Although social media is one of those meme’s that is heavily over-used, I believe it’s purely at an early life stage, similar to that of a human growth cycle: i.e. Babies = Internet, Infants = Web and therefore Social Media could be likened to Adrian Mole aged 13 and 3/4 (showing my age a bit there… would be interested to hear your thoughts on that, not my age…the life cycle bit)
If that’s true, then I haven’t grown up at all, as some of you might testify 
, because over the years I’ve a spent lot of my time using, living and breathing it. But as social media is really just the Internet growing up it’s really interesting to see how the questions relating to it are as well.
Questions in 2009 portrayed a fundamental shift in ‘our’ mindset I believe – maybe because social media is now recognised as not being ‘just a fad’ or yesterdays T-Shirt. Still, what I found interesting with these questions is that they weren’t on ‘how can we push our message out there into the social media ecosphere’. No, the questions addressed risks relating to identity, security, compliance, reputation and engagement (almost to the point of being Xenophobic! – which is a good thing) and technology based ones regarding potential integration (e.g. how to link sites like Facebook Connect to the business site) which some IT departments were approached showed signs of Ponophobia. And that was P-O-N-O phobia not P-O-R-N-O phobia which is a fear of something else entirely
There has been a lot written about what social media is however, and please correct me if you think differently, not many have addressed the ’softer issues’ like those relating relating to brand management, marketing (pull not push) and more importantly customer relationship.(Note: Customer Relationship used to have management at the end of it, CRM, – but you can’t manage customers in today’s society as they have a tendency not to like it!)
But there is another factor to consider as well: social media is becoming more complex, as there are now a lot more issues relating to interoperability (a difficult word to say after a couple of Jack and Cokes – however, simply means ‘compatibility across platforms and sites’), mobile/web integration, platforms and standards. so IT departments – internal or outsourced – are becoming aware that there is a need for them to become more involved in the development (feasibility) and planning of business strategy. Do I hear any growns? But think about it, one of the major benefits of letting them in to the exclusive or should I say elusive ‘Strategic Business Planning Club’ is that it has the potential to obtain earlier ‘buy in’ to projects where as in the past there may have been resistance.
So, for 2010 my blog will endeavour to help answer these issues/challenges – as well as some that go a little ‘off-piste‘. But I’d like your help and input to prioritise which ones are important to you. So don’t be shy, please leave a comment below and remember there is no such thing as a sill question except the one you don’t ask…
Social media is evolving, but the rest is up to us…
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