Now Can We Please Kill the Phrase "Social Media"?

On December 28, 2006 I wrote...

"As we conclude 2006 and head into the new year it is my conviction that the phrase 'social media' is moot....In 2006 all media went social. Pretty much every newspaper, TV network and publication has wholeheartedly embraced these technologies."

I followed this up a month later by saying...

"With the democratization of media we've come to rely on a bunch of terms that are now completely unnecessary. These include "social media"... Do any of these matter any more? ... The reason is it's ALL media. The lexicon will hopefully change."

Flash forward 15 months and I was beginning to give up. However, finally, people seem to me coming around to this idea, which is hardly new. Eric Schonfeld, a former journalist and now TechCrunch blogger (we need a white paper to describe "the difference"), writes...

"Some people question whether TechCrunch is even a blog anymore rather than a professional media site. But that distinction is becoming increasingly meaningless. The truth is that we are both."

Amen! So true. Tons of journalists are pulling double duty as bloggers. So, now can we kill the phrase "social media?" It's irrelevant. Another moot phrase is "the social web." The web has always been social because that's how people operate - as Chris Brogan notes. It's just that the Internet can scale such social connections more than the offline world ever could.

Alas, there are no more boundaries any more between such "species." On the Internet, a cat is a dog is a Snuffleupagus. It's all inbred. All media is social and all social is media. End of story. Whether content is created by the Pros or the Joes it all has influence, even if it's small.

Follks, it's time for all of us, especially "The Joes," to give ourselves the self-respect we deserve by calling all of this work "media." Otherwise, by continuing to propagate the term "social media" we're just reserving our seat at the kids table for our little cut up pieces of chicken. it's time to feast on drumsticks like the adults do. Google doesn't delineate. So why should we?

Comments

[Ben Tremblay]

An ethology experiment last decade had me re-visit my texts, grappling again to what we're doing when we apply a taxonomy, and how that relates to ontology. (I ended up applying VRML ... it had to do with foxes burying food ... when is the motion a "tamp" and when does it become a "scoop"?)

That was relevant to me because I was beavering away at how wiki (C2 had come into existence) was so different to the web logs I had been creating since '95. (If you create an open directory, where each entry has a screenshot and a block of commentary, is it a directory or a blog?) What I'm getting at is this: it comes down to operationalizing our definitions ... information is data that makes a difference; if the distinction doesn't "matter" (i.e. have substantial consequences) then its empty.

What slays me is that we don't seem to have metrics except "how many people clicked the ads"!

[Stephen Davies]

Alright mate?

I hear ya but different forms of media have different names:

Newspapers/magazines = Print Media

TV/Radio = Broadcast Media

Websites = Online Media

Blogs = Social Media

They all fall under the Media umbrella.

[Sanford]

I think your commentary is quite funny, Steve - I think you are suffering from constantly being in the flow on the discussion of social media. Heck, I just reread the revised article in BusinessWeek - and the impact is still spreading far and wide. The time of the spread is something I have been noodling on, since I am constantly amazed at the spread of memes like these and how technology and population and norms impact the understanding of concepts.

And heck, wasn't all of this prophesied back in the ClueTrain?

I have a slightly different concern - I worry that "social media" is going to go the way of the term "community" as it was used toward the end of Web 1.0. Back then, community was going to solve everything - from increasing purchases by aggregating demand (remember eZoka? - demand curve estimation) to assessing likelihood for advertising by understanding the "community interests".

Community (and "social media") for immediate monetary gain is an oxymoron since the premise of both is on building "social capital" - the sharing of resources and credibility between members of the community. Businesses who recognize this (like some of the media companies - my personal favorite right now is NBC.com) are building a brand relationship that marketers and businesses crave. Long term value of the community members who have impact on the community at large (remember our nodal people, Mr. Gladwell?) is what creating the common space and the listening experience that will pay off dividends in the long-run.

I think that "social media" and the like are about the ties that bind. The fact that the technology has become ubiquitous and the concept of sharing has been built up by a large collection of people - now we see the impact. The challenge will be (as in the past) how to benefit the businesses who create the common spaces and the producers of products and services that need such relationships.

More to follow...

[Amanda Chapel]

There's a point in Caddy Shack where Ty (Chevy Chase) qualifies his invite to Carl (Bill Murray) to come over for a swim. Carl says, "This place got a pool?" and Ty answers, "Pool and a pond... Pond would be good for you, Carl. Natural spring water."

