18 months ago there were no “social media consultants”. The term didn’t exist. But for at least a decade before the term people were doing stuff with the internet in a social way and there was a need for a name. Unfortunately with names come definitions (”what is social media anyway”) and definitions, while useful, do tend to limit things. They also make the target bigger for those that might want to dismiss the thing, for good or bad reasons.
I’ve been trying to move away from the term social media since the spring but it’s very hard to explain what it is I do without it. It’s a bit of a millstone.
I think the social media industry will start fading away in the next year or so as the snake-oil salesmen get revealed (some of them might not realise they’re selling snake oil – I occasionally wonder about myself) and those who really know and understand this stuff stop talking and start doing, taking the theory and blurring it in with the rest of societal activity.
There’s nothing fundamentally special about social media. It’s just people talking and sharing. What makes it special is that it’s new.
What’s really weird is how something intrinsically connected to 30 years of Usenet, 10 years of blogging, 5 years of Web 2.0, etc can still be considered new, but there you go.
(see also, kinda: The Bruno Brookes syndrome)
Jez 1:44 pm on July 21, 2009 Permalink
I’d suggest you change “at least a decade before the term …” to “since the internet was invented …”
FionaC 4:40 pm on July 21, 2009 Permalink
Funnily enough, in the commercial world I’m in reverse. I feel pushed towards ’social media consultancy’ because my peers need to know what (littel) I know about it in order to do the new jobs and tasks that are arising now that social media is infiltrating the publishing world.
SO, it’s inneresting that you feel a move away from ’selling snake oil’ and talking about it, towards ‘doing’ something with it.
Isn’t this just a sign that the mainstream are (in your vicinity anyway) getting a grasp on it for themselves… leaving you free to stop talking about it and start doing /having fun with it.
Sometimes I think we live in interesting times when all rules are out of the window. But then I think those times are going to get even more interesting in a decade or five. To resort to time metaphors, this period is sort of like the 60s – we are optimistic about the freedoms of the internet and are having a summer of love affair with social media changing the world, thwarting consumerism, etc. Next step, the 70s – when things get really weird. :) Then the 80s when commerce finally works out how to make money online. The 90s – don’t know, kind of missed that decade but… well, you get my point.