Social media is simple. It is what the name states. Media that is more friendly, social, than traditional types of media such as newspapers, television advertising, static web experiences, billboards and radio advertising. For the most part these are mass media forms of communicating from a message. These messages are about products, fundraisers, events or services. These forms of communication are broadcast media, meaning they send a mass message out to as many people as possible with little technology and differing levels of research to reach the right person or group of people. This is a weakness that has been realized as advertising and media have evolved over time.
Let’s stick to the web and how it has evolved. You are reading this because you want to learn more about social media, aka “how the web is the most relevant tool in your marketing toolbox”.
The original commercial web, Lycos, Alta Vista, static HTML, “brochures on computer displays” and over promised returns. Yes, that original web was entirely necessary to put us at the point we are at today. The web as we originally knew it was necessary to shift our expectations about our work, how we communicate and how we will grow. For as much as it blew up in a bubble, it was a success in shifting ourselves forward.
The new web, or social media as we will call it going
forward in this discussion, takes basic search technology, static content and
mass uploads of traditional media content and personalizes it to each person’s
taste and forms communities of people organized around similar topics. The tools all try to do something similar,
each with a different piece to the puzzle.
Next post...some tools to be aware of in social media.
