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You’re a Social Media…What?

by James on February 4th, 2010

I’m sitting around listening to The Black Keys, Rubber Factory, and Sal just walked in and finally gave me Forbidden Planet...so I decided its time to write about my thoughts on what working in a specific role as Social Media something-or-other means…and does not mean.

Essentially, it boils down to this – if someone claims they’re an expert in social media…I’d recommend asking them to define what that means.  I don’t want to knock anyone – but the truth is this: social media is a digital representation of our animal urge, our organice nature, to socialize, collaborate, and communalize.  For what purpose, well, you may as well count the stars at night.

I’m a big word-play type of guy, so I think hmmm…social media curator?  strategist?  evangelist?  fanatic?  lunatic?  Take your pick – I think Curator is most accurate.  The web is a museum full of digital art pieces (not all of them good, but eye-of-the-beholder and all that); the Internet is a ’space’ and can be navigated and discussed like any remodel.  For these reasons:

1. Someone who consults on social media should know that the landscape is going to change next week.  And the week after and so on, ad infinitum.  It’s the nature of the beast – new topics and needs generate new tools and assist in the mutation of existing apps.  See the awesome diagram below from SocialBoom (click on the image to see it larger) – it will give you context to do deeper research on how much things have changed.  And social media only disrupted the entire media universe around, oh, 8 years back.

2. Someone who consults on social media should be the type who embraces creativity and change.  Being successful with social media means constantly nurturing (that’s a keyword, folks) and tweaking and fluctuating and inhaling and screaming and…  It’s a very playful process that requires keeping your options open and expecting change – and loving the fact that Mondays mean scouring the web for the newest tools and trends.

3. Social media curators should enjoy communicating.  Communications is the heart of the matter – people are using social media because they want to share a message.  Sharing a message into a vacuum kinda sucks, doesn’t it?  Therefore, communications – an exchange, preferably one that generates more communications – is the goal.

4. If your social media person is not pushing you to be absolutely transparent, well, something ain’t kosher there.  It’s why social media is successful – people smell authenticity and begin to trust.  Trust is part of the fertile ground wherein brands thrive.  Your community will know you’re keeping secrets, so just lay it out there.  It will make your core community that much stronger and new communities will trust that strength and gravitate towards your brand over time.

There’s always more, and someday I’ll write about more of it, but for now I had to get that off my chest.  Social media is not something anyone dominates and understands entirely, packaging it for the masses.  It takes constant desire to learn, create, communicate, and especially a spirit to be challenged by that one constant we all must endure – change.

Peace…

Social Media Infographic

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