Social media tools are based on online relations

Social media tools are based on online relations

Nowadays the main use of social media seems to be about marketing. The truth is that social media tools are supposed to be first of all relational tools. Connect people and make them participate and communicate. That is the reason that they are called SOCIAL. It is not MARKETING MEDIA but SOCIAL MEDIA. What happened? Well one day a social media guru came along and saw the opportunity to make money. Plain and simple. A lot of money. Use online connections not as tools to make people connect or collaborate but to make them buy a lot of stuff.

I used Facebook from the beginning and it felt a like free space to communicate, exchange and connect. Now I feel like something is lost. More spam, more products, more visual pollution. Less interest in the people connected on Facebook than on the products businesses are selling. Can we get the SOCIAL back in the media? Is it lost forever?

Here at eRelations we want to do things differently by caring more about the people than the products. Because we believe that the online space needs to be fun, engaging and empowering. It allows people to connect and exchange about what is important to them. eRelations is a people first company and cares about online communities. 

Participation & Collaboration IS 2.0

I hear a lot about the technical aspects of upgrading an individual or an organization to a 2.0 level/state, etc. There are lots of features on social media tools, and how to use them for business purposes to strengthen a brand, etc. 

We are beginning to see more and more ads in main social networks and this trend does not show any signs of losing steam. What I fear is that a couple years ago we had intranets of a private nature, now social media is generally open to the public, and if the marketing aspect becomes too strong, perhaps individuals and organizations will go back to private networks and isolate their information stream from the general public in order to cut themselves from the "spamming", i.e. automation of "user-generated" content. 

That will be a blow to the internet in its inherent nature: transparent and free. But some would say the the Web is becoming more and more like TV: more ads & control, less freedom.

What I would like to see is the focus remaining on what seems like the most important aspects of social media: participation & collaboration. The interactive nature of social networks is best when genuine; let's not spoil that through automated content-generation processes and programmed functions. Or can it be done while keeping control over content quality? Interesting topic...