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…

Social media can be a practice within itself

Social media’s possibilities extend beyond any traditional established practice (advertising, PR, sales, etc.) to the point that it can be a practice within itself. It can be spread across many departments and, thus, will often need practitioners who can implement coordinated efforts within an organization. The strategic methods used will often have enough attributes on a stand alone basis that it shouldn’t come underneath the heading of another specific department. I’d put social media on the same par as advertising and PR. Full service social media firms have sprouted up such as Abraham Harrison to meet today’s needs.

Social media can be a service

Because social media is still in its nascent stages, clients and potential clients don’t always need comprehensive solution packages. They may need to know how to set up a blog and how to get traffic for it. Simple as that. Helping a company to start a blog is a service. So is creating a podcast. Many clients look to cherry pick services to satisfy their needs. For some in social media, providing a non-coordinated menu of services is where it’s at. While social media agencies are an emerging industry, there’s not widespread demand quite yet, leaving many practitioners as service providers.

Social media is strategy based

A company decides to let go of some (but not all) control of its marketing communications message. It views its customers and users on a somewhat equal level and not as blocks of ears to be shouted at and throats to have messages shoved down.

Another company uses blogs to work with customers to improve products or come up with new ones.

These are strategic changes that are being implemented. Social media can change the nature of an organization because it changes the way an organization looks at itself and its relationships with its stakeholders.

Therefore the strategy behind social media empowers change like nothing else can.

Social media is tactically based

The many tools of social media can be designed to manage a problem or a series of problems. That’s not something that necessarily changes an organization. It’s can implemented based strictly upon need.

This can cause a lot of frustration amongst social media strategists as we see a lot of potential opportunities for business not being fulfilled. For others, applying tactics itself is an opportunity. A foot in the door.

Social media is technology based

Social media can involve a host of technologies that are often complicated to learn and understand. Setting up RSS feeds, monitoring online conversations, designing a blog for better SEM, putting together a widget. It takes technical know how to implement much of these. And that’s a reason why so many ad agencies and especially PR firms have been resistant in adopting social media.

But the technology is constantly changing, adapting, growing, as is the myriad of ways they can be used for clients. It often takes someone who is comfortable with technology to succeed.

Social Media is theory based

Authenticity. Transparency. Community. Engagement. Listening. Give up some of your control. All constantly espoused by social media strategists. These are theories that often go against the grain of traditional thought. More on engagement and less on contrived messaged, push on people. This blog post is theoretical. The theories formulate the methodologies that are behind the practices and the services.

These theories are why so many of us blog and offer our opinions and commentaries. It’s why we read one another’s blogs, friend one another on Facebook and follow one another on Twitter.

Social media is rule based

Aren’t authentic or transparent? Watch out! You’re gonna get nailed by someone in the blogosphere and it will cost you. An instant case study as to how NOT do something. The rules of the game were collectively created and enforced.

We’ve seen traditional agencies, large and small, ignore these rules and push ahead with fake blogs and such. Ask the folks at Edelman and Zipatoni.

Social media is anti-bureaucratic

This may be one of the most important points of all. Because its capabilities go beyond the silos of the current corporate communications, because the public arena can embrace it as their own, because it is always changing, and because it involves giving up a serious amount of self control, social media bucks the bureaucratic structure within organizations while it fundamentally changes the relationship between the organization and its stakeholders.

Online as a whole can shift between advertising and PR, causing disruption. Social media adds to this by bringing in customers, users, and in some cases, communities into the mix. It resists authority when the authority becomes too controlling. And authority usually wants control.

Organizational bureaucracies will be changing soon enough because of social media.

Social media can be vertical – part 1

Again, I see social media as being often a separate animal from traditional PR and advertising. For that matter, online advertising itself first created that difference. Social media extends that difference. It has its own methodologies that are totally separate from offline advertising. The divisions here may not be silo based; but often the pool of knowledge for success in the social media arena can’t be found in traditional types.

Simply sticking it under a particular division within an organization can cause stifled growth as it will be badly nurtured by people with a particular preconceived mindset.

Social media can be vertical – part 2

It’s vertical in another manner as well. And this is more of a prediction than a statement of the current conditions, but we will soon see more and more specialized firms pop up that will be geared toward certain segments of the population. Just as there are agencies that are geared toward the Latino market and PR firms that are geared toward the GLBT communities, we’ll see social media agencies that have developed the expertise in reaching out to certain segments of the population. All you have to do is listen to the many mommy bloggers that complain about their constantly getting hit by pitches from agencies that have no clue on what it’s like being a mom.

