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Social Media 101 - For Marketers (and other people who speak English)

I, like everyone who does "social media' professionally, get asked to explain it a lot. I've got bunches of emails and slide decks taking a crack at the answer to What is Social Media, but I haven't been happy with any of them because they tend to focus on the little stuff, and it's the big stuff I find so interesting. Also, in getting my clients (and prospects) to the point where I can begin to actually advise them on how to incorporate social media into their global communications strategy, I have to help them understand the essence of what it is, not the details.

So, for a new client, I sat down and just wrote it out. I've been told by non-marketers and non-techies that it works pretty well to give them the big picture and put a lot of things they know about (e.g., Facebook, Twitter etc.) into a larger perspective. I share it here in the hopes others will find it useful. Feedback below welcome since I'll probably continue to evolve it for use in new fora.

Social Media 101 for Marketers

View more presentations from Dana Theus. (tags: 2.0 marketing)

Twitter as Social Experiment

I, like everyone else I know and read in social mediaville, am still trying to figure out what's so compelling about Twitter. I say "compelling" with a grain of salt because I don't always feel all that compelled to hang out there (though I do so more now that I'm using @Tweetdeck). On the other hand, I do go back pretty regularly to decide who to return follow, check out links and reply to message; I even tweeted my first conference last week and it did make me feel more connected as well as helped me meet new people. Most importantly, I'm always thrilled when I get a reply or direct message; it adds a little spark to my day. I think that spark is what is so cool about it, and so I'll add my voice to the hundreds of others who have already lauded, puzzled over and trashed Twitter.

Here's my basic takeaway; to the TwitTrashers, I say - chill out. Twitter isn't a business model, it's a social experiment - a people mashup - and what it reaffirms is that people are addicted to other people; they like to hang out with each other, do business, share stuff and otherwise find excuses to communicate. This is true of the social web in general, and the reason that I agree with Doug Shumacher that the whole web will soon be social. But when it comes to people addictions Twitter is like the social web on speed because it accelerates the "fan ego boost" phenomenon and puts people in direct conversation which is where true communication happens.

The Psychology of Social Media - Some things Never Change

I've been harboring a theory for a while now that human beings don't change very much when they go online. We watch some of our communication behaviors change as we become addicted to various technologies (Twitter seems to the be the most annoying recent addition to this habit, though I'll admit I haven't tried it... see more on why below). But fundamentally, we use online tools to do the same things we do offline - kill time, learn, play, work. When it comes to social media, just like in the real world, we move between networks depending on which other friends are there, what they're doing and why we want to interact with them. If we're loyal to groups offline, we're probably loyal to them online. If we're fickle, well - we hop networks online too.

[Under the link I muse on about MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google's OpenSocial, Twitter, LiveJournal and Ning with more opinions about the psychology of the human species.]