by: Karl Long
Antony Mayfield, head of content and social media at Spannerworks (which appears to be a SEO company) writes an interesting article for BrandRepublic.com where he lays out a high level summary of what social media might mean to businesses and brands.
In the article Antony lays out 5 characteristics that social media tends to share;
- Openness: most social media services are open to feedback and participation. They encourage voting, feedback, comments and sharing of information. There are rarely any barriers to accessing and making use of content - password protected content is frowned on.
- Conversation: whereas traditional media is about “broadcast”, content transmitted or distributed to an audience, social media is better seen as conversational, two-way.
- Community: social media allows communities to form quickly and communicate effectively around common interests - be that a love of photography, a political issue or a favourite TV show.
- Connectedness: Most kinds of social media thrive on their connectedness, via links and combining different kinds of media in one place.
Ironically the BrandRepublic.com does not fall into the category of social media, with no comments, trackback, or participation beyond an arbitrary link to the forum.brandrepublic.com
I think BrandRepublic.com needs to take some of Antony’s advice.
Luckily I did a quick search and found Antony’s blog which does have comments and trackbacks.
Original Post: http://blog.experiencecurve.com/archives/a-bluffers-guide-to-social-media
The point about brandrepublic is something I have noticed before - it could do so much more, especially bearing in mind how widely read it is.
It also reminded me of something I saw travelling home on the underground the other day. In London, the only place you are guaranteed to get no network for your mobile phone is on the underground. And yet so many of the adverts inside the carriage had SMS reponse mechanisms.
Seriously, what's the point? The ads are in the only place in the city where the response mechanism they have chosen cannot work.
Crazy.
http://openhouse.typepad.com