I’ve spent the last month or so observing people define what is Social Media is.

First let’s define Social Media.

Social – Media

Social means just that. Being Social.

Social is engaging in conversation and engaging means being open to the variety of ways you can meet and greet people.

Regardless if it is talking to friends at a bar over some drinks, or talking to someone over a chat line, or having open discussions on a blog site through comments, or if it’s talking on twitter, comments on blogs, discussion forums. Interaction is Social.

Social means engaging in communication

Now what is media? Media is a communication line.

Media within a human element is word of mouth,

Media within a twitter environment is word of mouth within 140 characters that is built upon over a period of time when someone has followed you enough to get to know you, they begin to like you, trust you not because of some links, but the experience over a period of time.

Media is through telephone lines

Media is through comments through blogs.

Media is through discussion forums.

Media is through ning sites.

Media is anything to do with the medium itself that delivers the social engagement.

So now let’s bring the two words together again.

Social Media is defined as engaging “socially” through communication lines.

Social media thus is using communication to engage yourself, the experience itself is people unfolding the process of getting to know you, getting to like you and allowing your personality to lead the way, but the service is your knowledge, your help and support your understanding that you are offering a service through that knowledge  and wisdom.

Even in a personal setting as talking to a friend, I am serving them by helping them.

Same thing in a professional setting I am talking to a “customer/prospect” who I am serving them by helping them.

Social media is about being you, about allowing the various factors involved in the human element of engagement, and it’s about being open to the understanding that whatever medium you find yourself in front of, it’s a continuous flow of socializing.

If it be a call center,twitter, forums, blog comments, its about being a person who knows how to listen to people and engage with them yes indeed you will offer them a service of your knowledge to help them get their job done, but the customer experience is how you are as a social person.

I remember one time I was totally pissed at a service I had with a VOIP service, I was so pissed that I was ranting with the customer service guy. At one point, he said and his exact words were, “dude I totally get you, it sucks when we suck” I felt so comforted that he understood me, but I think that he also understood I needed to hear the fact that they did suck. He spent about twenty minutes walking me through every angle on how to fix it, and as we did, the in between times of waiting to see if it would respond, he would crack a joke. This is customer service, adding to the customer experience by being social and using the telephone as the media/medium.

It’s obvious that social media is a great way to communicate your product or service, but who is doing the communicating and who’s engaging in that communication within the various platforms available?

Let’s not complicate it, social media is just that we are socializing and engaging in conversation and we are sharing our knowledge. But the social element is the experience aspect.

We don’t like people we experience liking them.

We don’t like brands we experience liking them.

Those brands have people behind them, and now with social media being such a strong communication portal in various platforms, it’s important that those brands have every single person be sociable in any way they can when confronted with the ability to give a customer/prospect a great experience.

I’ve observed twitter and my own experience of it, and  I have found that when I begin to like a person the way they are, the variety they bring to the platform by sharing quotes, by sharing knowledge, by asking  me if I am well, I get interested and when I am interested it means my experience of them has made me so, and if they have something I need, then I will think of  them first and if I like them that  much I will tell someone else about them and how they are cool.

Let’s not complicate it. Social Media is just that being social. Are you social?

If you are people will experience you, and if they like you they will talk about you and if they talk about you and you represent something they will talk about what you represent and if it’s a product or service, they will think of you first when it comes time if it need be.

I know, I know there’s  many other  factors involved, but I said this was a simple way of looking a social media.

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