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Defining Social Media
Social media marketing has struggled to define its own terminology during
its boom over the last five years. Though certain technical terms have come
to prominence e.g. aggregation, photosharing, transparency; terms that
refer to more general elements of the media are often interchangeable
and unspecified. The problem arises from constantly evolving technology
e.g. mobile internet, iPlatforms; and changing popularity and function
between platforms; 5 years ago myspace was king, now Facebook
dominates web use.
With the general settling of social networkers around several sites;
Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and LinkedIn- there’s an opportunity
to finalise our thinking on how contemporary social media marketing
should function. Though we may be operating with new formats inside
a very short time frame (with the addition of FourSquare being a near
certainty in the future), we should begin to clarify the way social media
marketing works at present.
The need for terminology
Through the introduction of staple terms we can begin to realise the
impact social media has on business and can start to discuss relative
success measurements more succinctly.
The flexibility of social media to take on new forms and garner new
terminology is part of the reason for its lack of solid definition. The
following are collective terms used to refer to similarly behaving aspects
on different platforms.
Members
There are various different ways of referring to the individuals who
interact with brands. Platforms define their own words to refer to them,
Twitter uses Followers and Facebook has recently migrated from Fans to
the subtler Liker. We can send personal, individual messages and see
them as people and not demographics. They are part of a community
and can choose to leave at any time. They are social and each
contributes to the group in different ways.
Personals
A message or reply intended explicitly for an individual member. These
could take the form of direct messages or comment replies. These are
highly personalised and are not group events like a broadcast. The utility
of being so personal is that a contact feels respected and acknowledges
that their singular issue is being addressed. There are many examples of
this customer care being received in a very positive way- it’s a method
that can result in transformation (see below). If several people are
communicated with in a specific manner i.e. the matter being addressed
only applies to those individuals, this can still be seen as a personal.
Broadcasts
A communication that has wide reaching visibility. Blog articles,
discussion posts and status updates are all forms of broadcasting and
need to be appropriately adjusted to be applicable to a wide range of
contacts.
Mentions
A comment made about the company but not directly to the company.
Directs
A message or comment directly addressing the company, these should
be responded to as soon as possible, with the exception of obscene
messages- which should just be deleted (aggravation within reason
should be responded to).
white paper | defining social media
Community
Refers to the collective societies created within any individual platform.
These communities will have more active and less active members and
will evolve dynamics that allow for the specifying of strategies. Any
individual community needs to be recognised as such, a Twitter
community cannot be catered for in the same way as a Facebook
community.
Expanding the vocabulary
There are numerous individuals and organisations seeking to impose their
own definitions on social media. For the utility of shared terms or the
kudos attached to consolidating and defining a fragmented industry- the
responsibility has been assumed by bloggers, reporters and marketers
worldwide.
Some recent additions to the social media dictionary are particularly
useful. They give us methods to express the measurement of social media
success. Here are some helpful terms coined by HYPERLINK “http://www.
webworkerdaily.com” www.webworkerdaily.com contributor Aliza
Sherman:
Attractions
The number of members gathered by a social media presence is one
easily quantifiable factor that determines part of the success of a
campaign. Sherman points out that the quality of member is more
important than the number. If 20,000 members are never going to have
any meaningful impact on the brand or company, they are less valuable
than one member who is. The sort of business you operate will affect the
impact of a member, but the type of content you publish and the way
you attract members will also affect their contribution. A steady trickle of
engaged members gained from affiliated or related networks will
promote the change of members to clients- a change described by
Sherman as a transformation.
Transformations
In all forms of marketing the goal is usually a point where conversion
takes place- a prospective client becomes a client. Social media
marketing identifies this as a part of transformation, and an important
one, but not the only one. Transformation can occur as a company or
organisation offers a redemptive solution. An example of this would be
responding to a disgruntled Tweet, not necessarily directed at the
company, to offer resolution. Another might be to respond to a negative
comment to offer a solution, rather than just deleting it. Ford’s Scott Monty
is an exemplar of this thinking.
Interactions
Once a community is started it seems to take on a life of its own.
Identifying and measuring the value of directs and mentions (in the form
of shared information, problem resolution and crowd-sourced hype) is
something that should solve some of the problems of quantifying ROI in
social media marketing.
Transactions
These are trades of value between the company and members. A
member provides a service to the company when they suggest your
Facebook page to a friend or retweet a blog post to their followers. Value
should go both ways, how are members being rewarded for offering you
a service? Discounts or additional perks can help to encourage members
to talk about your brand or become more loyal. Demonstrating that their
relationship with you is valuable is a vital part of successful social
networking. These relationships can be valued with reference to
interactions, transformations and attractions, and outgoing discounts or
rewards can be balanced accordingly.
Written by Charlie Thompson
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