I began thinking about this post several months ago. It began with "social media is a very poor description." As time passed, I realized it wasn't the phrase, but rather my understanding of social media. Although I've been participating in what is generally considered social media for several years, it almost takes a full step back to gain a perspective on what constitutes the endeavor.
A simple change in tense, from "social media is" to "social media are," and the realization that we may lose something fundamental to the understanding when using a collective v. a plural noun—notwithstanding gramatical correctness. What we gain is the implication that what constitutes social media are inherently dynamic and track closely the leading edges of technologies. These technologies constantly challenge the modalities and venues for social communications.
Social media carries the additional suggestions that there must be an asocial or antisocial media, or that other forms of media (e.g., broadcast, marketing, print, etc.) lack social dimensions. The latter assertion is true, but it's because of the addition of social dimensions—changing monologues to dialogues—constitutes costly technological barriers. Social media, in this context, is a celebratory proclamation that those participatory barriers are being abolished.
Social media is social media because of changes in and pervasiveness of personal technologies. The publishing–consuming media balance has shifted from few–to–many to many–to–many. Everyone is a consumer has been joined by the potential for everyone being a publisher.
We are left with the dimensions of social media being: everyone, every setting, and every device (technology). With such universality of social participation and expression, the semblance of control is near illusory. Control may need to be asserted, not at the level of social participation or expression, but rather at the level of social presence. Social presence, whether on an individual or collective basis, is manifested by the personæ we create, the content we deliver, and the properties (assets, e.g., web sites, services, etc.) we associate with. Social presence, whether on an individual or collective basis, is controlled by the permission we give, or the permission imposed by sites, services, etc.. We give or take this permission based upon features, costs, relationships, ease, etc.—the fundamental transaction being a constraint on personal or collective participation or expression for access.
Considering the dimensions and manifestations of social media with permission–based access for participation and expression, we are left with, in essence, a social economy. Social media are the currencies of this economy. Social capital, and the impacts thereof, is the aggregate transactional value within this economy remaining with the individual or collective.
Social capital may be teased into parts: that which the individual or collective creates, that which is imputed by others, and that which lasts because of mutual benefit. These parts are called: branding, reputation, and relationship. They constitute the metrics for evaluating the use of social media in a social economy.
All are familiar with branding from broadcast, marketing, and print media. In the social media context, branding is what we create in the form of permanencies—digital representation of our information, values, humor, fears, exploits, etc.. They are permanencies because we should consider them to be so by default—they are let into the wilds of a connected society (i.e., internet) and into the stream of historical–retrievability. Similarly, non–permanencies should only be considered to exist between one's ears—notwithstanding future technologies.
Branding exists as commissions and omissions. A committed branding is one that is created by the individual or collective. An omitted branding is where there is a failure of the individual or collective to protect or prevent the use of social media that can be ascribed to them. Branding is about what we say about ourselves, or allow others to create an appearance to be acting as us—this includes agents, proxies, surrogates, etc..
Reputation is what our presence in the social economy has led others to believe about us. There can be reputational benefit and harm. It can be based on facts, opinions, or a combinations. Reputation, like branding, is a cumulative and dynamic valuation forming the basis for establishing relationships.
Relationships are mutually beneficial exchanges between seller/buyer, recruiter/employee, insurer/insuree, consultant/project, etc.. As branding and reputation form a basis for relationship, they also form a basis for maintenance and termination of relationships. The ability to form, maintain, and sustain relationships feeds back into the reputational metric.
Where personæ, content, and properties are our choices; branding, reputation, and relationship are our valuations in a social economy.
As in other economies, the social economy is subject to external actors. The chief external actors on a social economy are the legal profession and government. A social treatment of governmental actions may be thought of as the social expression of behavioral constraints expressed in the language of laws. Intellectual property and privacy and security concerns are the most prominent behavioral constraints expressed. Social media is about the empowerment of the individual in our society, but it is also about the protection of others from the indiscretions of the empowered individual or collective.
Healthcare is in a unique position vis–a–vis social media, because of governmental actions (embodied in HIPAA, HITECH, FTC Regulations, etc.) an asymmetry in introduced into social media currencies exchanges. Because personally identifiable information is considered protected health information (PHI), any communication containing PHI by a healthcare provider of service (broadly construed for discussion here) is legally actionable with considerable liabilities. This preclusion, based upon a constraint on content that can be communicated, moves the asymmetry from the currency to the metric level—the relationship.
A healthcare entity's social media activities must out of necessity be asymmetrical at a policy level. As such, it is perhaps wise to consider healthcare social media practices to be a separate discipline or specialty of the broader field of social media. Mayo Clinic has this view.
From a patient's perspective, social media has tracked the same path as access to a patient's health information. They share the same technological–impediment and permission–based access barriers—the former a barrier to participation, the latter a barrier to control. They feel, and are perhaps confused, by the asymmetrical behavior coming from the other side of the barrier. Personæ, content, and properties issues are characteristically similar—they reduce to individuals, information, and storage repositories…
"Social media is a very poor description" is true, because it tries to describe a technologically–fueled economy, and its governmental oversight, with the currencies exchanged.
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