Those involved in social media – myself included – naturally view it as being of major significance. However, viewing it that way doesnt necessarily make it so. And in some quarters there is tacit scepticism surrounding the extent of that significance.

So I thought it worthwhile to throw out some questions (see below) and to collect views beyond the social media blockades. If you have suggestions about other topics that we might collectively explore, please leave a comment or let me know by other means.

They are simple but important questions – and I’d appreciate your thoughts.

Question 1:

Question 2:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I’ll update results along the way in future posts.

Image: CJohns – Fotolia.com

Brands and marketers who continue to treat information generated by online sources as isolated and inconsequential do so at their peril.

Yesterday I was talking with a marketing acquaintance. He didn’t consider social media to be particularly topical. In fact his exact words were “oh yeah – social media, blogging, twittering…its all cr@p…I don’t have time for it”. Regardless of what you might think of the delivery, the underlying sentiment is all too familiar and reflects a misconception which is common amongst those who have yet to grasp the implications of the social web. Typically, the thinking goes like this…

1. These people believe that there is a clear distinction between the information produced via “mainstream” media and the “unofficial” user-generated content of the social web.
2. As part of this distinction, they believe that most people (like themselves) view mainstream media as trustworthy and legitimate and consider information provided by online sources as lacking credibility and substance,
3. They believe that this distinction is commonplace and is shared by consumers and journalists alike,
4. As a result of this distinction and the value judgment that goes along with it, they believe that a hard barrier exists between mainstream and online information sources that prevents story ideas (if not the story itself) from passing from the social web to the mainstream media.

Essentially this thinking assumes that social content goes somewhere out of sight and stays there. Its convenient, its comforting – its wishful thinking. Its a dangerous wish for those charged with brand guardianship as it ignores the basic dynamics of the social web. Just ask Dominos.

As Sean Howard says “In today’s world everyone is a publisher, everyone has some level of influence, and everyone has a network of influence “. It also ignores a progressive shift in the relationship between offline and online information. The nasty surprises recently experienced by Dominos Pizza, Toyota Yaris, General Motors, United Airlines and KFC demonstrate the ease and speed with which online stories can find their way into early general news. And these are not a product of some random web search.

The use of social media amongst print and press journalists for research and story ideas is now systemic.

While bloggers have always relied upon “traditional” media for topic ideas and research, a recent report by George Washington University and Cision suggests that the door is now swinging more frequently in the opposite direction. According to the 2009 Social Media & Online Usage Study (http://www.gwu.edu/~newsctr/10/pdfs/gw_cision_sm_study_09.PDF) released last week, mainstream journalists increasingly turn to the user-contributed environment of the social web for story ideas, background and research. If you think that content published online isn’t crossing the species gap, consider this…

• Almost nine out of ten journalists reported using Blogs for their online research (89%). Only Corporate websites (96%) is used by more journalists when doing online research for a story.
• Approximately two-thirds of respondents reported using Social Networking sites and just over half make use of Twitter for online research.
• Blogs (64%) are the most frequently used social media tool to publish, promote and distribute what journalists write, followed closely by Social Networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook (60%) and Microblogging sites such as Twitter (57%).

If you actively post stories about your brand within the social media environment, then this is probably good news. If, however, you are the unsuspecting subject of an unauthorized or malicious piece, then the experience is likely to be far less pleasant.

This is not to suggest that mainstream journalists run unverified stories. On the contrary, the Cision report suggests that journalists approach online stories with a higher level of skepticism than those developed by their colleagues in traditional media. What it does suggest is that the social web provides a myriad of sources for stories and information – and journalists don’t seems to share the viewpoint of my cavalier acquaintance mentioned earlier.

A good story is a good story – and good stories move with ease between the worlds of social and traditional media. It is therefore a mistake to underplay the impact that social media content may have on your brand or to underestimate the likelihood of its emergence into mass media.

The increasing importance of social media as source of story ideas means that brands should begin to formulate plans for identifying and managing issues before they become viral – and well before they appear in tomorrow morning’s paper.

Image: Fotolia: © Franz Pfluegl

As consumers we are supposed to be getting smarter – or at least more rational.

To help with this evolution, the internet offers an endless array of comparison and peer review sites designed to help you locate the ultimate house, camera, insurance policy or nanny – all with a few mouse clicks. These sites are intended to remove emotive brand triggers and bring consumers back to the empirical fold.

Purists hold this as the ideal model because it provides an empiric, non branded comparison environment which places the emphasis on features and price. In doing so, in theory anyway, it reduces or removes the less tangible emotive qualities that give branded products a level of dominance that sometimes outweighs the product’s tangible features. These emotive factors are frequently dismissed as noise.