Social media can be horizontal – part 1

From what we all hear, social media will have implications in advertising, public relations, sales, customer service, human resources, investor relations etc. It will take an enterprise wide strategy to implement all of that. And it will take an actual social media strategist who understands all of those departments and who understands the technologies behind social media to devise a plan for that enterprise. He or she will have to be strong enough to lead the way and manage a lot of personalities, but gentle enough to let each department blossom.

Social media can be horizontal – part 2

Outside organizations, agencies such as Abraham Harrison and others will continue to emerge and become successful because they will stay on the forefront of all that is happening and how it should be applied. Companies won’t have the internal expertise nor will they have the time nor the personnel to implement cross functional social media strategies.

So, just as we see ad agencies and PR firms today, we’ll continue to see social media agencies. There will definitely be a need for them.

Social media is push

Yes, social media still allows you to deliver marketing messages. It can be the conversation starter. A blog can be push as can a podcast. Maybe this is obvious but I’ve heard so much talk about sitting back an listening I wanted to add this. Yes, social media can be overtly promotional. It just has to be done right.

Social media is pull

Yes, listening is important. Then engaging is important. Done right it creates trust. Trust is pull. Pull is good. Social media is good.

Social Media can be web presence centric and dispersed at the same time

No need to dis the hub of a website. Core elements of an organization’s social media efforts can emanate from but then be dispersed throughout blogs, Flickr, YouTube, etc.

Social media can be created from within

This is obvious.

Social media can be created and enhanced by others

The greatest threat. The biggest fear. The challenging factor that causes many an enterprise to resist, to delay implementations. But those on the outside aren’t waiting.

So to me, social media is so multi-dimensional that it can’t be easily defined in one definition, explained in a singular context, bottled up in a particular department.

Me too.

You want to get back to the show, the game, the newscast. See the bad guy get his ass nailed, the final two minutes of the tight game, or news on the latest scoop on the election cycle. The last thing you want to see is a series of presentations about pills that can make you pee better, a car that supposedly makes you cool, and a law firm that chases ambulances.

Me too.

But every once and a while, you’ll watch something that will catch your eye. It will make you laugh. Chuckle inside. You’ll be able to relate to it. Or you’ll be impressed because it’s impressive, not because the commercial is trying to pretend that it’s impressive with itself. Or you’ll think, shit, how did they do that?

Me too.

If that’s what happens, then that’s a commercial that will likely end up on Firebrand.

Firebrand is a client of ours. We’re proud to have them. They’re a new media outlet – literally. We’re proud to have them. They’re a new media outlet – literally. They’re on the web at ‘re on the web at http://www.firebrand.com and on the ION network on cable in 95 million homes. They seek out and get the world’s best commercials and play them, MTV style. From the States, Britain, Malaysia, Canada, Australia, India.

Now, let’s talk football. Let’s talk the Super Bowl. I could go off on a tangent and first talk about the great commercials, but I’m a lifelong fanatical New England Patriots fan so to me, this Sunday means football. I had to get that in.Allright, so lets’s talk about those about great commercials that the Super Bowl is known for. They get plenty of press beforehand. People do stop and watch them and they then talk about them the next day. They remember them. And they wish that all TV ads were that good.

We’ll, this week Firebrand will be celebrating ads of Super Bowls past all week long. Then on Monday, February 4th, they’ll be hosting “Firebrand Monday”, showing all the ads from the previous day’s Big Game. Viewers will be treated to the likes of Terry Tate, Office Linebacker and Carmen Electra

Here’s the lineup for the week.

Monday January 28th: “BIG TIME ATHLETES” in classic Big Game commercials

Tuesday January 29th: “BIG BUDGET PRODUCTIONS” for classic Big Game commercials

Wed January 30th: “CHICKS IN CHARGE” in classic Big Game commercials

Thursday January 31st: “BIG TIME CELEBRITIES” in classic Big Game commercials

Friday February 1st: “BIG TIME BRANDS” in classic Big Game commercials

Monday February 4th: IT’S FIREBRAND MONDAY, THE DAY AFTER THE BIG GAME – CELEBRATE THE HOLIEST DAY IN ADVERTISING WITH THE OFFICE LINEBACKER, CARMEN ELEKTRA AND CLASSIC BIG GAME COMMERCIALS!

