Social Media’s Core

By Adam Maikkula | August 17, 2009

In its simplest form, social media is about three overarching themes – Information, Communication, and Exposure.

Information – Providing information you want to share with others as well as gaining access to information others wish to share with you.

Communication – Developing proactive communication and passive communication that can be distributed publicly or privately.

Exposure – Creating brand awareness and maintaining brand consistency through targeted efforts, passive initiatives, and fortunate circumstances.

Fortunate circumstances involve receiving the rewards of social media without actually initiating specific activity. This is best seen when a contact, friend, or follower sees something they like within your social media activities and decides to distribute that content on your behalf to an audience that otherwise may not have seen it. A message that was originally delivered to a few people within your social media network now has the potential to reach an exponentially larger audience without requiring any additional effort from you.

As you develop your own social media strategy, it is important to remember that social media is about information, communication, and exposure. Continue to keep these three things in mind and you will begin to reap the rewards from your online efforts.