After the rain, air;
woods heaving out
a deep, resinous breath
of respiration, decay;
palpably damp,
it smells like
rust and tea.
I inhale deeply,
exhaling again into the dappled blackness
of trees and stones and earth;
breathing into the wood’s dark mouth,
tasting.
Recently I posted my working definitions of social media and social media marketing and got good reader feedback both on- and offline. I modified the definitions and used them to kick off a social marketing strategy document for review with my VP. This document was one part disquisition, one part tactical plan, and eleven pages overall, so I decided the definitions could be fairly terse.
Here's where I landed. What do you think?
Social media
A category of communications that let people create, share, and discuss materials online. Social media includes internet-only services like social networks, video sharing sites, and blogging services, but also simpler tools like commenting and polls that can be embedded on regular sites. Social media users share their photos, videos, stories, comments, and perspectives with each other, leading to multi-way online conversations. This engagement builds shared meaning and relationships among participants.
Social media marketing
A category of Internet marketing that leverages the power of social media to connect companies to customers and customers to each other. Social media marketing seeks to build awareness and shared understanding of a company’s brand through multi-way conversation. It relies on word-of-mouth tactics that let constituents create, distribute, and discuss content about a company’s offerings—stories that become available in real-time and remain findable via search engines later. Social media marketing is an indirect method of acquiring leads and customers. It’s not a direct-response approach, but rather one that helps build brand awareness, affinity, and traffic. As a reward for its engagement with social media, a company can enjoy increased exposure; inexpensive, ad-hoc customer feedback; real-time targeted market research; and enhanced customer affinity and trust.
Hacking around, I realized it's so easy to pass arguments to Twitter that even I can do it. Here's a code snip that builds a link labeled "Twitter it!" Substitute your site and directory. (Entities need to be encoded.):
<a href="http://twitter.com/home/?&status=Check%20this%20out%3A%20http%3A%2F%2Fwww.engagingexperience.com%2Fwebtech" target="_blank">Twitter it!</a>
On your web page, it looks like this: Twitter it!
This launches Twitter and pre-fills your text and URL, like this:
I'm currently drafting a social media strategy for my company, laying out the business case and identifying how these tools support our objectives. Since my report audience is executives with limited exposure to social media, I've drafted working definitions to guide discussion. As usual, writing encourages mental discipline, so I've had to think hard about what "social media" and its kin, "social media marketing," really mean: It's not a technology, it's a strategy. It's not two-way conversation, it's multi-way. And it's not purely customer-centric, because the company's in the conversation, too.
Here are my current working definitions. Please tell me what you think:
Social media
A category of communications that let people create, share, and discuss materials online. Social media integrates technology with social interaction to let people construct meaning through shared stories and perspectives. Social media offerings range from internet pure-plays—social networks, photo and video sharing sites, or social bookmarking sites—to simple tools embedded on a traditional site allowing users to engage more deeply with its content. Fundamentally, social media is about multi-way conversation, not one-way broadcast.
Social media marketing
A category of internet marketing that leverages the power of social media to connect companies and customers. Social media marketing seeks to build awareness and shared understanding of a company’s brand and products through multi-way conversation between a company and its core audience. Social media marketing relies on viral, word-of-mouth strategies that let constituents create, distribute, and discuss content about a company’s offerings. In exchange, the company enjoys the benefits of increased exposure, real-time targeted market research, and enhanced customer affinity.
Update, June 24, 2009: See my revised definitions based on your feedback.
This graphic, courtesy of EdibleApple.com, shows us how far we've come. It also makes me wonder where we're going. What of today's designs will look quaint in ten years? What will look timeless? I'm guessing the iPhone will always look cool. Time will tell.
