We are now entering an era of sociopolitical influence, a framework for governments that influences and is influenced by its constituencies through real life interaction and now, new media. Some may say that this isn’t anything new. Certain governments over the years embraced the aspects of digital community in Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. Many also believe that President Obama is the first “Social Media” President. I, however, am a far more pragmatic optimist. While many governments and also President Obama have embraced media to learn, interact, and also influence citizens, we are merely at the beginning of a new age of digital democracy where people play an active role in government now and over time.

One of the greatest lessons in social media is that everything begins with listening and such is true for any form of leadership. Governments and their administrations have much to learn. Not only are new media channels rich with insight, they are also interactive. There are people on the other side who have expectations of recognition, acknowledgement, and engagement. As such, the ability for information to come back represents a challenge to many top-down organizations. And, these challenges must be addressed.

Information has historically traveled one-way, from them to you. But, now governments aren’t only learning to listen, they’re exploring means to hear, respond and act.  For example, even though the Obama team used social tools to engage with voters during the 2008 election, the channels pushed more than they pulled. Allow me to clarify that statement. The Obama team pushed wonderful content and triggered aspirations and as a result, “pulled” record-breaking donations to help Obama win the Presidency. This is something that I examined at great detail in 2008 for TechCrunch. It’s a wonderful start. The Obama Administration also realizes that the 2012 election will also require that new media channels pivot from top-down to now include bottom-up communication that triggers the A.R.T. of social media: Actions, Reactions, and Transactions.

Interactive engagement is powerful. Without intelligence, however, the ability to transform digital citizens into active stakeholders will prove elusive. In the end, what matters most is that people feel that they were heard and that change was evident. For governments, it’s critical that people are also engaged and directed to take actions that trigger desirable outcomes. In addition to intelligence, social media requires orchestration and the ability to design programs and experiences that positively influence behavior. By activating the human algorithm, governments can inspire a new generation of collaboration and productivity that accomplishes tasks, solves problems, and helps where help is needed. At the same time, the A.R.T. associated with new media programs will trigger a social effect that extends the reach of any political body or organization through the social graphs of engaged citizens potentially influencing friends of friends and audiences of audiences to empathize with efforts and movements.

In June 2011, The White House published a blog post that indicates change is in the air, “What Our Facebook Fans and Twitter Followers Told Us.”

The post begins with a positive note that indicates that the White House is indeed listening in social media:

Over the past few months, we’ve been working to improve the White House’s social media presence to provide our Facebook fans and Twitter followers with timely, relevant and interesting updates about what’s happening at the White House and around the Administration.

The White House conducted a series of surveys with Facebook fans and Twitter followers asking for their feedback on online programs. The two surveys received thousands of responses and the White House social media team shared the highlights.

- 50% of Facebook survey respondents were over the age of 50, with another 35% between 35 and 49.

- The Twitter audience is younger, with only 32% of respondents over the age of 50.

- A combined 62% are over the age of 35.

- 62% reported visiting the White House Facebook page at least once a week.

- 93% read tweets published by the White House at least once a week.

- A significant percentage of Twitter survey respondents are active on Facebook.

- 80% of Twitter followers use Facebook weekly and only 30% of Facebook fans use Twitter weekly.

- Over 50% of respondents from both surveys reported never using Flickr, LinkedIn and social bookmarking sites (such as Digg, Reddit, and Delicious).

- 64% said that the frequency of Facebook posts is “About Right,” with 31% wanting more, and only 5% saying that it’s “Too Much.”  61% of the Twitter survey respondents report that the frequency of posting is “About Right,” with an additional 35% saying it’s “Not Enough,” and only 4% saying that it’s “Too Much.”

- Over 56% share White House Facebook posts on a monthly basis and 78% have shared at least once.

- Only 35% of responders report retweeting @Whitehouse on at least a monthly basis, with only 58% having retweeted at least once.

- The top requested content includes news-oriented posts (Breaking News, the latest news from the Administration), interactive posts (ways to engage with Administration officials, announcement of live streams, quotes from major speeches as they happen) and the Photo of the Day.

Additionally the White House social media team demonstrated transparency by also sharing the thoughts of fans and followers that reveal what they would like to see improved…

On Facebook

“Add a ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ area to answer most questions”

“Please provide more notice for live streaming events. They are great, but only if you get to see them.”

On Twitter

“I appreciate the idea behind tweeting quotes from speeches as they are given, but it might be better served on a Twitter account created just for that purpose. I receive White House tweets via SMS and multiple tweets, and repetition gets a little annoying.”

“It’s been a while since a presidential advisor held twitter chat session or something where we could ask questions during a video chat session.”

To end on a positive note, I believe these words are representative of what should lie ahead…

“It is ‘time’ for the government to realize how much internet is used today. I am grateful for White House’s public involvement in this fashion.”

