Jason Falls is all a-Twitter. And not the social media kind either.
Dave Breznau, author of s.m.o.g. talk, recently left a comment on Jason’s blog that caused him a little angst over the definition of social media.
is the term “social media” the problem? not only is it redundant, it is also currently inclusive of both “social” and “commercial” interest. truly “social” conversational participants will be put off by any “commercial” interruption. which is why, as you have stated, that we’ve all started gathering here in the first place. this has always held true, but also to degrees of personal and individual tolerance(s), which (to me) makes trying to establish rules… useless. social networks in all forms will continue to be about personal control (preferences) which will allows us as individuals to determine the degree of “commercial” interaction we’ll accept within our “social” space.
Although Jason says he won’t support getting rid of the term, he did see Dave’s point:
If it is true, as I pointed out in the post, that what we call “social media” evolved because consumers ran away from other mediums due to the overabundance of marketing messages, then this “medium” is inherently different than others, perhaps so much so that “medium” isn’t an apt qualifier.
Add to that a growing sense of tiredness of the term “social media” from some who practice it, not to mention Shannon Paul’s accurate insistence that having the term in one’s title is limiting, and we have to ask ourselves if “social media” is wearing out its welcome. At least as the term used to describe this new genre of communications.
As someone who has witnessed this kind of “we-need-to-define-ourselves-accurately” discussion before, let me offer this advice:
Don’t do it. Leave it alone. It’s not worth it. Focus on something else, like, uh… my car keys! Ooh, shiny! Deedle deedle deedle!
People in their particular industry always want to be as descriptive and technically accurate as they can. Needless to say, they make things much, much worse. As a writer, it kills me whenever one of the so-called industry experts — who doesn’t know squat about effective writing — gets ahold of my text. They manage to turn 100 words of tightly-written copy into 500 words of drivel and gobbledygook.
These same people will write mission statements before committee meetings, they try to cram as much knowledge into a beginner’s head as possible, and create 10-word job titles to encapsulate every minute detail their job entails.
Don’t do it.
Several years ago, as a radio theater playwright and member of an online radio theater group, I participated in more than one email discussion about why we should/should not call our favorite art form “audio theater,” instead of the more commonly-known “radio theater.”
“We’re not heard on the radio anymore. People can get us on CDs, MP3s, and on the Internet. So it should be audio,” said the audio camp.
“Yes, but no one knows what ‘audio theater’ is. We’ll have to explain to everyone what audio theater means,” said the brilliant, noble, erstwhile radio proponents said. So, I kept explaining over and over what audio theater meant over and over. Finally, I just gave up and just kept calling it radio theater, and let the audio theater people think they won.
I’ve seen this happen over and over. People who are burdened with the curse of knowledge think everyone should share that burden, and so try to be complete, thorough, and technically correct. The problem is the other 99.999% of the world just doesn’t care, and you’re just going to waste time trying to explain it to people who never will.
So while “social media” has the problem of ALL media being social, and containing too much commercial crap now, we still need to call it social media.
But if you think you can come up with something better, let me hear your ideas. We’ll have a contest. Whoever comes up with a better term, we’ll start using it to see if it catches on.
The rules: It has to be two words or fewer, 13 characters or fewer, and five syllables or fewer. Good luck.
About Erik Deckers
