Social media is not a delivery mechanism

Posted by Jaan on July 21st, 2008 | 1 comment

This past Tuesday I attended SocialMediaCamp here in San Francisco. I missed a few of the morning sessions but I’m glad David Cohn was there to catch a key, and in my view incorrect, statement.

“In the intro session the host defined social media in a fashion that didn’t mesh with me. This isn’t an exact quote but it was something to the tune of.

‘Social media is when people use new technology tools for word of mouth marketing.’

What bugs me was the word ‘marketing.’ [...] I dislike when people define social media as ‘marketing’ – can’t it just be ’sharing information.’ Please don’t turn everything into selling.”

I agree with David but that’s not the point of this post. The point is to talk about some of the reasons why social media is not marketing.

First of all, social media it is not a delivery mechanism. Marketing relies on, and is always looking for, new ways to deliver messages. Deliver as in “I am giving you something, and you have to receive it.”

Examples of delivery mechanisms are email and television. Social media is not a delivery mechanism.

Instead social media comes down to engagement. It is an extension of and expression of our human need to communicate and interact with each other (I have in the past compared social media to an amateur theater group; driven by passion, it’s personal, involving, and full of expression). Social media is a natural thing. Marketing is not.

Sure, social media can and is being used for marketing purposes. Let’s not kid ourselves. Many companies and people with excellent social media credentials do social because it is good for them and their respective businesses. There’s nothing wrong with that, we all need to make a living and being engaged with others while doing so is great. (Plus the collaborative aspect of social is an excellent way to improve ones output.)

This still doesn’t make social media a mechanism. That’s unless you consider your friends to be “target markets”, your family “an untapped segment” and so on. My guess is that you don’t.

For now, marketers and everyone else should embrace the fact that social media is an excellent opportunity to express ourselves, share information, give and receive feedback, involve people, learn from each other, and build stronger ties. In other words, act as people. Some companies are already doing it with great results. And when more marketers and companies follow their lead and no longer treat social media as a delivery mechanism, we the people who make up their audience might be willing to listen. And maybe eventually buy their stuff. That’s not a bad trade-off is it?