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5 overused words in Social Media in 2009

by aaronpost on December 16, 2009

Based on my observations this year I decided to put this list together.

Strategy (associated with Social Media), everyone jumped into social media, first they had guru then over the course of the year they slowly changed that to Strategist. AND yes I am one of those monkeys, although in my defense I am not a social media strategist but a web strategist trying to look at the bigger picture (not just twitter).
Community – I maybe think about this to much. Oh hell what am I saying, I think about this all the time, what is, who is, where, why and how. Earlier this year I have come to the conclusion that community is what you make of it. There are two solutions to fixing issues that we see with the PHX community, just change it or shut up. So to all those looking to stir things up or organize some group to solve problems I wish you the best of luck.
“They” – Seriously folks, how many Social Media meetups, presentations, etc. have you been to where the speaker says “they” did this. Screw that, I what to hear “you” did, I didn’t come to this presentation to hear how one of the largest agencies in the country with a budget larger than Arizona GDP, tell me what you did and how.
Getting Real or should I say transparency – You want transparency? You can’t handle it, trust me.
Authentic – WOW, this is BS to the extreme. Authentic, really? Can someone define for me what they mean by authentic because its been over used, wash out and cleaned up by marketing folks so no one really even knows what it means anymore.

BONUS

Evangelist almost as bad as strategist.

On a “cup half full” note, atleast I have not heard the term “web 2.0″ in a while.

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Big media is not DEAD (yet).

by aaronpost on December 16, 2009

After reading this, I got to thinking about all that has taken place this year and I find this list to be rather odd.

Here’s a list of the top search terms by month for 2009 (you tube):

January: obama inauguration
February: on a boat
March: watchmen
April: susan boyle
May: pacquiao
June: michael jackson thriller
July: wedding
August: send it on
September: kanye west
October: paranormal activity
November: adam lambert
December: tiger woods

(via webpronews)

The question I had to ask myself is what is driving these searches? Is it a social/viral thing or is it “Mass/Big media”. While I don’t have the answers, I think by looking at this list I can make a educated guess:

January: obama inauguration – Viral at first then “mass media” kicked in.
February: on a boat – Viral/Web
March: watchmen – Marketing through Big Media
April: susan boyle – News had nothing else to talk about? This might be viral but I find that hard to believe.
May: pacquiao – Mass Media, although I am only guessing on this one.
June: michael jackson thriller – News had nothing else to talk about?
July: wedding – Viral
August: send it on – Viral
September: kanye west – Mass Media & News had nothing else to talk about?
October: paranormal activity – Marketing campaign that I would argue didn’t work so well except for the search in You Tube
November: adam lambert – News had nothing else to talk about?
December: tiger woods – News had nothing else to talk about?

So what does all this mean? Based on what I can see from the list Mass (or big) Media companies aren’t dead yet.

* When I say Mass Media, I am referring to two things: 1) a agency doing a really well placed campaign everywhere that cost $$$$ or 2) Three or Four news stations that had nothing to talk about so they repeated the news every 15min.

I am curious what your thoughts are on that list, while just about everything on that list is “pop” culture its still interesting to see what really drives the traffic.