social media is plural

beeI have a bee in my bonnet about how people are using the term “social media” in spoken and written communications. People who should know better.

The reason I’m bugged is that so many people are already struggling with how to understand and use social media marketing that we marketers ought to be making this easier and not harder so that business people can get on with their new, improved marketing lives.

Social Media Style

social medium: a World Wide Web-based software application that creates a two-way, interactive communication channel between sender and receiver, publisher and reader, seller and prospect, provider and user, etc. Compare with news medium,

social media: the various World Wide Web-based software applications and services used to implement

social media marketing: using the social media to implement typical marketing strategies such as prospect acquisition, customer communications, customer service, advertising and promotions.

2 thoughts on “social media is plural

  1. I see that people use “social media” instead of the real umbrella term “social medium.” Within our culture though there are other examples of the misappropriation of terms. The one I’ve had to deal with most is the use of the word “jazz”. Early in the 20th century the term “jass” (which was a slang term for copulation) was applied to a new music in New Orleans. Of course this was simply an outgrowth of musical expression of African Americans, then being picked up by segments of the white population. Immediately it became seperated from “blues” (which really should serve as the musical umbrella term here becuase it has identifiable musical elements which are found throughout all these subgenres) and ragtime and spirituals and country (which was then positioned to be owned by whites). Unfortunately we’ve never overcome the use of the term and to this day, to the detriment of the muisc, it is still seperated out in records stores and such. It doesn’t leave me much hope that “medium” will replace “media” any time soon.

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