It's that time of year again when we predict the future and put up our top 10 lists. We also look back over the previous year and do a retrospective. And 2008 was certainly the break-out year for social media. However, there is a broader context to look at social media. It's unique in that it isn't a fad. It isn't the "Year of Facebook" or "Twitter" or another platform (though Twitter enjoyed quite a year!). Social media has a place in history. It has changed (and continually changes) how we communicate. And it changes how we think. And that is where I hope social media finds its place in the historical context. Changing how we think.
I first started thinking about social media in terms of history when I saw Arianna Huffington on The Daily Show talking about blogging with Jon Stewart. It was an appearance to promote her new book on blogging, and in one of her statements she said: "blogs are history's first draft."
I thought that was an interesting comment. As consultants in the field, we always tell clients that blogging does not have to be perfect. It does not have to go through multiple drafts and end up as a polished white paper online. We say this for two reasons (maybe more), but we're trying to get past the notion that blogging is hard and time consuming on the client's end, and that the more colloquial, "down-to-earth" language is valued within the online circles. It's honest, transparent, and authentic.
Yet, we have something more here. A first draft is where writers "dump" all their ideas on paper and then edit back to fit the assignment in successive reviews. In a sense, editing down to the "better" ideas (in their and their editors' opinion) and leaving the other ideas on the cutting room floor. (OK, so I'm mixing metaphors) Presumably never to see the light of day. So blogs, or social media as a whole is actually a more complete version of history. Un-edited, un-filtered, with all ideas out there for the readers to make the judgement on "better," not the editors.
But wait, there's more.
Look at how we market/advertise/communicate. We're moving from a one-way dialogue to a two-way dialogue. We're moving from being spoken to, to being consulted and conversed with. We're forming relationships with brands, and we're taking on the role of advocate. Advocates who's selling power is 10x more effective than a billboard. In 2007, I did an interview with Deirdre Breakenridge for her book "PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences in which I discussed about how instead of targeting and segmenting audiences, companies should target themselves. That is, to make themselves so attractive to audiences that their customers actually seek them out.
Today we call that attraction marketing. And it is the basis of what social media became in 2008: stop the interruptive communications tactics and make yourself valuable to the customer. Engage in conversation, share, interact, and form a community that attracts the "right" audience to your brand/product/organization. So our second point here is that social media has changed the way customers value companies. It has created an environment where helping others and sharing information (once held hostage) freely to create a giving relationship. We're all benefiting from this and the promotions/communications field is for the better because of this.
Finally, let's go back to the "thinking" part.
Sure, social media has changed the way we think about communications and brings ideas to the light of day that hadn't before. But let's look at it from a bloggers perspective. This holds true for company bloggers as well as individual bloggers, though maybe holds more impact for the company bloggers. And that is--that blogging forces you to think. It forces you to step out of the rat race, look at current events, form hypothesis, put "2 and 2 together," and create logical assumptions based on what others are doing and what's going on in the world around you. It forces one to stand up and peek out of the metaphorical cube in the non-descript corporate headquarters and learn to play well in the world. Not just in the silo that the company may have fallen prey to. It forces you to connect. It forces you to think.
And that may be the best part of all. How many times are you irritated by the customer service rep that reads from a script and can't help you because the company doesn't have a policy for that. Or worse, does have a policy, and that policy is one geared towards not helping you. How refreshing is it when someone "thinks out of the box" and actually treats you and your situation unique and solves your problem? Social media's historical context just might be turning these companies into the exception and not the rule. And wouldn't that be great?
Oh and for the individuals out there that made social media a great place for companies to dip their toe into? Thank you. Thank you for standing up for yourselves and getting something done. From Dell Hell, to the Apple battery video, to recent examples good and bad (Motrin/Twitter, Digital Nomad, My Starbucks Idea, even Chris Brogan's experiment with Izea), to every blogger that has tried to make a difference--thank you. And for those that say social media is like a cocktail party, thank you for helping teach better dinner manners to a society that was beginning to lose their social graces.
I'm anxious to see what 2009 brings...