There’s no doubt that this style of rational purchasing behaviour is very popular. In fact, according to BIG Research, 89% of consumers making in-store purchases in key retail categories have conducted online research prior to purchase. This would lead you to think that we can all look forward to becoming far more sensible consumers.

However, it may be that our own method of reasoning may work against us.

Earlier this year, accomplished author and Wired journo Jonah Lehrer reviewed a paper by Leonard Lee, Dan Ariely, and On Amir published in the Journal of Consumer Research which suggests that consumers who use their emotional reasoning are actually more consistent in their decision-making.

As Lehrer relates; “It is possible consumers would be much happier with choices based more on their emotional reaction. For example, if one buys a house and relies on very cognitive attributes such as resale value, one may not be as happy actually living in it, as opposed to a person who attends to his or her emotional reaction to the house prior to purchasing it.

Indeed, our results suggest that the heart can very well serve as a more reliable compass to greater long-term happiness than pure reason… subjects who relied more on their emotional system made a more consistent set of decisions.”

He goes on to say that “The scientists (Lee, Ariely and Amir) speculate that the internet leads consumers to engage in more rational deliberation, since there are fewer affective cues…and yet, this sort of thinking might also lead to consumer inconsistency.”

The irony, as Lehrer observes is that it may actually turn out that the more we try to be rational, the more we come to rely on our less tangible natures.

A lot of social media discussion about blogging assumes that readers have a common understanding of what blogging is in 2009 (nearly 2010).

I know that from a personal perspective the term “blogging” evokes mental images of my favourite niche blogs – all of which are best of breed publishing websites in their own right. So, it came as a shock recently to find that the term “blog” often generates far less positive perceptions in broader corporate circles.

I find myself frequently detailing the virtues of various social media components as part of a well-rounded digital strategy. The discussion generally includes the creation and management of blogs; in part as a means of handing control of the website content back to the comms team, introducing dynamic distributable content back into the website, and introducing an engagement mindset for the brand.

Now, its still relatively common for larger brands to have static web 1.0 websites. And it’s not uncommon for content on these sites to be locked down by draconian change management cycles that require a strong belief in reincarnation. So you would think that clients desperate to unshackle their websites would embrace blogging with gusto, yes? No. Instead, the momentum of the conversation starts to falter.

I started to wonder if the term “blog” evoked a different understanding amongst those who have better things to do than follow the evolution of social media. So I started asking what “blogging” meant. I asked friends who were brand managers. I asked media agency contacts. I asked SMEs who were starting their social media journey.

I discovered that the word “blog” consistently summoned mental images of post-puberty journals, emotive Dear Diary litanies and complex, detailed accounts of less than complex lives. Any wonder that some corporate clients reach for their blackberries and start checking their email whenever the topic comes up.

Whilst there is no doubt that Blogspot and WordPress.com play host to terabytes of personal musings that may have been better left as passing thoughts, the craft of blogging has itself evolved into something quite different.

Most of the blogs at the upper end of the Ad Age Top 150 bear more similarity to dynamic niche magazine publishing websites than they do to the traditional “weblog” from which the blog derives its name. It only takes a cursory glance at mashable.com,problogger.net, sitepoint or any number of top tier blogs to sense the vast distance that the apple has now fallen from the tree.

Unfortunately, the perception amongst the broader business community has yet to catch up with these changes – and makes me wonder if the “blog” terminology short-sells its legitimacy.

Since most of my clients are very familiar with mainstream media I decided to borrow from magazine terminology. I discovered that when posts became articles, bloggers became columnists, features editors or publishers (depending upon the style and application of the blog) something interesting happened. Blogs became something very different and far more deservingly legitimate in the mind of the client.

I’m sure that some of you will say that clients should get it without having to change the terminology – that marketers should keep up with developments. Maybe they should – but they don’t. I read an article earlier this week that suggested that any marketer that didn’t have a strong understanding of digital should not be in the job.

My experience is that plenty of very competent senior marketers rely on external parties for guidance and maybe don’t always get the advice they need. Understandably, some are reluctant to ask possibly embarrassing questions.

Either way, not all clients have the same understanding of what blogging is. I have found that drawing parallels with what is familiar and comfortable changes that understanding and introduces the appropriate level of legitimacy.

If you sense that you and your client are thinking different things, using the publisher comparison is one way to create some common ground with non-digital marketers and create an area of comfort in which the client can ask questions – and hopefully embrace new opportunities.