Steve, you continue to confuse the pool and the pond. I think you should stay in the pond.

- Amanda

[kathy gill]

OK ... as I said on Twitter: I use the phrase "social media" to reference the *technology* not the product! So i don't see a reason for it to "die". Now ... that's not to say that using the same word for the tech and the product can be ... confusing!

But I've been saying that since you and I met in NYC in (gasp!) 2004. Back then I was talking about "blogs" and the problem with lumping them all together (content != technology used). I "get" the interplay between noun (a blog) and verb (to blog) ... After all ... start-ups (new tech) want to pick a "name" that can be used as a verb so it'll go viral. Why Tivo beat ReplayTV, IMO. [We switched, because our RePlay died, and Tivo's driving me crazy: its annoying-as-all-getout interface sounds that you can't mute + a much less flexible -- another word for user-driven design -- interface. Oh well. It was cheap and it's bridge tech so I only have to use it for a year. But as a "verb" ... it works amazing well.]

LOL! I've never done this before ... referenced tweets in a blog comment. I'll probably go write something about this on WiredPen and re-reference them. But for now, I have to go finish a spring quarter syllabus and get ready for ICWSM 2008, the outgrowth of that conference in NYC in 2004. This year, it's in Seattle. :)

[Piaras Kelly]

Steve, completely agree.

People have been getting too caught up with different mediums, whereas in fact it is all 'media' at the end of the day. We don't have PR consultants out there whose sole responsibility is radio, in much the same way why do we have practitioners who are solely responsible for blogs?

I think this kind of thinking has only made PR efforts in the blogsphere worse. The fact of the matter is that as PR practitioners we should be advising clients on concepts that engage their audience and then drill those down to different mediums to bring them to life.

I think you'll find this presentation of interest. It's similar to the point that Sanford makes about ties that bind consumers: http://www.slideshare.net/paulisakson/whats-next-in-marketing-advertising-318143

[George Johnson]

Your frustration with "social media" seems to be more with hierarchical baggage--the perception that social or socially-enabled media is the minors compared to MSM's, The Show.

But I don't know that all media is the same.

If different types of media are concentric circles whose shape and order is determined by shit like relevance, reach, fidelity, at the center is stuff made by people who fuck with Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook--people sharing what they're finding and loving and thinking in ways so concise, so immediate, that it’s of very deep but very narrow relevance. And at the outer rings of that universe are people and organizations using socially-enabled platforms to maintain and expand their audience/influence--to extend and deepen the level of engagement around their thinking and reporting.

Maybe it’s all media, but there’s a huge difference between the subset using the tools to present considered thought in the context of a distributed conversation among people they’re not culturally or socially connected to AND others who Tumble, Tweet, Hype, FriendFeed, Facebook, Dopplr, Muxtape with the sole purpose of distributing themselves to their friends—to articulate what they’re thinking or what they’ve discovered with just enough consideration or fidelity to a self-selecting clan with common social or sub cultural touchstones.

[Prokofy Neva]

Steve,

Is this part of a campaign?

Do you get to decide what it is called?

I realize you have a very different vantage point on this than I do, and you're more interested in the socialized media admitting that it's all just "media" now, all of it.

But...Shouldn't we keep some sort of label on it to distinguish the media created by corporations that have editorial boards and a notion of keeping a firewall between editorial and advertising, and the media that doesn't?

Also, I have to say, well, I'm cutting up and eating the chicken nuggets, because, well, I don't have the icon MY EMPLOYER EDELMAN no my blog, and I get $5 in a tip jar, unlike you. I'm going to go on calling what I do "social media". If you decide that you are "media" now, too, then, gosh, we bloggers will have bunches more work to do than we used to do.

http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2008/03/like-a-bird-on.html

[Chris Thilk]

Steve,
I don't actually think we need to kill the term "social media." The more I think about it it's actually a good thing that we have this designation since it means that it can become a focal point for practitioners to specialize in, just like any other format.

There are people who are going to be better versed in social media than radio. There are people who are better at radio than print. And so on and so forth.

Yes, we're part of the larger "media" world, but I don't think that's really a point of discussion any longer. If "social media" disappears from the lexicon so will, I think, many of the best practices and unique points of view that have developed over the years.

Again, we need to be focusing on education that can break down the stereotypes that are associated with certain aspects of social media and not trying to eliminate verbiage that does actually bring something valuable to the table.

