Social Media – the S.M.A.R.T. Approach.

Published by Wayne Goldsmith on February 21, 2014February 21, 2014

Lots of people are talking about Social Media.

Lots of people are getting excited and exhilarated about the potential of Social Media to change the world by providing simple, easy, readily accessible tools to communicate, create and collaborate.

And lots of people are getting baffled, befuddled and bedazzled about Social Media and just what it means to them?

As there are hundreds and hundreds of different social media options, let’s just call them collectively SMART – Social Media and Accelerated Relationship Technologies – S.M.A.R.T.

Why S.M.A.R.T.?

The tools are social media – i.e. they are media tools which are freely available to help people connect, communicate and collaborate in a social (sharing) way.

And their primary role is to accelerate relationships – to provide easy, simple ways of sharing ideas, information and innovations between people and accelerating their capacity to share, to learn, to create and to grow.

There are six things a lot of people believe about S.M.A.R.T. that are wrong:

1. You have to be really smart to use SMART. Wrong: Anyone can do it – anytime, anywhere and most of the time for free;
2. It is a social revolution of some kind. Wrong: No it’s not. It’s just communicating more often with more people using more convenient communication tools;
3. The use of S.M.A.R.T. tools like Blogs, Twitter, You Tube, Face book, My Space etc is making people more distant and only wanting to communicate through the net. Wrong – what S.M.A.R.T. is really doing is helping people stay closer, to collaborate and share ideas and connect more often;
4. Only kids can use SMART. Wrong: Sure kids are good at it and are growing up with S.M.A.R.T. in the same way many of us grew up with radio, television and fast foods but that’s a great thing. Just think how good they will be at learning, solving problems and accelerating the performance of people, places and products in the future!:
5. It’s a fad. Wrong: Sorry – it’s here to stay and for one important reason….freedom. Once freedom is given, it just grows and grows and grows. Now that people have the freedom to communicate anytime, anywhere and with anyone, it can not be taken away. Twitter may be replaced by another S.M.A.R.T. tool. Facebook might be upgraded to something more practical and functional. But now that people can connect easily, simply and cheaply using S.M.A.R.T. tools, the “fad” is now “fact”;
6. “It will destroy my business because people are spending too much time on SMART tools and not enough time doing their jobs”. Wrong: It will only destroy your business if your business is not about learning, creativity, innovation, idea sharing and finding solutions quickly and collaboratively….are there any businesses like that?

Three of the S.M.A.R.T. tools:

So be smart, try S.M.A.R.T. and enjoy sharing, collaborating, learning and growing “smarter” with people everywhere.