Gautam Ghosh has written an interesting post on how social media can be about content or community. In this post, I am using slightly different language to build upon the point Gautam makes in his post.
First, the difference between social networks and communities. Social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook represent our relationships. Communities like Pepsi Refresh and Global Voices represent our passions or professions.
Social networks and communities can be content-centric or people-centric.
Social networks like YouTube and SlideShare are more content-centric while LinkedIn and Facebook are more people-centric. Communities like Pepsi Refresh and Global Voices are more content-centric while Gautam's HR community is more people-centric.
You go to people-centric social networks and communities to connect with friends or strangers and the design leans heavily towards showing faces and bios. You go to content-centric communities to read posts, watch videos, or browse through slides and the design leans heavily towards showcasing popular content.
The interesting thing is that people-centric social networks and communities have always needed content, because people build new connections around content related to their passions or professions. Now, content-centric social networks and communities are beginning to build their own social graphs (or build upon Facebook's social graph) because people use other people as filters to discover new content.
So, social networks and communities that are focused on people and content are beginning to converge, and the centre of gravity is shifting from content to people.
As a result of this important shift that has happened in the last two years, primarily driven by Facebook's Connect and Open Graph, "social" has moved beyond social platforms or social networks, and much of the web is now becoming social.
In this context, brands don't only need to think about participating in conversations on social networks like Facebook or Twitter, they also need to think about hosting conversations on their own corporate websites (or microsites). Jeremiah Owyang has been talking about making corporate websites more social for much of 2010 and I have been evangelizing this approach for more than a year now.
What do you think? Which brands (and agencies) are leading the way with truly social corporate websites? Do share your insights in the comments below.