong.

We need not throw out the term Social Media for the mere fact that some people will sour its intention and purpose during the course of socializing the deeper understanding of what is happening and what it means. The worst of the arguments I see against the term is seemingly inspired by a desire to be a part of a select group of early adopters associated with a phrase that is only being used on the edge by the cool kids – ie, our clique has no room for all you ‘squares’. There is much value in this bath water, and I think our baby on this journey across the chasm is called Social Media.

Let’s stand up for what is right about “social media” rather than tearing it down just because a few misguided folks are misappropriating the meme. Better still, let’s not get all caught up in trying to control the message around the phrase – isn’t that part of what many are fighting against anyway – the right of people in the world to choose how they tell the story? Kind of ironic that so many ‘defenders’ of the spirit of what we are doing are in fact engaging with the same controlling mindset as those they are attacking. We can get all caught up in the semantic analysis and attempt to create a taxonomy for “social media” or we can stop trying to control it all and watch what emerges, accelerating the good bits and putting the kebosh on the bad.  The world is often grey and mushy, especially when it comes to emergent memes such as this…

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Filed Under About SMC, Ethics · 5 Comments  

The World is Grey and Mushy - Part 1 of a gazillion

February 13, 2007

I was chatting with Brian Solis just now about his post called, Are You Talking to Me? Taking the BS out of Business Blogging, when I noticed Strumpette’s comment bagging on conversational marketing and some of the broader Cluetrain principles.  Its a funny thing that everyone is always trying to be absolute and literal instead of allowing for smart people like Brian and others like Dave Weinberger who understand both the ideal and practical implications of “markets as conversations”.  Regardless of your perspective, I hope that more people do understand that all of these emerging practices, however you want to classify them (conversational, social, participatory etc…), are based on COMMUNICATIONS, one way, multiway and bi-directional.  To that extent, there are times you want to talk to people and times you want to listen.

The thing is, Strumpette gets caught up in the social and conversational side, or rather the word ‘conversational’,  neglecting that all media is a form of communications, and could be easily described as conversational in most of its forms, eventhough the purpose is occasionally out of self interest than group interest.  The media created between a performer and their audience, between a blogger and the people who are interested in what they have to say and even David Letterman is largely conversational.

Is conversational marketing or business blogging always good? - of course not, but it often is, and could be better if we work together to explore how and understand why.

Much of the same criticism leveled at Social Media champions like Brian is very similar to that slung at brand marketing before it became widely understood and refined.  Same for banner advertising.  Same for ecommerce.  More case studies with ROI will appear in time.  Indeed it already has helped many, they just have not shared their stories yet with many trying to maintain a competitive advantage.

No the world is not always flat, nor is transparency always ok, nor is a consensus driven model always best - we need to use the right thinking in each unique situation.  The world is grey and mushy, not black and white.  However, when a stragegy is more often broadly appropriate for organizations than less, why not talk about a practice area affirmatively and discover the edges of what works and what doesn’t and where it can go.  As I was reminded recently, ‘don’t make yourself the Chief Electricity Officer‘.

When a company has established its trustworthiness in the market, when it is focused on creating value over greedily chumming up sales, when it listens as much as it talks, good things generally do happen - the organization is, in a sense, in harmony with the market it serves.  If the organization is having conversations with customers, potential customers, former customers and influential people in their market segment, and the right people are leading the organization’s team, conversation can be the difference between delivering an ok experience and one that becomes a Lovemark - which would you rather have?

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Vote for Best Use of Social Media In Super Bowl 2007

February 5, 2007

Great first half, boring second half, but fun time over at Brian Solis’ tonight for the game. The ads were ok, nothing really outstanding, though there were a few gems that got everyone laughing (and a few people cried for the robot who lost his job - or was that a shebot?). Regardless, we are here to determine who had the best use of Social Media in their Super Bowl Advertising. Some tech companies did not throw down the big bucks, but did put up ads on YouTube that were less than funny or entertaining - good thing they did not blow that $2.6MM

I will collect votes through WED morning, Feb 7 @ 9am PST, so cast your vote right now…

[poll=2]

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Blogging for retailers?

January 24, 2007

One of our good friends from Vancouver, Dave Olson, who produces some awesome (and zany) social media in his own right away from the day job, just released this great white paper today on “Blogging for Retailers“. Not only is it a great piece from a very deep thinker, you don’t even need to register to download it. Be sure to check out the accompanying podcast for additional perspective.

After you get a chance to read it, please let me know what you think about it. Did he hit the mark? Are you a retailer who was won over with his ideas? Or do you think that retailers don’t have a place at the table of the blogosphere?

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Chris Heuer Presentation at Search Insider Summit

November 15, 2006

This morning I gave a presentation on Social Media to some of the smartest people in Search Marketing and Search Engine Optimization at the Search Insider Summit hosted by Mediapost. Many thanks to my co-panelist Sally Falkow from Press Feed and our moderator Bill Flitter from Pheedo. I think it went pretty well, and considering this was my 3rd and final PowerPoint I am allowing myself to give in 2006, I am also very happy to be done with it.

As many of you know, I detest panels and podiums, but this felt a little different thanks to Bill jumping into the audience to get things going with some audience participation. Despite the low energy level of the room on the first early morning session of the last day of the conference, it seems that many of the people in the audience did actially ‘get it’.

One of the reasons for agreeing to do a Powerpoint (which I started preparing yesterday afternoon), was that I really do need a presentation I can use on an ongoing basis to give to similar audiences on the ‘conference circuit’. I am sure you can find many ways to improve this presentation, so please do let me know your suggestions. The Powerpoint Presentation is available as a 4.8MB Zip file called “It’s Time to Get Real: Why Social Media might be able to improve your SEO, but you will never reap the full benefits until you really ‘get it’”

Rather than talking forever about the presentation, I wanted to close now with all the links that I did not get to include in the PowerPoint.

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Filed Under Events, Social Media Tools · 3 Comments