[Andy Beal]

Steve, maybe time to pull "social media" from those used in your meta keywords then. ;-)

meta name="keywords" content="marketing, PR, public relations, advertising, technology, social media, web 2.0, steve rubel"

[Mike Driehorst]

No, not all media is social. As Stephen Davies pointed out, there are different media categories. Newspapers are not social. TV is not social. Magazines are not social. They can direct you to social technologies/media, but they are not social.

Besides, the bulk of marcomm agencies and even companies are not into social media. Many don't have to be. (I'll pause awaiting a gasp from many reading this.) ....

Even those that are involved, it's new to many of them. We all are still learning.

It simply boils down to the fact that social media is still new. I did a post last week that has the online, social media-using population at only 70 million adults in the U.S. That's a fraction of the U.S. adult population. Even if my numbers are off, the point that most Americans are not using social media is still valid.

So, yes, we still need social media -- or some term to describe blogs, boards, Twitter, etc.

--Mike

[Roald Cyberath]

I believe that the desire to kill the phrase "social media" has to do with word fatigue.

It still serves a purpose to distinguish some types of media. A big media outlet, and a single-person blog have many different traits.
The former *wants* to be social, to engage its readership ; the latter *needs* to be social, by nature.
Or should we use "grassroots media" ?

When you say "the web has always been social", it goes so much against a lot of what's been said a couple years ago (right or wrong) about Web 2.0 :
this time, it was different, because it enabled 'social' interactions at a never seen pace. User Generated Content. Wikis, blogs, tagging, folksonomies, etc.
Web 1.0 was depicted as dead, no interaction, no feedback.
Was that all wrong ?

Now you want us all to believe that 1) MSM has understood and integrated this 'social' fabric so well that there's no dividing line anymore ; 2) in fact it's always been like this... 'old web' was already social...

This seems like a stretch to me.
(or maybe I misunderstood, and I'm the one stretching, here)

[David Rogers]

Steve,

All media is now social media?

This is kind of a weird assertion... You are conflating publishers with media.

PUBLISHERS: Yes, NYtimes and CNN (publishers) are now in the "social media" game (with their blogs, etc. online).

MEDIA: Newspapers (e.g. NYTimes print edition) and television broadcasts (e.g. CNN's) are very much still not social media.

So yes, the traditional media publishers are all moving (stumbling?) into the social media sphere. But that does not provide any linguistic rationale for eliminating the term "social media." Without it, how would we even discuss this movement by these publishers? ("Cable news channels are moving from... media... into... media.")

I fear you are also suffering a bit from a technophile's mistake of thinking everyone is like you. Believe it or not, there are still people out there who do not read their news on RSS feeds forwarded to their iPhone via their Gmail IMAP account (I liked that tip in your previous post!). And there are still companies (lots of them) who are trying to figure out how to operate in the new social media. Not everyone is living the cutting edge. Old hat for you is still beguiling wilderness for others.

We can't even kill the term "social web" as an oxymoron yet either. Because, guess what? A lot of the web is still not social! The action and the growth may all be in social web properties, but have you not suffered recently through any of the gazillion pages of "broadcast" html still deployed by organizations worldwide? If not, it must be nice up there in the stratosphere.

In 5 years, I'm sure we can retire the term "social web" and in 20 years we can stop using the term "social media." Until then, bear with the slowness...

- David Rogers (host, BRITE conference)

P.S. to Piaras Kelly -- Yes, actually, there are P.R. consultants who specialize in radio. (Hello? Record labels use them? Remember record labels? Those archaic dinosaurs that are still in the slow process of dying because some consumers over 40 cling to the habit of paying for their music?)

It's very cool to pretend that all p.r. people are just "big concept" people too brilliant to specialize in a tactic, and that marketing departments no longer need to hire people to focus on blogs or any other new media niche (Steve's point on his previous post). But again, drift down to earth for a bit. The real world hasn't caught with you guys yet.

[Piaras Kelly]

Eh David you're missing my point, those same PR people that record people use also focus on newspapers, amagazines, TV, etc. My point is they should also look at blogs. It's just another box to tick.

The problem with PR is too often we get bogged down in the tactical end of things. Discussions I've had with people that focus on social media often reveal that the traditional PR guys come up with a plan, then say 'Guys this is what we're doing, we need you to do something with bloggers for it', which is unfair as these guys should be involved from the start and offer their input into the overall campaign as ultimately it's more realistic that they will be able to contribute this way.

