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Social Media vs. Social Networking: What's the difference?
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Image by Brian Solis of FutureWorks
At first glance, there seems to be a fairly obvious distinction between Social Media and Social Networking. And given that I consider myself fairly web savvy - I blog, I tweet, I 'friend', etc. - I didn't think I'd have a hard time nailing down the definitive characteristics of each term. But like many things in the rapidly evolving online world, sometimes the apparently obvious can be the most complex.
Lon S. Cohen attempts to provide an explanation in a recent post on the cohcom blog:
Social Media can be called a strategy and an outlet for broadcasting, while Social Networking is a tool and a utility for connecting with others.
The difference is not just semantics but in the features and functions put into these websites by their creators which dictates the way they are to be used. There’s also a kind of, which came first, the chicken or the egg kind of argument to be made here. I suspect that Social Networking came first which evolved into Social Media."
Lon further distinguishes which sites/tools fall into which category. LinkedIn? He calls that social networking. YouTube? It's social media. And what about Twitter and Facebook?
Twitter and Facebook are Web 2.0 sites with the whole package. They straddle the Social Media and Social Networking divide perfectly."
Still confused? Well here's perhaps a simpler way to process the divide. Social Media are tools for sharing and discussing information. Social Networking is the use of communities of interest to connect to others. You can use Social Media to facilitate Social Networking. Or, your can network by leveraging Social Media. If you're still scratching your head, be sure to watch a terrific Social Networking 101 video below. Don't be daunted, because knowing the web, I'm certain we'll be wrestling with new terminology soon.
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