The value of social media and my gift to you
social media March 26th. 2008, 9:30amThe value of social media is in its ability to quickly convey messages that are:
- important
- useful
- interesting
- entertaining
to people, in groups or individually, with the added bonus of correction, elaboration, clarification, and other feedback from those who received the message so that the overall communication brings benefit to the largest number of people.
There. Go use that to get rich now. Please remember who told you this earth shattering secret. You’ll never have to read another blog post or E-Book or article again. You can thank me by linking back to this post or bookmarking it.
OK, <sarcasm off>, in all seriousness, I do think that every useful piece of information that you’ll ever read about social media should have these ideas in its heart.
I’d really, really, really like to know if all of you Broadcasting Brains out there agree, disagree, or if the post gave you heartburn. Please share your thoughts.
Oh, and please read IttyBiz sometime. You’ll pee your pants laughing, raise your blood pressure (or lower it, I suppose), shake your head in wonder and learn important stuff. And the author is Canadian, so according to super secret Canadian content regulations, I have to plug another Canadian blogger every now and then.
OK, the Canadian content regulation is a lie - bloggers do lie every now and then.
Actually, I just think it’s a great blog, especially if you run your own business out of your house and want to be able to go outside again without being considered a public menace due to stir craziness and/or frustration.
Sorry, Naomi, this might not be the best recommendation you’ll get, but it’s free and (hopefully) entertaining!
If you're new here, welcome! Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed to stay up to date with my latest posts and articles. Thanks for visiting!


March 26th, 2008 at 9:49 am
i’m in limbo right now. wondering if i’m not spending too much time on social bookmarking sites, and too little time creating such brilliant content that other people find it awesome enough to submit to all the social sites, etc.
thing is, does socialising online bring in the money? no, not really. and i don’t care how many blog posts there are about successfully blogging and keeping your readership etc, unless you’re john woo (or is that chow?) or whoever else, you’re gonna have a hard time making money off of just blogging.
so, i agree with you. thing is, your content has to be SO good, that doing it otherwise, you’ll be wasting your own and other people’s time. this is a cut-throat game. little things count.
March 26th, 2008 at 10:14 am
@Jansie - In my opinion, it’s increasingly rare that good content will just sell itself without any marketing. Thus, the excuse that I allow myself for spending a lot of time in social media is to create awareness and broaden my audience. Well, that and it’s fun, too.
March 26th, 2008 at 10:49 am
I completely agree, that’s a very concise definition and would be a good basis for anything we do - not just in social media arena.
March 26th, 2008 at 11:36 am
@Colin - thanks.
March 26th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
The value to who(m)? To content producers?
As a consumer who occasionally produces, I see it more like this:
The value of social media is the ability to have other people (whose opinions I value) draw my attention to the good stuff (as per your list above), in a world where we are bombarded with far too much useless information.
March 26th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
@Weefz - no, I meant the value to the reader or consumer, not value to the producer.
March 26th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I definitely agree that those are great purposes of social media. However I think we shouldn’t neglect the importance of collaboration. Social media allows us to put our ideas out there so that they can be commented on, added to, altered and used to inspire others in an ongoing process of creative work.
March 26th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
@Kathryn - good call on collaboration. I sort of included it in my statements, but it does need to be identified separately. Cheers.
March 26th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
This is indeed one of the best recommendations I could ever get — thanks for remembering the Canadian Content Code of Ethics.
Great domain, btw. I dig it.
March 26th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
@Naomi - you’re welcome! As for the domain… I tried to make it and my avatar distinctive, even if it’s a bit scary or stomach turning.
March 30th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Itty Biz is great.
March 30th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
@Fiar - you said it!
April 15th, 2008 at 6:39 am
[...] couple of weeks ago I was struck by a post by Mark Dykeman in which he stated that: “The value of social media is in its ability to quickly convey [...]