This Social Media Thing

This is the ‘Big One’ which lies at the heart of what could be called the social media revolution and which, over a course of some years, will generate some very big shifts in the way society works. While the only businesses that are really feeling its impact currently are those directly linked to the distribution of information (the media and music businesses) it is starting to make its presence felt elsewhere.

The best way to get a handle on this is to look at the big historical picture. From the year dot until the mid 15^th century, information could not be distributed except through word-of mouth. It could be captured, just about, in handwritten books or tablets, but that was it. The channels and vehicles for spreading information were through things like stories, myths or legends and, of course, religions – because stories were easy to pass on. Spreading information about anything very precise or specific was impossible – the rules of Chinese whispers would dictate that any precision would be lost very quickly. In 1436, or thereabouts, Gutenberg created a way of distributing information via a printing press and the system of moveable type. Detailed and specific information, be it the actual text of the bible or details of scientific discovery, could now distributed to large numbers of people. This changed the world as the subsequent spread of knowledge created the Renaissance, science, the media, mass culture and pretty much shaped the world as we know it.

The rules of the Gutenberg world have not really changed over time, in that widespread distribution of information is now possible but expensive, because it requires expensive things such as access to printing presses, TV or radio stations and broadcast networks. Any information distributed through these channels therefore had to be shaped to appeal to large groups of people in order to make it economically worthwhile – you wouldn’t print a book for only 10 people or make a TV programme for only a 100, or create a brochure relevant to only one customer (unless it was a very important customer). This meant that the economics of producing information became fused with and subsidised the economics of distributing information. The economics of expensive distribution were therefore shaping the nature of information that flowed around our societies.

This didn’t only affect the development of institutions such as the media. Its presence is found everywhere like an invisible hand shaping the development of most of the institutions we associate with the modern world – from banking to politics to marketing.

Now comes the big shift. The development of the broadband, upload internet means that it costs virtually nothing for anyone to distribute information to anyone / everyone else. This effectively removes the invisible hand that has shaped and maintained many of our institutions – or at least allows the creation of new institutions and processes that are not reliant on the old information distribution technologies. Content doesn’t have to subside distribution, it is free to go and do its own thing. Media doesn’t have to be mass, it can be individualised. Information need not be restricted and channelled through information mediators, be they newspapers, banks or brands. This process is slowly unstitching the fabric of a system that has been in place for 500 years

This all may sound very remote and abstract stuff – but consider this for a dose of realism. Every hour that an obscure blogger devotes to posting to his un-read blog, or a teenager spends maintaining their bebo profile or instant messaging their friends, or someone spends Twittering, or sharing or searching for information in an on-line social network, is an hour not spent consuming information presented in the traditional mass media channels. Forget the content of what they might be doing, saying or sharing for a moment – the simple act of participating in social media is killing the effectiveness and commercial value of the traditional mass media channels. Therefore, if your organisation depends in any way on these traditional channels – you are going to be affected and you will need to work-out how to communicate in the new social media space in order to simply maintain your current level of visibility and profile.