Social Media Marketing is just the opposite. It’s the pull of the tribe. The tribe already has your trust so the actions they take are ones you align with. On a larger scale, it’s the allure of belonging in the group as you take action together. “I am doing this so why don’t you do it with me?” On an individual level, the attraction is to behave the same way to get the same results that benefits your fellow tribeswoman or tribesman. “She looks hot! I want to look hot too. I want to go to her hairstylist” and you do. Social Media Marketing uses the power of attraction.

While advertising tries to use the same tactic, with a billboard for instance, of a gorgeous woman telling you the benefits of the salon, it doesn’t have the same impact because it’s pushing you to go. It is not pulling you in as a trusted friend. Your friends have your best interests at heart and advertisers do not. Social Media Marketing is based on building trust and that foundation will make Social Media a dominant player in Marketing.

The problem isn’t with the term “social media”, it’s with the people who don’t get it. Changing the terminology won’t help them.

Many of you have articulated similar understanding.

Nevertheless, we are still left with the problem of perception and expectation based on calling it social media.

Media is the plural of medium, and the relevant definition of medium is: “a means of communicating news or information to the public” [Collins].

Notice no mention of ads – and aren’t my comments on a hotel review site ‘information’?

No, my problem is that the medium that is the world wide web has been split into media in a way TV, radio etc has not [do you call phone-in shows on the radio 'social radio'?]

I would have preferred the ’social web’ to describe MySpace etc, so differentiating it from ‘commercial’ content.

But then MySpace is a commercial venture, even if its content is ’social’.

The upshot of this rambling is – I suppose – that there are very few good definitions for most things related to the Internet.

This is another, let’s just live with it.

I have to agree with Jay Krall, Robert and Webster’s definition.
Social media is media; “one” which might just be differently perceived by marketers, because they have a hard time categorizing it. Misnomer or not, what I like about this term is that we finally “socialize” media. Another big difference with traditional mass medium is that social media is not one platform such as radio or tv. Social media’s focus is not about the tool used to target a specific audience, but the actual content itself.
This is why different platforms are starting to converge and offer connectivity.

Those who think in terms of tools such as micro-blogging and social networks are still following the traditional media path and will not grasp its full potential…

– - Tim

most companies don’t understand social media because decades of agency culture led them to conclude — and, gee, i wonder how this happened — that all interactions with customers can be bought. (un)fortunately, that’s no longer true.

Cute theory, though, Jeff.

I agree that Social Media is a bad term but it’s familiar to people.

Being a corporate blogger & “social media manager,” here are my challenges:
- What should my title be?
- How do I measure our engagements and show “results”
- How do I communicate with the c-suite about “social media” when it’s still a little elusive.

Great quotes from Ted at P&G and great food for thought!

I could go on and on, but I’ll spare you.

TO’B
MotiveQuest

Thanks for the link and great post, Jeffrey. I think we need to do a better job of educating companies/clients on what these ’social media’ tools are, and why people use them. They are personal communication tools. They aren’t new channels to shove marketing messages down, and as such. This is the problem, cos are viewing social media as yet another form of ‘traditional marketing’, and trying to measure their efforts with social media as such.

Does calling it ‘media’ make our job more difficult? Probably so.