When looking for an easy way to describe why people use social media, back in June of 2008, I invented the term “The 5 C’s of Social Media” as being the base opportunities afforded us by social media. There did not appear to be a catchy, concise way of summing up the aims of social media in a few short lines that anyone could understand; the 5 C’s was just such an effective mechanism. Those opportunities are:
- the opportunity to contribute – easy sharing of information
- the opportunity to comment – your chance to have your say
- the opportunity of conversation – getting involved in discussions with others
- the opportunity to collaborate – work with anyone, anywhere to achieve a common goal
- the opportunity of community – building relationships online
While social media allows us to do many things it is these five C’s that form the core of what it means and affect the way in which we use it.
Contribute
This is pretty self explanatory and, in the current context, would include posting to sites like flickr, blogs etc. – essentially providing some form of content for the consumption of others. Content sharing has never been easier and, with methods of delivery such as RSS, subscribing to those shared items is a breeze.
Now, not everyone using social media is a contributor in this sense of the word but may contribute in other ways as we shall see below.
Comment
Services such as FriendFeed allow us to aggregate all of our feeds in to one location and others may then subscribe to this uber-feed without the need to create any content of there own. Such services allow users to merely comment on the content of others.
As mentioned above, social media does not automatically imply that you are a content creator but may still have a perfectly good contribution to make by way of making comments. The 2 C’s Comment and conversation could technically be merged but, making comments does not necessarily mean that you are entering in to a conversation.
There are a number of scenarios where ‘comment’ is a standalone action and so warrants a classification of its own. A comment is an opportunity to stand up and be counted or to voice your opinion. Real world applications could be voting (political or otherwise) or surveys.
While standalone comments may not be viewed by some as truly within the ’spirit’ of social media they are just as valid and often lead to intelligent discussion.
Conversation
The real bread and butter of social media is the discussion it promotes. While we have always had conversation in one form of another, social media extends the scope of those conversations by increasing the ease with which we can have them with more people in increasingly diverse locations. We are also, therefore, able to expand our own spheres of influence far beyond that which we would be able by traditional means.
While real world applications for what we currently call social media may appear limited the scope is broadening all the time and there is no reason why we cannot apply the concepts to other areas. Take, for example, the use of mobile phones.
The ubiquity of these devices is without question and we would feel lost without them but in so far as their base function (making calls) is concerned there is so much more that we could do with them.
We take conference calls for granted on the phones in our office but it seems unnecessarily complicated to set up a conference call on a mobile. Carriers do sometimes offer the facility but generally only to business customers. Why not provide this facility to personal contracts? We are encouraged to set up our favourite contacts so that we can reap the benefits of reduced rate calls but why not enable us to configure a group of friends and call them all at once just as we would send them all a text message? An instant social application of existing technology – teens would love it.
Collaborate
As a direct consequence of enhanced conversation and connectivity comes the ability to collaborate more effectively.
Collaboration tools of all types already existed before the current race towards making things more social but the social element acts as a facilitator. The business implications are obvious but the reach should be extended beyond the corporate setting – clubs and groups, student projects, volunteer work can all benefit not only from the utility afforded but also be doing away with the need to come together in one physical location.
Community
Social media is all about people – they are, obviously, the social in social media. The tools exist because people demand them and those people, and the inspiration they provide, are the most valuable resource that social media has to offer.
While the meaning of ‘friend’ is distorted we can build great online relationships with like minded individuals from all over the world which should supplement (and not replace) our normal face-to-face acquaintances. If possible we should also strive to take these new friendships away from the computer, be it by voice or in person, non-typed communication can extend our connections far beyond that which we can achieve by keyboard alone.
In life we build a circle of friends based on our location and experience, the same applies in a social media context but with the advantage that we are not constrained by those same factors. Not only do we extend our sphere but we can gain additional benefits with regards to our reputation, both personal and professional.
A beginning and credit where it is due
Whilst being a good base from which to start describing the ideas behind social media the term was primarily a headline, an attention bringer so – in that regard – was a relative throw away; how this has proved to be an under estimation of it’s effect.
It it very interesting to find that the term appears to have taken on a life of it’s own; it has been adopted, repeated, altered and adapted (for example) but, regardless of how it is wrapped up, as one blog post puts it:
“amongst the social media circles it is nearly universally agreed, the elements of a good social media strategy consist of the 5 C’s: conversation, community, collaboration, contribution and commenting.”
People are using the 5 C’s without being aware of their origin or, where used in various contexts, without giving any recognition as to the original source but the quoted example above only goes to show that the definition was, essentially, correct and why the concept is now included in The Funky Agency ethos.
The Sixth C
Back in June 2008 social media was still primarily reserved for the geeks and the early adopters; the holy grail for any social media service was to achieve ubiquity, to enter the mainstream. Then, around 6 months ago, things changed. In one month Twitter saw over 1300% growth with celebrities and the mainstream media trying to claim social media as their own.
Whether you are listening to local radio or national sports coverage or watching TV everyone is now talking about Twitter. It has truly entered the public consciousness in a way that not even Facebook with it’s millions of users has managed to do.
People are now using short status updates as a matter of course, supplementing and even, in some cases, bypassing other forms of communication. I believe we have reached the point where social media can honestly be described as an extension of our normal behaviour and it is still growing.
The importance of the social network in our society is finally starting to fulfil it’s potential and, with more and more companies interacting with their customers in this setting, it is rapidly becoming just another way to do business.
My original suggestion for The Sixth C can, therefore, finally be adopted: Culture.
