Perspective: Social Media Matters

Twitter. Jaiku. MySpace. Facebook. StumbleUpon.  Ning. LinkedIn. Rojo. Newsvine. Netvibes. Bloglines. Flickr. Second Life. YouTube. Vox. LiveJournal. Memeorandum. Digg. Confabb. del.icio.us

Blogs. Feeds. RSS. Podcast. Videocast. Lifecasting. On-line communities. Wikis.Wikipedia.

And the list goes on. Every day, there’s something new to capture the imagination of the easily distracted 21st century netizen. And the horde at the bleeding edge flitters — and twitters — off to the next new thing that is going to revolutionize… well, something.

This blog is about marketing and communications. I tend to look at new technologies, techniques and tools through the filter of how or whether they will be useful in a marketing program. Since the utility of some (many?) of these new tools  is still unclear/undiscovered, my posts about them might lead one to believe that I think social media doesn’t matter.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Social media matters, and not just because some social media tools offer companies better, more authentic ways of communicating with their customers. Or because the tools are neat and geeky cool. Both true.

And certainly not, as some would have us think, because "everybody is reading blogs, so blogs are now the best, most valid form of business communication." The reality is, while the "rest of the world" is catching on and up, right now, still only 22% of adults read blogs at least monthly (Forrester report on Social Technographics). Most people still don’t get RSS. 

And as the saying goes, "Second Life? I’m still trying to figure out the first one!"

Bottom line: some social media "stuff" is already proving valuable to companies and their customers. The jury is still out on others. And there will certainly be more to come. .

But, even if our vision is still a bit murky, social media matters.

It’s okay if some things don’t have business value. As Kent Newsome points out, we shouldn’t confuse social networking with business networking.  Sometimes, things are just fun and that’s quite alright. 

Social media matters because it reflects a fundamental shift in society. A shift in how we converse, relate, even fight. In how we make and keep our friends, and maybe enemies. Changes in how we learn, in how teachers will teach. Changes in where we meet these friends. And in who they are.

Sure, not everyone is going to start wearing a head-camera 24/7. Thank goodness.

But look at how Facebook, the web-delivered, on steroids, adult version of (yes) the college facebook, has had a fundamental impact on both a local and the global community.  Just a social tool, said naysayers. Used by college kids and fodder for stalkers. Yet during the VA Tech nightmare, it was a source of both consolation and information for the VA Tech community in Blacksburg and around the world, as well as all those who were Hokies in their hearts and shared the community’s sorrow. And this is just one example. Similar things have happened in other communities, on MySpace and elsewhere.

And not just after public tragedies. In online communities throughout the blogosphere, you will regularly find people virtually celebrating the happy moments and sympathizing in the sad. As someone said (and I can’t remember where I read it so apologies in advance): These are not my virtual friends. These are my real friends.

This is real change, not superficial, echo chamber, dot.com hype.

Marketers must understand these social changes. Or fail at the task. How people  interact with each other, how we relate, is crucial information. If we don’t understand what’s going on with our prospect, how can we hope to develop meaningful products, meaningful communications? So even if you can’t see any possible use for all this social media "stuff" in YOUR marketing, which is a mistake BTW, you had better understand the social changes happening as a result. Even if you don’t use any social media tools yourself, social media still matters.

Now, granted, currently these shifts are still limited to the digitally-literate, primarily in the developed nations, but with $100 laptops for students in developing nations, we can reasonably hope that the technology adoption gap is going to be smaller than it ever has been in the past. In the not too distant future, there will be more digital natives than digital immigrants. Everywhere.

I can hope that when my 7 year old son gets a pen pal at school, he actually will keep in touch with him or her. Because it will be that much easier, thanks to virtual worlds and email and IM and whatever else comes along.

I can hope that as technology makes the world smaller, we can all make our own worlds bigger. What we have in common with someone, of whatever race, gender, nationality, will be more important than our inevitable differences.

Social media matters because it can enable real social change. If we let it.

So, while I will continue to be somewhat skeptical of individual tools and the companies behind them, "tools from the leading innovator of this or that, that promise to revolutionize communication or whatever the latest hype,"  it’s the hype that I question.

Not the conversation that’s happening around us. That matters, and it is why social media matters.

At least to me.

Tags: social media, web 2.0