The most recent comment here, as I write this, is from Kristine Lowe, and it really brings alive for me the phrase “social media”, on about three levels and counting.

First, she was commenting on that rather long and unwieldy mp3 I did a week or two back, with Adriana Lukas, to the effect that she, Krstine, has herself done what I did not manage to do, namely write down some of the things Adriana said, for the benefit of those who do not have over an hour to spare to listen to Adriana and me just talking.

Identity

Blogs differ from MSM in a fundamental way: “Blogs start with identity, not with the audience. They give a blogger the ability to define identity on his or her own terms – unmediated,” says Adriana.

This resonates with something Frank Ahren says: “It should be clear by now that personality is key to building a news audience, be it via print, Web, radio or video.” So we might see an increased emphasis on personality or identity.

New media is just digitalised old media

When trying to define what kind of tools she as a social media consultant is helping companies implement in their communications strategy, Adriana says: “I divide between old and new media on the one hand and social media on the other hand. New media is just digitalised old media. Social media are tools like blogs, tagging, podcasts, wikis etc that facilitate communication. It is by its nature interactive and I especially like the social aspect of it.”

Why blog

A lot of people argue that blogging has no purpose as there are no financial rewards to be had from blogging. Adriana has a different perspective: “When I blog I get attention, it’s not monetized, but the value is there… It’s who, not how many, who reads your blog that’s important. I would rather have 1000 important readers than 100,000 random readers, if impact is why I blog.”

The one and the many

Adriana says she is fascinated by the correspondence and symbiotic relationship between the micro and macro level, how one person blogging and blogging as a big trend both have the power to change things, both can have massive impact. I’m paraphrasing her argument in this paragraph, apologies if I diverge from her exact words, but I think what she is getting at is the individualisation that characterises both the time we’re living in and the event of social media.

Ideally, all my podcasts, in fact all even semi-worthwhile podcasts of any kind, would have a written text, and a written summary, attached to them.  But writing out what it says in someone else’s podcast.  How social is that?

More on Kristine and her blog will follow, Real Soon Now.