What is Social Media? A Definition.

by Kyle David on August 15th at 2:56 pm EST

Social media has taken the internet by storm becoming the cornerstone of Web 2.0.  However, through its many variants (social networking, social sharing, social bookmarking, etc) it is hard to pinpoint a definition with enough specificity to constitute a definition.  When planning and developing social media sites on behalf of our clients and speaking nationally on the subject it became readily apparent that there was really no definition that worked.  I with the help of many, set out to create a definition that is concise, yet specific enough to pinpoint social media and its inherent characteristics.

“Social media is the technological path of least resistance for two-way communication and distribution through a large audience who would otherwise be unconnected if it were not for the technological medium.”

There are three necessary characteristics that all social media must have:

Replay-ability (indelible).  Social media content must be able to be viewed on demand over and over without the possibility or fear of deletion, unless the publisher decides to delete the content.  Even then, it is unlikely that it will never be found elsewhere on the internet.  As we all know, the internet is a little like Las Vegas.  What happens on the internet, stays on the internet, much to the chagrin of any news anchor who has made a gaff on-air.  You know who you are Chris Pirillo.

Content Requires Feedback.  Without some sort of feedback in the form of a tweet, comment, wall post, digg, etc, the content is essentially read-only and doesn’t fit the definition.  Facebook’s Social Comments (seen here on this site) have done a fantastic job of making content much more interactive and therefore able to be spread quicker through the masses.

Has a Quantifiable Reach.  It’s extremely important that all social media have a quantifiable reach.  Number of friends, followers, tweets, digs, views, plays, comments, etc. all constitute an ostensible metric to quantify what content or content contributor is “best” as determined by the audience.

If you were to take any social media site and remove any one of these critical elements the whole site would be a disaster.  What would YouTube be like if the number of views were not counted?  How would facebook operate if you could only look at someone’s profile once? (Answer: 10-30 year olds would see an instant increase in productivity.) What if you weren’t able to retweet?

In working in the established Web 2.0 environment it is essential that any site that is looking for growth embrace the power of social media and its ability to make or break a site.  After all, if you are not doing it someone else will soon if they are not already.