Do we need to define social media?

I think we’re all starting to over-complicate how to define social media, what it includes and what it doesn’t. We need to understand where people are talking to each other, recommending or slating stuff, but I think the terminology we use is largely irrelevant. It's like 3G - when that term was first lobbed around, consumers didn't care (or even know) what 3G was – it was an industry definition. What people cared about was “I can get video on my phone”, or “my Internet's really quick". (And while I think of it – do most people know what ‘media’ includes? Most people I know outside of media / marketing industries say ‘I saw it on TV’ or ‘I heard it on the radio’ or ‘I watched it on YouTube’.)

Maybe we should apply the same approach to social media. If you work for Top Shop, then your customers are all over MySpace, but not Facebook. If you’re iPhone, you probably want nice things said about you on the zillions of iPhanatic forums. And so on. So whether social media is media or not probably won’t matter in the long term.

I know that we need to advise clients, and clients use these terms – but I don’t think we need to worry too much about tight definitions. Social media to me is anywhere that people gather to talk about stuff, where they run the environment. Any marketing definitions we apply now will change in five minutes, anyway.

iPhone and social media

Although this video’s been knocking around since August (here analysed in a piece by Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans - always worth reading on social media issues), it is a great demonstration of how a brand’s service should live up to its advertising claims - in this case the iPhone’s usability speed on 3G.

Just to be clear - I’m sure it won’t stop people wanting an iPhone. But that’s because it’s beautifully designed, lovely to use and has so many features. So it does seem odd that Apple has focused so heavily on the one thing that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny – speed. Network speed is so reliant on outside factors that surely this is setting up customer expectations to be disappointed?

Social media and word of mouth marketing - a huge part of iPhone’s promotional mix –are by their nature only successful if the service lives up to the claim. Why waste time focusing on promoting the one message that is pretty much guaranteed to let people down?

The e-Consultancy Online PR Industry Benchmarking Report is creating a few ripples. It seems to me that PR experts are running round in small circles trying to agree: what is digital or online PR?; b: should it be run by specialists, or integrated across the agency?; and who owns it – PR, advertising or, god forbid, SEO? .

Wendy McAuliffe of Liberate Media says that the core element of PR is creating two-way conversations with a target audience. Online forums, social media, blogs (etc etc) – are ideal channels to do this. So I guess online PR is creating two-way conversations with a target audience. Online.

Mat Morrison said recently that his role at Porter Novelli is to get everyone in the agency to ‘be a little bit more digital’ in the way they approach all their PR campaigns. This has got to be the right approach in my view. If you’re trying to get someone to buy something, get to them wherever they are. Whether that’s listening to the radio, on Facebook, on Twitter, in front of the TV, reading the paper, looking at a billboard. All of which might be done online or offline.

Which brings us to who owns it. Of course, PR should own PR. As Wadds says, there are a number of specialist start-ups out there, and they are vital for innovation But whatever they call themselves, they’re still doing PR. Unlike the SEO companies claiming to do PR – I’ve yet to see an SEO company attempt to lead a serious online media strategy. Although it might be good sport.

Cobblers’ children? PR and blogs

Sally Whittle has some interesting observations on how well (or not) PR companies do at keeping their own blogs updated and interesting.

It raises some good questions: do PR agencies need to be active in all areas of social media to qualify as experts in the area? Do we have to maintain blogs, twitter feeds, Facebook groups and flickr profiles? Is blogging evidence enough in itself that we ‘get’ this space?

Without doubt, if we do this stuff ourselves, it helps us give our clients advice on how they should do it – but I suspect that in an attempt to be seen as cutting edge, PR teams are trying to take on more than they can manage effectively. But what we do, we need to do well.

Participating in social media is not just about being seen, but being heard – and building relationships. Potential clients will Google you. They’ll skim through your Twitter posts; check out your Facebook page, your LinkedIn profile, blog and website to get the truth behind the pitch, just as any modern recruiter would do for a candidate. We should be incorporating social media into our overall marketing plans and insuring that we:

1) Only participate in social media that is truly relevant (how many micro-blogging services do we need?)
2) Actively participate by updating our own blogs and profiles whilst contributing to others
3) “Trimming the fat” – regularly assessing what we have signed up to and its assessing its true value
4) Make sure that whatever you take on, you do well.

We’re all guilty of not doing all this – even the biggest agencies. Certainly my new year’s resolution is to spend more time focusing on social media that really works well for me, and for Carrot.

America decides

So the election with what seems like the longest preamble in history is finally upon us. Today is the day that Americans get to vote on the next leader of the free world.

This election campaign is historic. For the obvious reasons - of course - of race, gender, a vice-presidential canditate under investigation until the 11th hour, record amounts of money raised despite (or because of?) the economic crisis. But also for the way that social media has been used by both campaigns.

Voters and candidates alike are twittering, blogging and being your friend on Facebook. They are posting You Tube videos and texting rally cries to get out and vote. Even the traditional podium debates have achieved their widest audiences on record - watched not just on TV, but online, the primary battlefield of this election.

Does this teach us anything about our own campaigns? Okay, our clients may not be running for president. But we are devising communiations campaigns to precipitate action. To engage in debate. We should be taking a lead from the US election campaigns in how to use social media to create advocates of action.