“I really liked the virtual town hall on Facebook.”

“Love the informal, behind-the-scenes stuff. Nice to know there’s a good man, woman and family leading our free nation.”

“Happy to see this Administration taking advantage of the unique aspects social media presence to interact with public and practice greater transparency.”

This is a promising step indeed. It takes a series of steps to bring about change. As we march toward the progress of progress I encourage the Obama Administration and also any politician or organization to use new media beyond a mechanism for PR or image-driven journalism. These tools represent the ability to empower fans and followers to contribute to relevance of any campaign or mission. In doing so, social networks evolve from information channels to engaged communities with the ability to cause effect and influence behavior. It’s time for #change.

The future of politics isn’t created, it’s co-created.

UPDATE: Interesting story on how Iceland is crowdsourcing its next constitution.

Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook

___
The New ENGAGE!: If you’re looking to FIND answers in social media and not short cuts, consider either the Deluxe or Paperback edition

___
Get The Conversation Prism:

___

While several posts have emerged recently crediting Social Networks (Social Media) with Obama’s victory, I’d like to inject another element into the discussion – people, sociology, and the communities and tools that bind them, us, together.

Smart people intelligently and genuinely connected with other people to further a cause and a greater hope supreme. Social Media provided the channels to create, discover, inspire and share together…nothing less, nothing more.

I attended the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco and we were treated to something truly special. Al Gore closed the conference with a powerful, inspiring, and uniting keynote that earned two standing ovations and honorary residence in the hearts and minds of Silicon Valley’s catalysts for innovation and change.

The “recovering politician” is now a champion for climate change and the further democratization of information. He was as passionate as he was convincing.

He opened the session in response to the first of two standing ovations with a sense of humor, but also a reaffirmation of what brought us together dating back to his Presidential bid in 2000, “Wow, what a week,” he shared.

The room erupted into applause.“It couldn’t have happened without the world wide web, without the Internet,” Gore emphasized.

He’s right.

The Internet and more accurately, the Social Web, provided direct channels between a hopeful candidate with the hope and conviction for change and the people who so desperately needed it. The socialized mechanisms for collaboration and unity nurtured a dedicated coalition whose mission not only successfully elected the next President of the United States of America, but also engendered a global community that is bonding a world around #hope and #change.

Gore, Obama, these are men whom are incredibly and inherently visionary, passionate, and refreshingly human. They are also mirrors that reflect our ideas, beliefs, faith, optimism, and dreams. When Obama said that this was “our” victory, not his, during his now historical speech in Grant Park he recognized that we are one.

Al Gore captured this succinctly and brilliantly when he described the power of the Social Web as delivering and enabling, “the electrifying redemption of America’s revolutionary declaration that all human beings are created equal.”

Amen.

“It would not have been possible without the additional empowerment of individuals to use knowledge as a source of power that has come with the Internet,” he proclaimed.

This election, as well as Gore’s passion for change, is the manifestation of decades of technological evolution. After all, this is about people. We witnessed the amalgamation of people, ideas, and the social technology that connected them and amplified their cause. This is an evolution, Gore believes, as do many of us, which was christened with the introduction of Gutenberg’s printing press.

It is arguably, the onset of the true democratization of information. The Social Web is simply the advancement of a paramount foundation that synthesizes an individual voice with an interconnected distribution platform where it’s heard, shared and fused with like-minded people and the idea-driven and passion-fueled collectives they represent.

His vision for the Web is its sense of “purpose,” which is how we can take the evolution of not only the technology that defines it, but also the people who use it to communicate with one another.

“I believe Web 2.0 has to have a purpose,” Gore observed.

I agree, but would simply say that “The Web,” socially rooted, must have a purpose. It’s not just about promoting brands, marketing at people, raising money, or electing politicians using new mediums and shiny new objects.

The Social Revolution is Our Industrial Revolution.

It is our chance to contribute to our history and our future by investing a piece of ourselves into what we create, embrace, and release to the world.

Our work and purpose is far from realized however.

The fact that the “Web’s candidate of choice won this time is no reason to rest easy,” Gore reminded us.

The democratization of media requires constant innovation and cultivation. Only through education and experience can we create a more literate society that bonds through knowledge.

“Just as Barack Obama’s election would’ve been impossible without the new dialogue and new ways of interacting–the Web–the only way (climate change) is going to be solved is by addressing the democracy crisis, and the country hit a great blow for victory this week, but we have to take this issue and raise it in the awareness of everyone,” Gore emphatically stated.

When asked by conference organizers Tim O’Reilly and John Batelle if the new democracy of information was in danger of losing steam, Gore confidently responded, “I think that it is very much in its infancy, barely beginning, and I think that we are not many years away from television sort of sinking into the digital world and becoming a part of it.”