One of the things that was clarified for me with all of the coverage of this recent Facebook Beacon episode was both the effectiveness and limitations of both mainstream media and the blogosphere in covering major issues of the day.

When Facebook introduced Beacon amidst much fanfare, the advertising, business, and technology communities followed the story with great interest. It seemed to offer a lot: traditional display mixed with viral word of mouth. Major brands, both online and offline were partnering with Facebook on Beacon.

Soon things started to go haywire as people suddenly found out that things they bought were showing up in their ‘friends’ Facebook’s newsfeed without their knowledge or permission. It turned out that Beacon, which had led it partners and the media to believe that was to be opt-in, was, in fact, opt-out. And it was also clear that Facebook did not let its 50,000,000 users that they’d be playing roles as marketing agents from now on. Disasters began happening and the blogosphere was first to react.

Geeks examined the technology behind the program here, here, and here. Marketing bloggers wondered if it was good strategy here, here, and here. All excellent posts. All made sense. All contributed to the conversation.

The problem here is that we all can’t act as a cohesive investigative unit, uncovering the ‘truth’ all together. We go at it from the angle we are familiar with. We get info bit by bit, some of which can be misleading and simply untrue. That’s exactly what Stefan Berteau of Computer Associates ran into in his trying to get answers from Facebook. While Stefan was apparently finding out – and thankfully telling us – he was getting his answers from a customer service rep. A possibly uninformed on the exact details customer service rep.

Bloggers often have a limited amount of time to research, confirm, and blog about these things. We have jobs to do. So, unfortunately, while we can have great impact, it can be limited in its influence.

In the meantime, much of the mainstream media looked at this from afar, with only passing interest, waiting to see if the situation blew up in Facebook’s face. And when it did – or at least when it came time for Facebook to respond – they did it mostly with press releases and shut off communications channels. And most of their responses were to the mainstream business and technology press. The problem there is that their explanations were often covered in PR spinspeak and technobabble. The very points that key people in the blogosphere raised weren’t answered. The mainstream media simply reported how Facebook says it will now carry on their Beacon program.

This is a classic way of responding. Assure the media that you’ve heard the complaints and that changes are coming. A mea culpa with a smiley face. The mainstream media may not know all the details and therefore not ask the key questions. So we may never know as a whole what the real deal is. Unless we keep up on those blogs. But then again…we’ve all got jobs to do…and other things to blog about.

This past Wednesday I attended an excellent forum on Capitol Hill put on by the New Politics Institute. Entitled “Social Networking Tools in Politics”, it featured both excellent speakers and content. The Institute bills itself as a think tank dedicated to helping progressives better understand today’s politics in todays everchaning technology, media, and demographics.

Director Peter Leyden handled the event featuring Facebook Chief Security Officer Chris Kelly, Grassroots.com President and CEO John Hlinko, Cheryl Contee of Flieshman Hillard’s San Francisco office, Change.org’s Ben Rattay, and Simon Rosenberg, head of the New Democratic Network and a founder and officer of NPI.

The crux of the program was part how-to and part what’s-in-store for 2008 and beyond.

Two themes that I took out the session was that, since politics is an original form of social networking, the concepts behind online social networking are a perfect fit for politics. Now, that’s obvious, but they were able to break it down.

Rosenberg stressed that campaigns and causes need to adopt tools and strategies – blogger outreach, mobile, cable TV, online video, and the use of social netorks. This was echoed by Ben Rattay, who has set up Change.org to do just that. There are a series of caused that one can join to mobilize, spread the word, fundraise.

Cheryl Contee also weighed in from the strategy side, pointing out how traditional efforts slumber on while online efforts can be much more nimble.

John Hlinko showed us that he hasn’t lost his sense of humor. He’s a message creator and feels – as I do – that messaging often needs something clever. It can’t be the false sense of outrage that we so often see. An effective message will cause people to take notice and pass it around – making it more viral.

Chris Kelly, who I would imaging will be very busy over the next few years came up with several key points how leveraging social media will benefit political campaigns. He wrote this paper, pointing out how Facebook, MySpace, etc. will be used for branding, voter registration, fundraising, volunteering, and voter turnout. He seemed a bit at unease at making forecasts regarding privacy. My guess is that’s more likely an evolving process with more than a few bumps and detours in the road.

