Social media clearly were the hype of 2011. Twitter and Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+, and some smaller, lesser known services were rising stars in 2010. 2011 was the year during which Twitter and LinkedIn got huge, Google+ got out of its alpha/beta phase, and Facebook grew to huge proportions. Especially in marketing circles social media is now hot, with a lot of nonsense being written and promises being made that lead to nothing.

The most important myth to debunk is that social media are conversations. They are not. The closest real world process social media can be compared with is a telegram. Real conversations are the realm of forums, not social media. Social media are not all the same. For example, Twitter is more like a telegram than Facebook is. Google+ is more of a telegram service for business contacts, acquaintances, family and friends than LinkedIn is, etc. But in general, social media equals ‘shouting’ short bursts of content in the hope that others may find them interesting.

Because of the association by the ‘experts’ of social media to a conversation, an interesting question is what sets forums apart from social media. Forums concentrate on a common subject matter and are usually password-restricted. Forums exist to discuss topics, not to quickly announce and broadcast temporary topics. That is why forums are absolutely counter-productive for marketeers, because any marketing message is seen as an intrusion and therefore as spamming the forum.

Social media is a marketeer’s dream if understood well. For example, it’s important to understand a message on enterprise technology is lost when promoted on Tumblr. A message on consumer technology may work on Tumblr.

Marketing on social media is about telling others about a company or product’s state of being, status in the world, etc. — just like a person’s status — and therefore doesn’t seem out of bounds or off-topic. It’s this same characteristic that makes services such as Twitter and Facebook so effective when rallying, demonstrating or protesting.