Social Media Part 3- Social Media Defined (Officially)

It’s a term that gets bandied about a bit, but what exactly is social media? In this post I’ll be putting together a more academically correct definition of the term, which may or may not stand true in reality. That’s what the next few posts are about!

Webtrends.about.com define social media as the ‘interaction among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks’, the key word there being ‘interaction’.

This makes more sense when you break the term down into its constituent parts ‘social’ and ‘media’. This actually reminds me of a joke by The Goodies (remember them?) where they break down, inaccurately translate, and then define eisteddfod- ‘eistedd’ meaning ‘bored’, ‘fod’ meaning  ‘stiff’.

So before we’re bored stiff with definitions let’s push on.

Now we’re all pretty familiar with what the media is- radio, television, newspapers. All of these forms of media have limited ways of interacting. It’s more about them giving information and everyone else taking it in. Think ‘consumer media’.

Add the social component and we come back to that key word of ‘interaction’. As some clever person said regular media is a one way street. Social media is two way.

Now the good folk over at whatis.techtarget.com feel that the way the web is going the distinction between what is social media and everything else is going to become so increasingly blurred as to not actually matter anymore. The assumption of interaction will be everywhere. Every website links to Facebook, every online newspaper lets you post comments on every story, every picture can be Pinned.

And if this is the case why do so many musicians I’ve spoken to assume this-

SOCIAL MEDIA = FACEBOOK (+/- TWITTER) = WASTE OF TIME

Tune in next time to see if we can edge ever closer to finding out!