Millions of netizens – including me – have taken a great liking to YouTube. And for good reason. You can find videos of practically anything you want. It’s given us the hilarious, the creative, the intriguing. I’ve learned a lot from watching some old videos and have found scenes of old movies that I loved and wanted to see again.

That being said, NBC’s recent closing of its channel on YouTube and pulling of its videos content show us that YouTube, as an entity, is far from being completely vital to content distribution. When push comes to shove, it is actually expendable. At least, that is, to big media companies that have significant amounts of valuable content.

NBC shut down its channel because they’re launching their own service, Hulu. A joint venture with News Corp., Hulu is set to launch in late October.

I’d say this is a good move by NBC.  While it may initially cause some confusion at first, once it’s up an running, it will easily be found.  The traffic that goes to Hulu will be 100% traffic for the site.  On YouTube, someone can watch 10 minutes of something and then hop over to a video of a guy picking his nose.  NBC will essentially own their traffic.  They can measure it better, the can monetize it better.  They’ll be able to create greater brand affinity and loyal communities of interest.  The ROI could be excellent.  The model is unproven at this point, but so is YouTube.

This past Thursday featured what looks to be the first of several “Presidential Candidate Dialogues” jointly hosted by MySpace and MTV. The event, held at the University of New Hampshre, featured former U.S. Sen. John Edwards talking to and taking questions from and audience of up to 300 attenedees, primarily made up of Univesity of New Hampshire Students, MTV viewers, and MySpace users.But that wasn’t all. It allowed for an online audience to submit questions via instant messager and also express opinions on Edwards’ performance. These opinions could be gathered collectively to create a consensus and then this consensus could be reported back in real time to the candidate. The whole lasted for about an hour and had a definite energetic feel to it.

Washington Post political blogger moderated the event along with MTV correspondents Gideon Yago and SuChin Park. I’ve always like Cilizza. He seems to have a pretty deep insight yet maintain a down to earth approach about him. And two veteran pollsters were brought in, John McLaughlin, a Republican, and Geoffrey Garin, a Democrat to handle the polling and online audience response feedback.

But here’s what I liked abut the event itself:

1) The continued dispersement of news and informational media delivery
While we’re beyond the period in which the vast majority of people (or at least those that are not directly involved in politics) get the vast majority of their news from traditional news sources – TV broadcast networks and their nightly newspapers and more recently, news oragnizational websites, we still haven’t quite reached a phase were the fragmentation of media outlets and delivery systems makes non-traditional outlets players. The CNN/YouTube debates held for the Democrats made YouTube a player, but the presence of CNN made it all the more legit.

What’s great abut this effort is that it involves two entities that are neither traditional media nor “news-centric”. Granted, MTV has a news bureau and has gotten involved in the political arena. But that isn’t it’s central mission. And MySpace was barely a blip on the nation’s consciousness at this point in the last election cycle.

Here we have two non-traditional players work together to host a forum in which is both both broadcast and webcast to potentially millions. Traditional media has a slight presence (Chris Cilizza of the Post), but it is MySpace and MTV that not only make it possible, but make it sizzle. And I bet this change is permanent.

2) Interactive audience feedback

While I wasn’t necessarily impressed with how it came out – it was mostly generic positive feedback – I like the idea that feedback can be made possible in real time. As this evolves, it should get more complex and may be used in future presidential debates between the two nominees. Can you imagine a candidate who gets too nasty or one who is constantly avoiding answering a question getting feedback live that he or she is looking idiotic or poor? It will probably happen. A major improvement over the tightly controlled events that we’ve had for the past few decades.

3) Candidate interaction to a targeted demographic in an interactive setting.

This might seem to be a combination of the first two and in a way it is. But this format can now be transferred to other non-traditonal media partners who can reach out to their targeted demographics. This means candidates will have to forego stump speeches from time to time.

I asked Kevin to write a blog post (which rocked) based on my assumption that the US is headed towards a recession based on the devaluation of the dollar, the housing market slump, and the war in Iraq. I believe that marketing and advertising online is recession-proof, especially as attention profiling and behavioral targeting strategies improve and ads become customized to each the unique hopes, dreams, needs, wants, and context of users online.

