I have a wide variety of videos and explanations that I have been using for some time now to explain what Social Media is. In a previous blog post, I wrote about some Common Craft videos that explain Social Media, Social Networking, Blogs, Twitter, Wikis, Social Bookmarking, Podcasting, Photo-Sharing, and RSS. However, I did not explain the rationale behind these tools. I want to thank Dave Wilkins and Kevin Jones, who were the first to show these to me.

Any time someone asks me, “What is so important about social media?” or “Why should we bother with social media?” or “Could you explain social media to me?” I always give them these videos to watch, and depending on whether they watch them or not, I give them more or less of my time. Here are the videos that I ask them to watch (in this specific order).

1. Socialnomics09, Social Media Revolution
2. Brad Anderson, CEO of Best Buy, at Zeitgeist ’08
3. Information Re-volution
4. Malcolm Gladwell at PopTech! (2004) on Human Nature
5. Dell’s IdeaStorm

Each video have one or more principles and ideas in them that carry the rationale behind Social Media. To name a few of the more important ideas that drive the importance of Social Media based on each of the videos are:

Socialnomics Video: Social Media Revolution

Brad Anderson’s Video (only watch the first 5 minutes)

1. The Benefits of SM
2. Corporate Communication
3. The Ability to See & Use Employee’s Socialization (Community)
4. Collaboration (WE are smarter than ME)
5. Changing of Roles (to Facilitators)

Information Re-volution

• The Changing Nature of Information

Malcolm Gladwell’s PopTech! Video on Human Nature

1. Changing Preferences by Changing Variables: Coke or Pepsi?
2. Story-Telling Problem from Unconscious Cues: People have a fundamental inability to explain their actions/performance/feelings.
3. Perils of Introspection: Asking people to think about what they want causes them to change their opinion what they want & messes up their ability to understand/recognize what they want.
4. So can we trust people?

Dell’s IdeaStorm from Idea to Reality

• External Collaboration via Customers! (WE are smarter than ME)