Reading in Google Reader earlier today and ran across a reference to blogs as “social” media. Interesting. For me they are not so much social as they are democratic. I think that this is an important nuance in our dialog concerning the evolution of digital marketing.
Democracy can be defined as:
“the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group”
Thus, democratic media or marketing would be concerned with control of media, pricing, marketing, etc, being in the hands of the masses more so than in the hands of executives or corporations. I believe this is indeed part of the impact of the blogosphere (and digital media/access generally).
So for me, blogs are more democratized-media than they are social-media.
Social can be defined as:
“living together or enjoying life in communities or organized groups...”
So social media or marketing would relate more to places where community happens, where people aggregate to enjoy and share common interests. Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn all come to mind.
Perhaps at a macro level a set of blogs on the same subject with lots of linked and shared topics may be a social phenomenon.
A little analytical? Sorry. But being very clear on this distinction could be useful as you try to determine whether or not you are leveraging both forces to your advantage.
J
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