Social media can spark a country's revolution, transform the way we educate ourselves, and drum up support for disaster relief. While there is no set definition shared by dictionaries, encyclopedias, or industry leaders, social media can be summarized as digital content that is cultivated online using mass communication applications such as Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress. There is room for granularity, of course, but attempting to break down the two ominous buzzwords is like defining the word music—it has so much scope and depth, and means different things to different people. Hence, social media is much easier to look at as a strategic game of prediction revolving around what tools to provide your audience for communicating and exchanging facts, figures, and other data. It is the answer to the question, how can I establish a meaningful dialog?
When Wael Ghonim set out to organize a revolution in Egypt, he was armed with a Facebook account and a plan. He launched Kullena Khaled Said (We Are All Khaled Said), a Facebook group, which solicited ideas for pro-democracy demonstrations and sought accountability for the unwrongful death of a 28 year old man who had been killed by the Egyptian security officials. The site gained so much momentum that former President Hosni Mubarak blocked the entire social networking site, thereby, sparking a revolution, which ultimately led to an uprising and his departure.
When educator and Harvard MBA graduate Salman Khan posted math tutorials on YouTube, they gained so much momentum that they ultimately formed the basis for his non-profit Khan Academy (http://www.khanacademy.org), where his mini-lectures have logged more than six million views worldwide. This social media movement that changed the political regime and drove the free Ivy League education was also easily identifiable during the 8.9-magnitude Japan earthquake in 2011, which resulted in a global humanitarian relief effort. Once the public discovered the vast amount of damage through a barrage of Facebook updates, YouTube videos, tweets, and other outlets, this set in motion a collective need to provide donations. The emergence of such innovative ideas in utilizing social connections, to effect change all converge back to establishing a genuine dialog.
On new year's eve 1999, there was ample news coverage of what the cumulative effect could be in anticipation of January 1, 2000. Disasters would strike and riots would ensue as computers would not be able to roll over to the new millennium. It was known as the Y2K bug. But programs were checked and updated, and life carried on with everyday normalcy. Fast-forward several years and the term Web 2.0 starts to gain traction. The buzzword trend continues with news and magazine outlets heralding headlines with Web 2.0 in them like it was the dawn of a new millennium. Yet in both the Y2K and Web 2.0 cases, there was no significant or drastic change in how people interacted with each other and there was no change in the content either.
Sure, social media and technologies have changed the delivery and rate, at which data transfers from point A to point B, but the protocol by which that occurs remains the same. A person has an intention of seeking or supplying information, or data, and determines the easiest path to carry out the action. These are the basics of any form of communication; social technology—web applications such as Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, and so on have simply improved on this by providing more gateways to make this digital data more transferable.
A common misconception is that adding social media gadgets, badges, and other gizmos to a site will equate a considerable increase in unique page views or guarantee content going viral. This logic is false. It is as accurate as assuming a car will drive twice as fast on premium gasoline than on regular gasoline. The increase in page views is dependent on the relevancy, frequency, and originality of your content much like the acceleration of a car is dependent on the make, model, and year.
Content is king goes the old adage, but that is also only a part of the equation, since content in the wrong context will not solely drive social connections online. The content that gets spotlighted, re-tweeted, re-purposed, pinged back, and otherwise magnified under the scope of a mass audience has to matter first. It's the catchy headline, the intriguing picture, and the stimulating story that leaves the audience salivating. The content can be high-brow or low-brow, scientific or salacious, and any other number of combinations, but the data has to matter to its audience. Your readers have to decide if your content is worth pushing the Like button, for example, in order to relay that data to the next person. Social media, in this aspect, merely means providing the necessary tools to facilitate this type of action.
There are a myriad ways of going social. No rule book exists for providing the necessary tools to establish a meaningful dialog. Different websites have different demographics and goals, so what may work on one site may not fare well on your own site. In most cases, starting off with the simplest approach is often the best. A hyper-local community website called yeah! Hackney (http://yeahhackney.com), for example, utilizes a WordPress plugin called BuddyPress (BP) to enable members to create profiles, where they can access and discuss information about exciting events and places in Hackney, London. The site enables members to post status updates, send private messages, update profiles, join and create groups and more. Suffice to say you will learn more about BP-powered sites in the next chapter.