Social Media is About the Community, Stupid

Social media is the dancing hamsters of today. Some people hate it. And I mean really hate it. Some people are making a living off it. It seems like every­one is talk­ing about some aspect of it. But there are a few that seem to have some real insight into what draws people into it. It has so little to do with tech­nol­ogy and every­thing to do with com­mu­nity. One of the big names that gets it is Seth Godin. His new book, Tribes, is out this week address­ing social media and lead­er­ship. A couple of quotes from him about it:

Social media, in fact, is a basic human need, revealed dig­i­tally online. We want to be con­nected, to make a dif­fer­ence, to matter, to be missed. We want to belong, and yes, we want to be led.

The book is short and small and simple. It argues, as clearly as I am capa­ble, that lead­er­ship is the best mar­ket­ing tactic to any orga­ni­za­tion–a com­pany, a school, a church, a job seeker.

And I think he’s right. Face­book status updates and Twit­ter isn’t a waste of time if you care about what’s being said. Sure, there are things you care noth­ing about. What rela­tion­ships do we have where we care about every single thing the other person is saying?

Social media is not a new mar­ket­ing tech­nique. It’s not going to make you rich by simply installing the tech­nol­ogy. It IS a way to con­nect with people in ways that has never before been pos­si­ble. Tech­nol­ogy isn’t the sub­stance, it’s the cat­a­lyst. Rela­tion­ships are what makes social media work. Oth­er­wise it’d just be called media.