Social Media is changing everything.
It’s not just changing business, it’s changing human behavior. We have a profound ability to connect to one another without regard for time or geography. Information is being created at unprecedented speed. We can carry on public conversations in ways never before possible.
Those that reduce these social sites to “just another channel” are small thinkers. They can’t see the BIG picture of Social and how it is changing the world, that type of thinking doesn’t help this profession.
To diminish Social Media to just another way to market, is fundamentally equivalent to calling the Steam Engine “just another way to get around,” or the Cotton Gin “just another way to make fabric” or the Print Press “just another way to write.” The emergence of Social Media is fundamentally the beginning of the information revolution.
Think about the following:
Social Commerce: Prior to the past few years, when was the last time you walked into a store, looked at a product and could instantly see which of your friends have purchased it, what they thought of it or what they bought instead? When did we have the technology to fire up an app that’ll let you scan the barcode and find out where you can get it cheaper and what the reviews are?
Social Networking: In 1999 how many different professional connections did you have? Ok, now who in that network is connected with someone at IBM? Now think about LinkedIn.
User Generated Content: The amount of data created every two days in 2010 is equal to the total amount of data create since the dawn of recorded human history until 2003. – via E.Schmidt, CEO Google
Technology changes things. Social technology has changed so much already and is continuing to change the world.
Perhaps the reason some people reduce it to “just another…” is because it’s easier to think of Social Media (the participatory web) in a paradigm that they understand. It’s easier to think of a blog as an online newspaper or magazine. It’s easier to think of Twitter as another place to push a message. It takes something to think outside of what you know and what exists. Social Media isn’t established yet, it’s in its infancy. We get to say what it is, and what it can be; but it’s far too young right now to cut it off from the biggest possibility.
I’d rather be surrounded by 100 “new media D-bags” with big ideas than 300 “haterz” that can’t think that big. You can train a big thinker to execute faster than you can train a small thinker to think big. It’s fine for those of you that don’t want to think BIG. It’s fine to not want to believe in the profound ways in which this new media will change humanity.
Just do us all a favor and stop crapping on it.