With digital marketing now truly mainstream and the inarguable rise of Facebook, Twitter and other digital media, the word “Social” is part of every marketer’s must-know vocabulary. But what does it mean anymore?
The word has traditionally referred to broadening of ‘the political’–popular empowerment and the re-appropriation of civil society. Social as in “of public interest” pertains to social work, social issues, social service, social justice, social responsibility, social problem, social security. Commonly the word also alludes to being interactional. When I asked our VP of Social Media, Heidi Skinner, she said she always thought of “social” as “a party of people assembled to promote sociability and communal activity in offline activity. It was simple: People fell into two groups being ‘social’ or ‘anti-social.’”
In the marketing sphere, Kotler and Andreasen (author of Strategic Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations) defined social marketing as:
“differing from other areas of marketing only with respect to the objectives of the marketer and his or her organization. Social marketing seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society.”
In today’s context, the word “social” is seeing an inevitable evolution in perceptions. Recently when talking to a colleague about “social campaign” ideas, I was referring to advertising addressing social issues while he interpreted it as campaign leveraging “social media”. In another case, I came across the term “Social Fund” in a news story and likewise perceived it to be a fund addressing community-driven development. However upon further reading realized that it’s a initiative by venture capital firm KPCB to invest in entrepreneurs inventing social applications and services. The firm is joined in the effort by Amazon.com, Facebook, Zynga, Comcast, Liberty Media, and Allen & Co., all of whom are investing in the fund and acting as “strategic partners.”
Is the word “social” losing its soul? Is it turning into a word that conjures Facebook and Twitter updates? Does it reflect commodification of relationships? As commercialization takes precedence, it seems the word “social” today is lot less about ability to change things, and a lot more about its ability to sell things.
I feel there is opportunity to carve a new niche for the word to stay fresh and evolve it in the context of its broader reference. Stowe Boyd offers an insightful take:
“The societal phenomenon of Social Media (supported by the nuts and bolts of social media tools) has been a profound one, over the past decade.… As an additional billion or two of the world’s population finds its way onto the web, our only hope may be that the web finds its way into the world: that the principles of openness, transparency, diversity, and egalitarianism that engender web culture remake the world, one conversation at a time.”
It is this evolution in marketing and media models based upon technology that I think puts “social” and its ever-evolving meaning into perspective.
I appreciate the tension, the paradox. There is certainly room for different connotations of “social” but if social is just another word for some social tools then we all stand to lose. I feel organizations need to embrace “social” in its broader sense. While talking social they don’t just need Social media strategies they need Social strategies. Social media is just one constituent of the marketing mix while Social strategy will address the overall business and corporate strategies. In the process, social strategy can envision a broader, more powerful, more challenging use of social tools. The right end of social tools is to help organizations stop being antisocial. In fact, it’s the key to advantage in the coming years.
Another point Heidi made during our conversation on the topic was that social has evolved from being an adjective into an enabler. The way she described it, “Social is no longer a descriptive term. Instead, it’s the collective, the technology that gives people a voice,” and I couldn’t agree more. What do you think? How should we be evolving the definition of “social” given the dramatic impact social media is having on our culture?