Not saying that mareting departments aren't going to have to hire anyone to focus on niches, my point is that the niche will eventually become mainstream and it will eventually become one and the same (until the next niche comes along of course :D)

[Philippe Borremans]

Hi Steve,

I do not think all media is social in the 2 way communications kind of setting... TV isn't, Radio isn't etc... And then there's a need I think to "label" some media social as a lot of our colleagues in PR/Marketing/Media Relations still do not get the "social" aspect of it... You get it, we get it but still not everyone... In Europe I would say the majority of PR colleagues still have no clue as how these "social media" are influencing their job and industry... So let's still keep it distinct from the rest please...

[jkash]

Echoing other comments here: don't kill it yet!

There are still industries that don't understand the nature and value of social media. While some in PR and marketing are missing the boat, many more in legal services lag behind. Law blogs have really taken off in the last year, but there are many large firms that need convincing. Using the social label provides a clear indicator why current approaches fall short of engaging clients and communities.

[Curt Hitchcock]

Steve, Steve, Steve:

In the B-to-B world, social media is still something which many companies are just learning about and discovering its potential. In a study by TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony, for about 50% of companies, social media has become an established fixture in the media and marketing landscape. What about the other half?

From a practical standpoint, the term (social media) will stay in our lexicon despite folks like you that don't seem to want to understand that there a big universe of companies and people out there that still don't quite grasp it (granted, there's a segment that never will) and is still trying to figure out how to use it in their marketing mix.

You are a very clever wordsmith. Before killing social media, perhaps you can come up with a word or phrase that describes interactions between people as a discussion and the integration of words and images that builds shared-meaning, using technology.

C'mon Steve, you can't be serious, all media is social media? But then again, you do have a way of stirring the pot to get some good conversation going.

[George Potts]

Maybe everyone should review the definition of "Social Media" on that great social media site Wikipedia:

Steve, you're just plain wrong.

You're concluding paragraph is also revealing. Who is telling you that your work does not fall within the overall "media" umbrella? I would not deny that your blog is a form of media, say social media. ;) But it is not the equivalent of the New York Times, National Review, Atlantic Monthly or Christian Science Monitor. It is not parallel with the NBC Nightly News, the NewsHour with Jim Leher or even Jon Stewart's Daily Show on Comedy Central. And even if these properties embrace community commentary, they are not driven by the "wisdom of crowds", but rather by their editors and producers.

Social media is a term that rightly classifies a subset of the overall media mosaic.

[George Potts]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

[Dave Duarte]

That's why when we put together an executive course on the subject at the University of Cape Town's Graduate School of Business we called it "Nomadic Marketing" (dynamic, unfixed segments) instead of "Social Media Marketing":)

[John McLaughlin]

Exactly, Steve, the term Social Media doesn't quite do the trick to describe what people are really doing on the Internet.

Contacts in the past were based in information only. Sure it could be social with a response, and of course it required a Media.

Today contacts move on to what we are all used to locally, off the Web, that is - friending, socializing, sharing ideas and support and so on, on the job or in our neighborhoods and families.

What’s difference with social these days - on the Web?

We have become a bit more relationship oriented. For example, with facebook and myspace, you need an invitation to play, based on a referral, which is based on your experience with the other person – which is based on what? Trust.

So we are relating more with or without a sense of trust. And when we sense a lack of trust? Click.

We seem to be no longer willing to relate without a sense, first, of trust, second, some sort of mutual value exchange.

These new relationships norms give rise to one's identity - sincere or not sincere, competent or incompetent, performance excellence or not so excellent. When not perceived with these important qualities in relating, you simply don't get invited to the party.

The networking game is changing. The purpose, the rules, when and how, have all changed, perhaps for the better.

So let's see here, back to subject, what can we call this phenomenon – this new level of trust-based relating going on?

How about - networking, naw, too common.

Maybe just relating, nope, doesn't stand out as special, doesn't seem to distinguish this shift in thinking and doing based on trust - with others on the Web.

What we are doing is different we know, and I think it's special. So let's treat this shift as such by giving it a name.

Let's try - social networking?

Not marketing - the point is relating, not selling.
Not media - that's the technical side, transparent and necessary.

Social as we have the choice, the control, and the power to relate only with those people we trust to learn and grow with.

Any other suggestions?

