What Social Media Revolution?

Gareth Kay, the strategy head over at Boston-based Modernista, wrote a lucid and impressive piece in AgencySpy that is worth a read if you are fretting about social media.

The discussion around social media reminds me of the discussions around digital that surfaced back in early 2000 as agencies grappled with the impact and spread of the internet. Gareth's point about the focus on Social Media ideas is bang on. This is the way we at StrawberryFrog, have been working with social media before it became "social media". For example our campaign for Scion - called ScionSpeak is an example of this. It enabled Scion owners and fans to create badges about their lifestyles and use them on social media to express their own individual lifestyles.

Here is Gareth's well-written article:

"I absolutely believe that communication needs to be a two-way conversation not a narcissistic monologue, and that people aren't passive consumers waiting to be penetrated by marketing messages. Social media has helped prove the power of human conversation, and our innate social nature for anyone who had forgotten or doubted it.

But all this talk of social media got me thinking that perhaps, yet again, we are looking at this from the wrong end of the telescope, focusing on the delivery mechanism not the underlying issue.

Rather than focusing on social media shouldn't we be focusing on social ideas? This may sound a little trite, but I think it's important. Rather than (again) using communications as a sticking plaster to cover real fundamental issues a business faces, it forces us to confront what it is that we need to do at a more fundamental level."

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Comments

[Bjorn S.]

So the pre-launch was talking to the scion culture, designing the crest elements and letting the scion guys play around with it? And the launch was opening up the website to everyone, or was it somehow bigger (traditional advertising?) or based on the word of mouth thing you already had going within the scion culture?

Since you were aiming at excisting scion drivers I guess much traditional advertising is aiming way to wide, but I read in an interview were you described the launch as a "big launch" and I wonder if you were referring just to launching the website or if it was something else.

[Brett T. T. Macfarlane]

Yes, and yes.

It at times seems trite when saying it's always about ideas, and yes ideas need to innately live within the delivery medium, but without a great idea the delivery mechanism is meaningless. Has the big idea shifted from an idea that convinces someone to an idea that make someone care about you. This stuff now commonly known as social media, only covers a limited slice of social conversation. I love the idea of social ideas and interpret this to mean an idea that can be observed spreading through "social media" but is also interesting enough for people to talk about over diner, in the elevator or during a golf game. You know, any time someone it acting socially.