I was asked to write a very concise intro to blogging and social media for our executive leadership, to act as a preamble for a new blog project. I would love to hear your thoughts as this is a very real challenge as marketers in this new media world.

What is Social Media? (reference: wikipedia)

Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, message boards, blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. It defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio on the internet.

What is Blogging?

Blogs are frequently updated web pages on which authors post short comments about news items, interesting websites, their thoughts and more. Blogs are part of a revolution that allows individuals to express themselves to the world. Blogs are easy to create, easy to maintain and fun to read.

How can a university or company enter this new media space successfully?

It’s important to note that even prominent ad agencies do not understand how to fully leverage social media. (An article published in ADWEEK early this year reports on a survey which yielded essentially that “agencies don’t get it“)

This new media is about conversations. They are happening about your institution every day, online. We can either be part of the conversation or ignore it. If we chose to be a part of it then paramount to our success are the following:

• change in voice: authoritative => community based, personal
• change in speed: approval process => empowerment of individuals
• change in tolerance: strict censored content => loose content management

Without embracing these concepts any attempt at entering the social media space would fail because the audiences/participants would immediately sense the lack of authenticity and ignore the blog, comment, website, etc.

What drives these conversations are real people. Canned responses and marketing speak will do more harm than good in the realm of social media.

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