DISQUS

Stuart Foster · 8 months ago

The "Social idea" is a better way of describing the fundamental changes undergoing within the advertising/marketing industry. Will social media permeate every aspects of our lives? Probably, but not in the overarching sense that it does today. It will likely be streamlined and more specific to your needs (with customization...but less manual customization).

The biggest thing to come from SM? 2-way dialogues. Meld that together with advertising and you have something pretty exciting.

faris · 8 months ago

nice one brother.

http://farisyakob.typepad.com/blog/2009/04/be-n...

and

http://no-mans-blog.com/2009/03/27/everything-i...

FX

simpson · 8 months ago

Well said.

ischafer · 8 months ago

Bingo. Its just that when you say "social media", people start listening all of a sudden. If you get their attention with semantics, then deliver with sound ideas, and even more important, sounder business principles and ideals, we'll all be in a better place.

jeffersonb · 8 months ago

Thinking about people and what motivates or inspires them, and doing so while trying to provide cultural context for those motivations and inspiration is how I think people reach insight that leads to great social ideas. What I've always enjoyed about advertising is working with people who understand something of that fundamental process. I'm fairly certain someone said that the best ad creative is someone who is a planner at heart. I'm absolutely certain that word of mouth (aka the exchange of ideas) is the oldest and most profound medium of all.

What is interesting (to me) is to think about how culture-clash can be a driving force for social ideas. Understanding those points-of-contact, invariably serving the insatiable human need for conflict as a form of narrative or political resolution, seems like a fruitful exercise in principle, rather than mistakenly focusing on only the tools of exchange.

Gareth, if you have a moment, could you expand on what you mean by "two types of ideas in the world - social ideas and anti-social ideas?"

Ryan Moede · 8 months ago

Brilliant! Thanks for perfectly articulating something I've been thinking about lately.

Evan · 8 months ago

You just re-discovered the start-up. There's a million of these things going on. Tip: use social media to discover them. That's a lot of what social media is about: discovery.

Garrick Schmitt · 8 months ago

This is spot on!

slowmo · 8 months ago

Well said.

Rich Pople · 8 months ago

Great points! This has significant implications for businesses that are investing now in "social media" to try to change the way they operate. Using a context like "social ideas" is much more appropriate as it ties to the real promise of Web 2.0 technologies: creating community-based collaboration for game-changing outcomes (faster and smarter decisions, born from the actual community; greater precision; etc.)

I do think it's important to think beyond the immediate "social media" opportunity when anyone is looking to leverage socially engaging technologies.

It is critically important then to think about the context of a broader attempt to create real collaborative engagement with your customers, suppliers and employees. Using Twitter or Facebook as a "push strategy" is a good way to create one-way communications without the investment of other channels, but it is only the first step in addressing a much bigger opportunity.

Here's a good read on new rules of engagement: http://www.bis-insight.com/Site/Blog/Entries/20...

edwardboches · 8 months ago

I think people are writing and talking about social media not because of the platforms (though Twitter is in every headline) but because of the degree to which people are embracing it. Across generations, interest groups, etc. If people weren't racing to use Twitter it wouldn't be a hot subject. There are numerous good ideas. From Obama, to Nike +, to Gary V's bringing wine to the people, to the crowdsourcing possibilities being practiced by international law firms on Linked In, to Behance's creative network, to Grain Food's Project Bread Art. Some are social ideas in how conceptual they are; others in how useful they are; some in both. But what makes good social ideas or practices work, is this thing we call social media. For the simple reason that it allows for expression, sharing, generosity, comparison, having a voice, feeling included. This has been missing for a long time: culturally and technologically. see http://bit.ly/2g4z1I Finally we can experience what the web was meant to offer. Let the technologists continue to invent platforms, the creators (and that includes almost everyone) can come up with the social ideas that make them matter, and we can all use them to our advantage.

@edwardboches

Brett T.T. Macfarlane · 8 months ago

Nice. What if we consider social media an outcome rather than a delivery mechanism or input. All media can be social, if it is interesting, and to your point if the idea is inherently social. Then people will blog, twittering, Facebook or use next week's new platform to talk about the idea/brand. Basically, its earned media.

Dustin Johnson · 8 months ago

Who'z Gareth Kay now, I have a question, was Apple 1984 social?

Marcus Brown · 8 months ago

Yes.

richardstacy · 8 months ago

The underlying issue is the delivery mechanism. It has changed. The social media revolution is the separation of information from its means of distribution. That's why it is a revolution. Ever since Gutenberg information has been wedded to a means of distribution and the form of distribution has totally shaped the nature of the information itself. Now information is free - and therefore its means of distribution is no longer a channel, but rests, as you say, in its strength as an idea or its power as a story.

MarkBarker · 8 months ago

Spot on.

The best filter continues to be the one I learned in Mikal Reich's ad class many years ago: "Why does anyone care?" Why does anyone give a fuck what your brand has to say on Twitter, etc?

BUT--if you can pass that test, you've got a social idea. One that has value for people, be it practical utility or social currency or both. One that people will be excited about sharing. And I think that is where social media comes into play: delivering the idea in a way that facilitates interaction.

Luke Abbott · 8 months ago

Good post, what I have been thinking for a while.

@MarkBarker, so many organisations fail to answer that simple question - why? I wonder how many expect just having a presence on social media will be enough to create value for their brand.

socialnetworkdesign · 8 months ago

these are awesome examples of how you should include the community with the experience.
sandy

tomob · 7 months ago

Hi Gareth:

Nice piece. What matters are the ideas - not the technology. The technology is just a bunch of pipes that let us communicate with each other. The best ideas and products are what we'll communicate about.

TO'B

graeme_harrison · 6 months ago

Great post - had me thinking for days after first reading.

Thanks for writing ;)