John McLaughlin, Day Traders - Consultant / Coach
www.DayTradersWin.com

[David S. Peck]

Steve,

Your interrogation of social media is appreciated as it has created a number of responses that perhaps define "social media" in a manner different than you may have thought. First, social relates the aspect of connecting, creating community, collaboration, society, and we can continue with a number of words that can define the term in different ways. Social conveys that it's a two-way process, that it's dynamic, and that engagement is created.

Media on the other hand is the derivative of medium, or the delivery mechanism. The message and the medium can be intertwined, and such can relate to both the message and delivery mechanism utilized.

A recent definition on Wikipedia provides additional support and context for social media, and the broader perspective that it presents. One definition could read:

"Social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words and pictures. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning, as people share their stories, and understandings."

Social media use the “wisdom of crowds” to connect information in a collaborative manner. Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, message boards, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies such as blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few. Examples of social media applications are Google Groups (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Facebook (social networking), Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), Flickr (photo sharing) and Twitter (social networking and microblogging).

So, Steve... thank you for the interrogation. I think it's helping to promote the construction of a category that might stick. At the end of the day, whether you, or I like or dislike the term "social media," ultimately it's use by everyone else will decide it's future in society.

Social media, let's keep talking about it. :)

David S. Peck, Media Psychology student and Social Media advocate

[Alex C. Friedman]

Piaras, Phillipe - totally agree with you on the current state of PR in this area. I heard some rumors about William Morris Agency establishing a dedicated PR firm for social networks named "Buzz Temple" (what a silly name). Not sure if it's actually WMA or another big agency. Anyway there's currently a password protected site at buzztemple.com .

[Todd C]

Steve, to hell with the nomenclature, just keep blogging. The market will figure itself out as it always does.

[Shel Holtz]

I did a talk a month or so ago at the national conference of NAPA, the National Asphalt Pavement Association. In a room of a couple hundred people, TWO had heard of wikis. None had heard of Twitter.

We get awfully comfortable in this echo chamber, don't we, without realizing that the rest of the world hasn't caught up yet. For me, it's useful to make the distinction. I can go into a client who is part of that outsider group and say, "You should use this new collection or resources that are really just media but have collaborative and conversation elements..."

Or I can say, "Let's talk about social media," and take it from there. It's a term people have been hearing and it makes starting the conversation easier.

I'm not sure I understand your hurry to dispense with a useful label. Besides, as I've mentioned here before, if we're going to lump everything under one category, let's do away with "biography," "history," "fiction," "current events," etc., and just call 'em all "books."

[Dennis McDonald]

This is an "inside the beltway" discussion. The minute you start talking about "the media" to an intelligent person the question comes back, "which media?"

[Dennis McDonald]

This is an "inside the beltway" discussion. The minute you start talking about "the media" to an intelligent person the question comes back, "which media?"

[John-Scott Dixon]

It ain't all media (if media is defined as forms of mass communication)! We have a fair amount of websites dedicated to commerce, not communication. And, what is actually media is often not social - as in no comments accepted, no community!

So, unless strolling through an empty store or shouting at the TV qualifies as social behavior, I think we have to keep the label "Social Media" to help us discern community-driven media from the rest of it!

- A marketer's perspective!

[jj]

The issue is not whether "all media is social" or not, it is merely about method of delivery and about information sources. Blogs, wiki and other social networking platforms are social media because they are two-way; they offer an enhanced capability for user response or user-led content generation. That's what makes it 'social media', not whether print and broadcasting have added user response. I agree that social media is no longer new; I think, however, it is still a useful means of distinguishing between user-led design for content platforms and broadcast/mass media.

[Steve Poppe]

While people are busy arguing about the word "media," we should be arguing about the word "social." Social Networking isn't really social until everyone can do it. There is a huge percentage of the pop that can't be social online due to usability and technical issues. We are trying to solve web illiteracy, by pushing web publishing to the people. I'm with a social computing platform called Zude.com. Zude combines so-called social networking with social media but in a way that allows everyone to participate.

[Shel Holtz]

C'mon, Steve (Poppe); not everyone can join a country club, but it's still a social venue.

[Tim Allik]

Reading a print newspaper is a one-way exercise. Reading a print magazine is a one-way exercise. Watching television is a one-way exercise. Blogging is a two-way exercise and hence is different. To make full use of the power of language, different forms of media demand unique descriptions. "Social media" is as good a term as any. It is more precise and therefore still has value. All social media is media, but not all media is social. Not yet at least.