If you are reading about and working with social media, you've probably seen the many charts, graphs, and images reflecting what people and businesses are using in the social space. Just this morning I read a report which included a graph of the social media tools commonly used by businesses. The list includes Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, YouTube, social bookmarking sites, Digg or similar sites, Ning, MySpace, and forums.
Can you guess my peeve? It's the scattered and inconsistent references to the media and vehicles that are available to us in social media. Social media are a group of interactive media with web connectivity within communities. Media = plural. Just like broadcast media includes the medium of television and the medium of radio, social media includes the medium of social networks, the medium of blogs, the medium of forums, the medium of media sharing sites and so on. The specific channels within each medium are vehicles. Twitter is a vehicle in the medium of microsharing. Facebook is a vehicle in the medium of social networks.
As social media develops and becomes increasingly integrated in our business practices, it will become valuable to use its component terms appropriately.
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