Social media is way too smurfy these days.

[If you know me in person, chances are you've heard this before, but I'm at the point now where I feel it just needs to be written down.]

I hate the term “social media.” Really, I do. Why? Because it’s too hard to define. I’m definitely not the first person to blog about this, and I’m sure I won’t be the last. But here’s the truth:

All media is social media.

Media, at its very ethos, is social. Cavemen didn’t paint cave paintings and not talk about them. Egyptians didn’t carve hieroglyphics just because they were pretty pictures — they told stories. Radio never really was one-way — it encouraged interaction with people calling in. TV may seem one-way but do people not sit around the TV and watch it together? Do people not talk about their favorite shows with each other?

All media always has, and always will, encourage social interaction. Whether it’s immediate as what we understand “social media” to be nowadays or not is a different story.

The only difference between “traditional” media and “social” media is that “social media” makes two-way (or one-to-many, or many-to-many) communication a helluva lot faster. And let’s just face it – this is simply the way the world communicates now.

However, like those folks I linked above, I understand that there is no one, true definition of “social media,” and that alone is a problem, illustrated by a story a few friends of mine relayed to me recently:

A colleague of ours, a rather big name in the “social media world” and a bigwig at a rather large, world-famous company, was to speak about social media at a local event. I did not attend said event, but my colleagues did, because they wanted to hear what he had to say about how he’s used “social media” in/for his company. Based on the questions from the audience, however, it became more of a Twitter 101 class, and my colleagues admitted they were a little embarrassed for him. This was not a marketing fail, as the event was promoted appropriately. Or was it?

My colleagues’ definition of social media was and is much more complex than that of the audience. They were expecting how this guy applied “social media” for marketing/PR purposes. The audience was apparently expecting how to use a tool or two, which is a lot different.

Social media is the new smurf.

Smurfs used the word “smurf” for just about anything, and it was understood without question. Or they used it when they couldn’t think of any other word for something, which is where we are now with “social media.” Hell, any kind of interaction via the internet or mobile now can be considered “social media,” and I can’t believe that for a society as chatty and as articulate as we are, we can’t think of any other words for what the heck we’re talking about.

We need to expand our vernacular.

I was taught that you shouldn’t complain about something without proposing a solution, but honestly? I don’t have one. What I do know is that the more we use “social media” as a term for just about any kind of communication these days, the more confused people get, and the more smurfy things become. I like to be more specific when I speak of expedited communication through ever-changing technology, but I realize that sometimes it’s easier smurfed than smurfed. I know that many times, I still go over peoples’ smurfs and they still don’t smurf what I’m smurfing about, even when I think I’m smurfing on their level.

So what do you smurf? Is “social media” too smurfy these days? Should we be more specific and throw that term out the smurf? Or is it fine and smurfy? Leave your smurfs in the smurfs.

25 Words of Social Media Wisdom Project: COMPLETE!

Wondering what that post with the Gonzo picture was all about? Liz Strauss did a “25 Words” project with a bunch of us SOBs, collected them all, and put them into a wonderful presentation. Enjoy!

Many thanks to Liz for putting this together and to all the contributors who made it so interesting!

My 25 Words of Social Media Wisdom

It’s more complicated than we think.

It’s a lot simpler than we think.

We think ourselves in circles out loud, online — everybody thinks we’re crazy.

(Entry for Liz Strauss’ 25 Words of Social Media Wisdom Project.)

FastTrac Entrepreneurs: It’s not a question of whether you have a website, it’s what comes next.

A week ago today I “graduated” from an entrepreneurship course called FastTrac® New Venture™, which is sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation (yes, the one that underwrites NPR & PBS). It was administered by the Michigan Small Business & Technology Development Center (MISBTDC) in Flint.

It seems like a great program, and true to its name, it does move very quickly.  Unfortunately, I didn’t realize until after I enrolled that I’d rather not work for myself. (Shameless plug: Professional Redheaded Geek Girl for hire!) I’m much happier going somewhere every day and dressing like a grownup, working around people in an office environment. At least I know that about myself–I know that I’m more creative, focused and motivated when I’m around others.

Even though I didn’t have a particular business idea to be perusing in this class, I did get a lot out of it. But I also saw some areas that definitely need improvement, mainly with the lack of emphasis on the importance of marketing, PR, and leveraging new media to build their new business’ brands–the very stuff I immerse myself in constantly. (“Personal branding” wasn’t even mentioned in this course.)

