Monthly Archives: July 2008

So then what is social media all about?

With all the discussion on what social media is, what it’s future will be like, who will control it, I often feel we fail to see the forest for the trees.

I see it as too diverse of a phenomenon to pin down with one easy definition. Its applications go far beyond the neat capsules that can be used to pick a particular department or function that should “own” it. Social media is creating, empowering, and accompanying a paradigm shift in the way we use all media.

Are we fully there yet? Of course not. These are only the early stages, part of an evolutionary process that often comes step by step. But those steps are happening and happening and soon we’ll look back and be amazed how far we’ve traveled. Then before we know it again, we’ll be stepping again and look back again and we’ll be amazed how much we’ve come from that first time we looked back.

Yes, organizations are going to have to harness social media in ways that they can benefit from, to reach ROI. This means trying to create some sort of structure for it without “siloizing” it. Very difficult indeed.

I’ve tried to lay out what I see social media as. Not from a specific definitional standpoint, but from a several miles up point of view.

Interested in your feedback… Continue reading →

Social media: Who will control it?

I’ve been noticing some serious discussions lately on the future of social media.

Steve Rubel sees it as becoming so dispersed around the enterprise that it no longer becomes the work of specialist, but rather the work of everyone. We’ll all have it as part of our skill sets. Therefore, social media strategies will no longer exist.

Jason Falls, with a background in PR, says that social media will not only exist, but it will come under control of the people in PR. That’s because social media is about communication, and PR people are communication specialists. This, in spite the fact, as he points out, that the PR profession has been largely resistant in adopting PR.

Jim Tobin of Ignite Communications says the opposite of both Jim and Jason. Social media will continue to exist and it will be lead by social media specialists.

My own opinion is closest to Jim’s and can be summed up in a comment that Brian Solis left on Jason’s post:

“Truth is that Social Media is the responsibility of the champions that demonstrate how it will benefit the company and the brand.”

To me, that’s only common sense. Steve is right in that it will end up being dispersed but social media is too big of an animal to be a series of skillsets spread out over an organization. And specialists will still exist, just as large companies have large PR divisions and hire large PR agencies.

While it’s not that I fully disagree with Jason, but I find that I viscerally disagree that once we in the PR profession get it, we’ll control it. Most of the responses to his post that agreed with him were from people in PR. I think all of them are wrong. That’s because it won’t be their department of PR that provides the leadership, it will be THEM.

Each organization is different. Some technology companies won’t need social media coming from PR. It may be more rooted in customer service. In other cases it may be more rooted in advertising.

So I think that Jason himself and others like him will be the leaders, the ones that will be creating the strategies and methodologies of the future. Oddly, I think Jason is wrong because INDIVIDUALS like him will be the leaders within companies, regardless of what division they’re in.

Next post will be an overview of what social media is.