That was Then, This Is NOW: #Facebook and #SocialMedia AS WE KNOW IT NOW…
I did a blog post a short while ago about Social Media Gurus and Social Media. This post created quite a bit of dialogue about the term social media guru, the length of experience that those gurus have, the origins of social media and how people define social media. Ummm musta’ HIT a nerve with some of the GURU’s. So lets just consider this a bit of a follow up to that post.
While gaining my Masters Degree in Internet Marketing I learned Advanced Internet Marketing Strategies, New Media Marketing Technologies and Social Media Optimization, Search Engine Optimization and more. I do have a firm understanding of what Social Media is; However, like anything everything is a matter of interpretation and someone may very well view things differently than I may. I am quite qualified to state my opinion as are others.
I am a firm believer that Facebook is the driving force behind the social media driven world that we are in now. In spite of that, I did in the previous post and still do acknowledge that there were a variety of online platforms that proceeded Facebook.
I am not saying that online interaction was nonexistent in the earliest stages of the Internet hitting mainstream. I am saying that businesses were not involved with Social Media as it is now….
That Was Then…This is NOW and The difference between then and now is the profound effect that the FACEBOOK ERA has had on our entire lives and businesses in particular. I’m not talking forums, online resume platforms or pre-web 2.0 platforms. YES I agree, there were indeed platforms around such as Friendster, Hi5, blah, blah, blah, blah, blahhhhh….I get that. One of those channels from that era is, LinkedIn which by todays standards is considered a social media channel. However back in its initial stages, Linkedin was considered a channel that allowed one to create an online resume. This platform encouraged PRIVATE interaction between people that have connected, not SOCIAL interaction as social media encourages. In addition, Linkedin did not offer the opportunity to share content which is a driving force behind social media as we know it now. Take a look at the image below of the LinkedIn interface as it displayed in 2005.
One of the driving forces of Social Media as we are experiencing it now, provides a platform for individuals and BUSINESSES to engage with a strong motivation to share content. This is a really cool experience for individuals as it has increased social interaction, but for businesses it is huge.
Businesses within the past two years have recognized the power of Social Media and has been embracing this new and exciting way of engaging, connecting and increasing its brand recognition by way of this phenomenon that has really taken the world by storm. Although we know that there have been other channels of online interaction, none of those channels have promoted the change as Facebook has. The growth of this phenomenon has change how we interact, how we behave online and how businesses market their brand. This is what has thrust businesses into the social media fray. NO other online channel, forum, platform whatever you want to call it has changed the fabric of marketing like the Facebook propelled social media era. This is the era of social media in which businesses are in need of experts, not gurus with an exaggerated ten years of experience.
Yes, there were other online channels, but we all know that NONE of the other channels have had the power to change the world from, what it was THEN, to the SOCIALLY ENGAGED world that it is NOW, except Facebook. Facebook has created entire industries, applications, phones geared toward the technology and more. Although Facebook did not start online platforms, Facebook is the driving force behind what we now call Social Media. Let’s not pretend otherwise…
The Take away:
The good thing is that based on the Facebook Era of Social Media, the world is a much more Socially Engaged place and we are all literally living through history in the making. Call it what you want, but this Era of Technology is exciting and I’m sure everyone is excited to be a part of it. I know I am!
Related articles
- YOU may be a Social Media Guru but YOU DO NOT Have 10 years of Social Media Experience (anisesmithmarketing.com)
- 2012 The Year For Those In Internet Industries (anisesmithmarketing.com)
- But I Don’t Have Time For a New Social Media Platform (anisesmithmarketing.com)
- Sales and Account Managers ADD A Little #SocialMedia To Your Strategy & Your Email (anisesmithmarketing.com)
Posted on December 30, 2011, in Internet Marketing, Marketing, Social Media and tagged Anise Smith, Business, Facebook, Internet Marketing, Linkedin, Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, Marketing strategy, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Social network, Technology, Twitter. Bookmark the permalink. 1 Comment.
I would say that the Internet in general has done more for what you’re thinking of as online marketing than any one platform. Generally the consensus is that Facebook will be around for quite some time, but it’s also exposed to the same patterns in technology that it’s predecessors have fallen victim to. As far as marketing on Facebook, I would be more interested to hear about the Advanced Marketing strategies you learned as opposed to hearing that Facebook is a game changer. I didn’t mean to shoot down your education in the last article if you took it that way, any accredited higher education degree is quite an accomplishment, but if I were to develop a College program on Online marketing I would base it on fields of study and theory that has been researched heavily, predominantly sociology, marketing and media production. One of the best studies was done by Jan Keitzman in Business horizon, it took sociological theories and data and applied it to social media. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681311000061 As much as I like reading Chris Brogan’s articles, I wouldn’t base a requisite class on articles he has written like “10 ways to improve your LinkedIn profile”.
The reason I can charge so much for design work I do is because I use ideas from tons of different areas like usability (standards, users with disabilities, likely resolutions, proximity, system stress) , design (typography, color palettes, density, code efficiency, graphic design) and even sometimes related fields like biology or psychology. I’m familiar with copyrighting and marketing, and the themes and techniques I use don’t change that much whether I’m designing a Facebook page, a website, or a landing page. The rules of effective community management are largely unchanged as well, I’ll never consider design and marketing part of social media because that’s like saying the chicken came before the egg. I know the differences, but in 10 years from now the things you learn from a campaign you develop on Facebook today will probably be valid, but you can guarantee that Facebook won’t be anything close to what it is right now. It will be about as familiar as a WWWBB script is to a NING network right now. Facebook is a big piece o the puzzle, but it’s not the table you’re building the whole puzzle on. I’m as tech positive as anyone, I tell people everyday how they can benefit from social media and other technologies, but I also recognize the value in the basic building blocks of what makes it all possible and relevant. When I was in college I learned how to draw on a board w/ a T-square before they even let me put a line down on a computer, and because of that I can tell you how the computer knows how to draw chamfered corners and fillets and such. That relationship applies to everything digital, and I’m not a 60 year old professor saying this, I’m 26 and everything I have ever done was born in technology.