News Flash: All media is social media
May 12, 2009 – 9:50 am by Hugo GuzmanAs I read through Forrester’s recent Wave Report on listening platforms and think through some of the innovative conversations we’ve been having with clients and colleagues, a simple thought has begun to manifest itself.
All media is social media.
Social networks, blogs, twitter, etc…are social media (obviously)
Analytics is social media (especially in terms of listening to conversations and measuring their impact on site traffic)
Search is social media (impacted by social signals in one way or another)
Mobile is social media (iPhone anyone?)
Email is social media (a one-to-one method for connecting with consumers)
CRM is social media (understanding what an individual consumer’s social media touchpoints might be)
Display is social media (ok, I admit that this one is a stretch)
Even TV, Radio, and Print will cease to be purely offline channels and will blend into the social media landscape.
Therefore, it has become increasingly apparent that the real goal of a social media program is tie together the social data gathered within each of these seemingly disparate channels in order to get a 360 view into the profile of an individual consumer and to then leverage that insight to connect with that consumer in a meaningful and two-way conversation. With every passing day, a new batch of free monitoring tools is released to the public, suggesting that the gathering and organization of social media mentions is quickly becoming commoditized. Why pay $$$ for a seat license or login when there are 101 free tools out there that gather the same data and provide more or less the same graphs.
The real value is in gathering this data across all channels (including email transactions, call center exchanges, customer service feedback, etc…) and then leveraging that data to communicate with consumers in the channel they prefer (anything from email to search to Twitter to a good old-fashioned phone call).
I, for one, look forward to helping turn this abstract concept into a concrete reality.
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2 Responses to “News Flash: All media is social media”
I hate to leave an “I agree” comment, but…I agree.
All media is social because it’s created BY people FOR people. “Web 2.0″ (if you want to call it that) just allowed for better, more instantaneous connections and communications between people.
The difference between what might be called traditional media and new media is that conversations now go both ways. Broadcast is dead or dying.
By MikeTek on May 12, 2009
Well put, Mike.
We’re still in the very early stages of this transformation both in terms of analyzing the consumer/conversation data as well as the strategic execution of marketing and promotion across various channels (search, email, TV, etc…)
Should be fun to watch things progress in this direction!
By Hugo Guzman on May 12, 2009