My premise, in short, is that folks will hunker down during this recession with only the “Internet” to keep them company, in the form of VOIP, IPTV, social media, MMORPGs, and networked video games.

Essentially, folks will spend all of their attention online so there will be more ad and marketing dollars spent online in order to reach them. During the upcoming recession, search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), new marketing, online outreach, online engagement, online advocacy, viral and word-of-mouth marketing, targeted direct marketing, and laser-targets online ad buys will thrive because they’re relatively cheap, focused, and where the people are, while print ads, commercials, and radio spots will plummet: too much buck for the bang.

We’re going to have a recession. let’s just make that assumption.

Usually, during a recession, ad revenues drop. My argument is that during a recession, people stay home more. Web surfing is cheap, amusing, plentiful, and also most amusing with broadband. While people may cut down cable, they will keep their Internet connection — and will hunker-down on the Internet while they’re low on personal spending money, on discretionary income.

My dad was an photographer and ad man in Hawaii during a recession in Japan that totally gutted the the Hawaiian economy. Traditionally, the first thing companies do when the shit hits the fan is pull ad dollars.

In that scenario, my dad’s company almost shuttered. What this shakedown did, however, was created stock photography and video, killing the bespoke day-rate on-site corporate photographer. Something always comes out in the end.

Downturns result in a need to make systems more efficient and more effective. It just wasn’t affordable for agencies to hire shooters to do shoots, bespoke. There were too many variables and all the risk was on the shoulders of the client. Stock photography changed all of that: cheaper and oftentimes better, since the shooter incurs the risk and the stock is “all the best of all time” and not the best that a particular day, week, or season had to offer.

How effective is plastering walls with bills or standing on a soap box when people are at home and online? How effective are commercials on cable channels people drop as a “luxury?” How worthwhile are those magazine ads when people drop their subscriptions to GQ and O?

The Internet is a commodity. Broadband is no longer a luxury — people are not willing to either go back to “rabbit ears” or to dial up. Folks will keep their basic cable, I am sure — it is a commodity — and they will keep their Internet, another commodity.

Is it very interesting time. I guess this is sort of a prediction. We’ll see if it all comes true. Check out that Canadian Loonie, eh?

Well, at the end of the day, I will always quote Kevin Donlan quoting someone else:

“When times are good, you should advertise. When times are bad, you must advertise.”

I sort of like the new My Times offered by the New York Times. It is basically iNYT, I guess, and it feels like it is based on the iGoogle platform. I am going to mess around with it over the next few days. This News Aggregator Portal pretty much leaves the Post, the FT, and the Journal in the dust.

The best thing about http://my.nytimes.com is that it is an agnostic, neutral, platform that not only allows you to subscribe to any new and feed source, but it also helps you along by allowing you to choose the sources, news, and feeds suggested by the editors, writers, and columnists from the staff of the New York Times, called Journalists’ Suggestions. Very cool.

This is the sort of selfless act that will help the NYT survive any painful evolutions, conversions, or shifts that result from the aggressive changes enforced by social media, citizen journalism, decontextualized content, and universal RSS-powered online content. Bravo!

I love the Wall Street Journal newspaper as it is, on my porch, every morning. I also love it on XM Radio. The only reason I support the purchase of the Wall Street Journal by Rupert Murdoch is because the online Wall Street Journal really sucks, even as a paid member. It makes Jesus cry. It makes me cry. I am crying right now. I should post a photo.

The site is slow, heavy, inelegant, unresponsive, and poorly-optimized. The site also kills my browsers, both Firefox and IE7. And that’s coming from a daily-reader, a dead-tree subscriber, and a total fan! If you’re not a subscriber, things get worse. Permalinks lead to teasers and dead-ends, and there is zero-semblance of any development past Web 1.0. I am appalled. I am disgusted, and I am willing to sacrifice the WSJ to the altar of News Corp!

Okay, okay, the Financial Times web site makes me cry too (I am a daily subscriber to the FT as well and love it so much, as well) . So, here’s hoping that Rupurt Murdoch buys the FT soon, as well.

I wrote this article back in October 2005, The Misplaced Journalistic Priesthood, and I thought about it after writing The Mainstream Media is Scared Senseless:

“Reporters, journalists, and anchors are all employees of profit-motivated organizations that have investors, sponsors and advertisers. Reporters are ambitious, competitive, and can be fired. Sounds like an unholy priesthood to me.”