I’ve started sending out invites to folks for my seminar on social media for community organizations later this month. Almost immediately, I received a response from someone who asked the question,
“Would you please define social media so that we’re on the same page?”
DUH!
I totally overlooked the fact that for many of the people I am trying to reach, this might be their first formal introduction to social media. I should do something about that.
Rather than try and wax philosophic about social media, I thought that I would let social media do the work. So, here are two wonderful examples of social media at work, defining social media:
First, you can read the Wikipedia definition of social media. Wikipedia is an information resource where you can find information on just about any topic you can imagine. All of the information found there as been submitted by users of Wikipedia. Sure, there are a few folks who do some of the moderation, but anyone can share information and have it end up on a Wikipedia page. This is vastly different from the old Encyclopedia Britannica that I remember from my grade school library. That came out every year, and there was only a select group of editors and researchers who were allowed to contribute and decide what information was included, or not.
For another explanation of social media, check out the following video by the folks and CommonCraft entitled, “Social Media in Plain English.”
Aside from being incredibly insightful, the video is also social and interactive. Anyone can post this video on their site, anywhere. And if you clicked on the link above the video, you might have noticed that the CommonCraft website is in blog format, meaning that not only can people view and share their videos, but they can leave their own comments, as well.
So there you have it, two definitions of social media, from two sources that are, in fact, social media. How cool is that?
So, now that you have a better understanding of what social media is, you might like to learn a little bit more; and if you want to learn more about how social media can benefit you and your organization, don’t forget to check out my presentation later this month. It is sure to be informative, and a lot of fun.
