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Tyler Hayes is the owner of Minneapolis-based small business web design and marketing startup The Simple Service. Tyler blogs regularly at TheTylerHayes.com, where he offers up helpful social media advice and thoughts on Generation Y. At present, Tyler is the Social Media Strategist & Content Developer for the National Civic Summit and the upcoming civic participation portal Civic Training.

“Social media is…”

Well, what would you say?

To me, social media is just any type of media that allows us to be social together. Social, by its very nature, is the opposite of private. “Social” does not necessarily mean community, but I would contend it means any interaction – whether direct or indirect – between two or more people.

Normally, I wouldn’t write something this general, but “social media” has been reduced to a buzzword and we need to check ourselves. Within these boundaries, social media would include the websites we regularly hear about: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. But it would also include email, BluRay (when hooked up to the Internet, as it has feedback capabilities), text messaging, voicemail, and other products & services I’m sure I missed.

So what is social media then, truly? It’s merely a collection of tools and resources that are social in nature. It is literally any form of media that is social.

So what is social media not? First of all, it’s not the new, big thing (email, remember?). It’s not marketing, nor is it PR. It’s not a tactic. It’s not a synonym for Web 2.0. It’s definitely not a replacement for any other industry, such as newspapers or telephones.

Fortunately, when we think about social media in this sense, we can truly adapt it to anything. And that’s what makes social media so powerful. It can fit into nearly any strategy in life, whether it be personal, corporate, or governmental. For example, when social media tools are used in marketing, we call that subsidiary “social marketing.” And in the PR world, we call it “social PR.” It really is that simple.

The problem with this argument is that we can’t controversial-ize it. Journalists can’t predict it won’t exist in 10 years, because it’s already existed for 20 years. Non-progressive thinkers can’t scream about how much it’s destroying our society, because they’re using social media as a platform to do so. And so on. Now in which world would you rather live: the former, or an honest world where we can fit social media’s square peg into almost any other industry’s round hole?

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