Social media is a value exchange, and the exchange of value requires common currency.
In 2008, we conducted social media workshops for a number of clients. Below is Part I of the full-day presentation.
Admittedly, we encountered many blank stares when suggesting social media success amounted to trading in various types of non-cash currencies. For the most part, these people were expecting tutorials on using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blogs. And if we hadn’t gotten sidetracked with other projects, that would have certainly been part of the second workshop. But before one can understand how to effectively use these individual tools, one has to understand how and why they’re used in the first place.
This first section defines the social media landscape. We’d been using terms like Web 2.0, the social web, and social media fairly interchangeably. This attempts to clarify. Again, this was in 2008.
Web 2.0 is a technological trend. It’s driven by new technologies. These technologies have created new realities on the web. Our computing platform has evolved from the desktop to the web. The web is now the platform. Our browsers are now running applications: email, widgets, customer relationship software, word processing, spreadsheets, etc. Our data and software is being stored and accessed in the cloud. Our computers are becoming portals or access points.
Anthropologic Revolution = Greater levels of participation, interaction, sharing, customization, personalization, collaboration, and communication. Wikipedia and the election of Barack Obama are probably to the two greatest triumphs of Web 2.0. [To this point.]
When we make reference to the Social Web, we’re referring to a place. It’s its own universe or ecosystem. The above looks more like a Social Flower. Everything you see here is either integrated or interlinked. It truly is a web. This is where Web 2.0 and social media take place.
And when we talk about Social Media, we’re talking about the medium. This is the channel. This is how the information travels. By definition, the medium is people. Social Media is people. It’s human beings. We are the media.
Our blogs, our social networking profiles, our social graphs (our friends and contacts), our videos, our comments, our reviews, our wiki articles, our photos, and our tweets. All of this “media” is people. This is the anthropology of Web 2.0.
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1 Social Media Affiliate Network » Social Media Currency: A Workshop, Part I | Max Gladwell // Aug 5, 2010 at 8:41 pm
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