Moving beyond a shallow definition of “social media”
David Armano. Photo uploaded to Flickr by jdlasica
@bbhlabs sent me a link to this great blog post on the Harvard Business site by David Armano (@armano).
I say “great” because David sets out an approach that’s core to our thinking and practice here at Made by Many – namely, the use of visual design to develop and articulate strategy. (Armano is a true awesomeist, especially in terms of visual thinking, and if you don’t read his blog Logic + Emotion, then you should.)
Why is this a good idea? Because visualising a service forces you to commit, and to commit you need to have considered the whole system, and the value exchange between it and all the different people you want to interact with it.
A design-led approach to solving a business problem is very different to the way most “social media” projects work in real life. As David puts it:
The current state of “social media” for many businesses looks more like an episode of MacGyver than Apple’s design process. Duct tape and bubble gum hold together fragile tactics such as Twitter accounts run by the summer college intern (nothing against college interns) or agency-generated Facebook fan pages that have few actual fans.
Armano proposes that the term “social media” is itself part of the problem. This shallow phrase reduces what is probably the most significant thing to happen to the world since the Industrial Revolution (if not the Renaissance) – the development of the World Wide Web – to the status of a marketing channel, you know – like a replacement for TV ads, and direct mail and posters. This is so sad and wrong.
Of course, it’s true that there are many exciting applications of “social media” within the worlds of marketing, advertising and PR – but let’s get things in perpsective: the really important thing to grasp about the World Wide Web and digital technologies is how they’re changing the way we live, think, organise, love, eat and even fight. The Web is about the evolution of all human behaviour, not merely advertising and PR.
It never used to be called “social media”. eBay and Amazon never talked of “social media” – they talked about “service” and “community”. They spoke of the potency of The Web to smash old business models, flatten out-dated hierarchies and wrench power away from the centre and towards the edges to create new types of value exchange. Communications is but a tiny fragment of this revolution – albeit massively interesting and important – and yet it’s the campaign-flavoured, comms-focused stuff that defines – and limits – “social media” for most businesses.
Contrast that with the remarkable new products and systems the Social Web makes possible. To quote David again:
Think iPhone (product) and iTunes/app store (systems). These are complex objects and ecosystems, which are conceived, developed, prototyped, tested, iterated upon and evolved over time. Designers and developers from all backgrounds work together to pull off this intricate system of product and ecosystem.
We have to move on from such a shallow definition of “social media”. Design can help – especially strategic, opinionated design. It forces you to think things through from a system-wide point of view, and it puts you in the shoes of the user, so that you understand their experience and the value to them of what you’re trying to achieve. We live in a world where the consumer decides how to, or whether, to engage with your business.