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. Read More