There was a day dedicated to marketing (these were 5 hour sessions), and they did briefly upon the differences between marketing, advertising, and PR, as well as talk about what a brand is and is not, but the tactics and strategies mentioned were outdated, interruption-marketing style that would make Seth Godin cry like a little girl. As far as using the web, there was talk about “having a website,” banner ads, and pay-per-click (PPC), but nothing about actually finding where your prospective customers are, listening, or (God forbid) engaging with your prospective customers/community/whateveryouwannacallthem.

To be fair, there is a lot to cover in this 6-week course, so I turned to the book to see what, if anything, was said about leveraging digital.

Sadly, if all you did regarding your online efforts was what they tell you between pages 222-224 (the extent of it), you’ll have a nice, shiny, outdated Web 1.0 “brochure-ware” site.

And that’s just not going to cut it.

I thought maybe the class would recognize that the suggestions were outdated. After all, the book is copyright 2005, and a lot has changed on the web and the world of marketing since then. But in the last class, those who wanted to give a presentation about their businesses-to-be could do so, and explain how they were going to market their business. Almost every person said “oh, and I’m going to have a website” as if it were some kind of afterthought.

I can’t believe I even have to point this out, but:

Having a website should not be an afterthought–without one your business might as well not exist.

A couple of my classmates seemed to emphasize that they were going to sell their products on their websites. Not once did they really say how they were going to do that or where they were going find people to buy their stuff.

And therein lies the rub.

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“This Ain’t Flint”: Ain’t a campaign, but it ain’t social media at work, either.

(Warning: This is a long post, but it goes by quickly.)

In Michael Moore’s 1995 fictitious movie Canadian Bacon, the U.S. economy was in a rut and the president, whose low approval rating is not unlike that of our former president, decided that what was needed to boost both his popularity and the country’s morale was a good war.  Naturally, war was declared on a country that didn’t do anything to us — Canada. (This scenario sounds eerily familiar, doesn’t it?)

Well, imagine my surprise when it was brought to my attention last week that the exact opposite situation was actually happening — our economy is in the dumps, but our president has a high approval rating and somebody in Ottawa, Ontario, decided to (inadvertently?) pick on us. No, not “us” as in the United States of America, but “us” as in the running backdrop to many of Michael Moore’s films — Flint, Michigan.

(Disclaimer: This is a tad awkward for me to write, as Flint is where I was born and grew up. However, I’m taking as objective as an approach to this as I can, analyzing from a campaign standpoint, not as a Flintstone but as a professional.)

Here’s the deal:

For about a week, citizens all over Ottawa were seeing outdoor advertising of a fuchsia square with a creepy doll  in the foreground, with the words simply “THIS AIN’T FLINT .CA” displayed prominently in white. However, people were being directed to a website that wasn’t even ready to be launched.

Finally, when it was launched on April 5th, people whose curiosity from the outdoor campaign turned into conversion went to thisaintflint.ca, where they were greeted with a gaudy site with a video in the middle. Said video is a 3 minute, 19 second poor attempt at  . . . well, that’s just it. You as a viewer aren’t really sure what the video is trying to accomplish, other than to compare footage of Michael Moore’s first film, Roger & Me (1989), to modern-day stock footage of Ottawa, while telling you that Ottawa “ain’t Flint,” it’s immune to the recession, it’s the best on earth to live, and blah blah blah you get the picture.

Here’s the video if you don’t really want to go to the site:

There are so many things wrong with this campaign that I don’t even know where to begin. First, let’s clear this up right now:

Said campaign was NOT issued by the Canadian government. Under the “Who” section on the site, it says:

The “THIS AINT FLINT” campaign has been executed exclusively by Newcap Radio – using the creative inspiration of the team at Alphabet Creative.

This same combination of resources is largely responsible for the dramatic, yet consistent growth of LiVE 88.5 and HOT 89.9 in the very competitive Ottawa-Gatineau radio marketplace (see chart – up to 400%* increase in market share over the past six years!)

Needless to say, word has spread around, from the Flint Expats to MLive.com (home of The Flint Journal), which has 46 comments on the article as I type this (unfortunately, most commenters there are trolls).

In an article from the Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Tourism has come to Flint’s defense, as well as issuing a joint statement with the Flint Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (said joint statement is not on FACVB’s site at the time I write this, however).

Ottawa blogger Audra Williams did a pretty good job of dissecting this horrible campaign on her blog, pointing out the bad copy, typos, and (my favorite) misuse of the word “obtuse” (they meant obscure), but I’d like to emphasize a few things she beat me to but should be worth reiterating nonetheless.

I am not going to incorporate the actual politics of Flint involved in my analysis. Most of those who are jumping to Flint’s defense on this are talking about how wrong the “This Ain’t Flint” campaign has it, how great Flint actually is, how far we’ve come, “why does everybody pick on us?”, “stop kicking our dead horse,” and I’m not going to go there. I will, however, say this:

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