While still in its infancy, the Web is empowering us to contribute to the transformation and maturation of our society, civilization, and everything that governs the dynamics, rules, and relationships that weave them together.

Through socially connected platforms and communities, we now have access to our very own Gutenberg presses to publish, distribute, and bond our thoughts, ideas, facts, stories, and information with people all over the world. We no longer have to wait for the world to change, we are now part of the new democracy that defines its present and its future.

For more pictures from Al Gore’s presentation at Web 2.0 Summit, please visit my album on flickr.
—
Recommended Reading on PR 2.0:

- The State of Social Media 2008
- Reinventing Crisis Communications for the Social Web
- In the Social Web, We Are All Brand Managers
- The Essential Guide to Social Media
- The Social Media Manifesto
- PR 2.0: Putting the Public Back in Public Relations
—

After publishing, “The Future of Communications – A Manifesto for Integrating Social Media into Marketing,” I decided to take a short break. I wanted it to reside online for people to discover before it was pushed down the page with every post to follow. Afterall, we do have a very short attention span these days and the important posts that exist across the blogosphere are unfortunately quickly forgotten.

But that’s the point of the manifesto. There are conversations taking place across multiple networks, and each are vying for our attention, which increasingly thins with every new network, app, and tool that’s introduced.

So, how do we ensure that conversations don’t leave us behind?

We engage and continually participate.

There has been a fundamental shift in our culture and it has created a new landscape of influencers and an entirely new ecosystem for supporting the socialization of information – thus facilitating new conversations that can start locally, but have a global impact.

Social Media is, at its most basic sense, a shift in how people discover, read, and share news and information and content. It’s a fusion of sociology and technology, tranforming monologue (one to many) into dialog (many to many.)

It is an evolving phenomenon that has captivated some, intrigued others, and is feared and underestimated by many. But if you’re new to this discussion, where do you go to learn about the basis for Social Media or simply its definition? The current “go to” reference is Wikipedia, and as I mentioned in previous posts, it is misleading, incomplete, and uninformative.

There are many of us who have spent the last year defining and defending Social Media as a legitimate classification for new media as well as documenting the tools that facilitate the socialization of content, including Stowe Boyd, Robert Scoble, Jay Rosen, Chris Heuer, Jeremiah Owyang, Shel Israel, Todd Defren, Brian Oberkirch, Chris Saad, Jerry Bowles, Deb Schultz, Marianne Richmond, JD Lasica, Rohit Bhargava, Jeremy Pepper, Greg Narain, et al. However, we always seem to run around in circles defining it and re-defining it, over and over again.

I originally stated that the Wikipedia definition was in dire need of reform, otherwise we’re doomed to continually run through these cycles of explanation and defense, instead of focusing on foward-thinking, collaboration, and development. A more informative and clearer definition will benefit those new to the conversation as well as strengthening and uniting the effort of those visionaries who will continue to carry the flag forward.

The time is now to define social media and I would like to invite those part of the bigger conversation to contribute to the common collective.

Here is the current definition on Wikipedia:

Social media describes the online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives.Social media can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. These sites typically use technologies such as blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs to allow users to interact. A few prominent examples of social media applications are Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Gather.com (social networking),YouTube (video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), Digg (news sharing), Flickr (photo sharing) and Miniclip (game sharing).

—-

I took the current description and offered some suggestions based on my beliefs as well as points from other thought leaders. I tried to keep it simple as not to overwhelm, but embrace those read it.

1 – social media describes the online tools that people use to share content, profiles, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives and media itself, thus facilitating conversations and interaction online between groups of people. These tools include blogs, message boards, podcasts, micro blogs, lifestreams, bookmarks, networks, communities, wikis, and vlogs.

A few prominent examples of social media applications are Wikipedia (reference), MySpace and Facebook (social networking), Twitter and Jaikue (presence apps), YouTube (video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), Upcoming (Events), Digg and Reddit (news aggregation), Flickr and Zooomr (photo sharing), Blogtv, Justin.tv, and Ustream (livecasting), Stickham, YourTrumanShow (episodic online video), Izimi and Pownce (media sharing), del.icio.us (bookmarking) and World of Warcraft (online gaming).

2 – Social Media is the democratization of content and the understanding of the role people play in the process of not only reading and disseminating information, but also how they share and create content for others to participate. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism to a many-to-many model, rooted in a conversational format between authors and people.

—

I invite your feedback and encourage you to help continue the conversation. My goal is to take a draft of the collective input and submit it to Wikipedia for a more global review.

Additional Resources:

My previous post on Social Media and why it is a legitimate category

Doc Searls and Robert Scoble join me in the conversation about Social Media

Stowe Boyd on Social Media

Chris Heuer on the importance of Social Media

Stowe Boyd and Greg Narain on social terminology

Add to: Digg del.icio.us Yahoo BlinkList Spurl reddit Furl