As you may already know, the Online Social Media or the infamous Web 2.0 / 3.0 is the marketing trend of today’s business environment. Marketeers are using it to their advantage world wide and social media does not seem to be putting on brakes anytime soon as in continues to evolve.. rapidly!

Malaysia is definitely not out of the picture. This Online Social Media ‘concept’ is also seen to be the IN thing for businesses and many have been (or at least, trying to) implementing this concept in their corporate strategies. As per every business execution, some made it and some didn’t.

Why, you ask? Let’s first explore the mindset of the business owners and entrepreneurs towards social media – I recently came across many business owners and entrepreneurs lately that seem to have their own interpretation of this ‘concept’ that has been reaping great results globally.

Here’s a summary of responses I manage to gather from the conversations I had with them regarding Online Social Media:

Although none of the above is entirely wrong, but as expected, terms such as ‘Facebook’, ‘Blog’ and ‘Bloggers’ came out most often and is found to be their very first reply e.g. “usage of Facebook and blogs…”. It would also seem that to some of them, social media means inviting bloggers to write about a certain happening / product / advertorial. Some says it is an additional avenue for promotion and sales, a tool to target the younger generation and the list goes on..

It is sad to see that many business owners today still have their own interpretation and mindsets, and has yet to come to realize and see the importance of Online Social Media in Malaysia, seeing it as merely a tool or an extension of their business instead of integrating social media as PART of their business. Hence, they see it as a only a ‘concept’, a ‘good to have’ but not a ‘must have’, a ‘trend’ but not ‘real business’.

How about you? What is your interpretation of the Online Social Media?

p.s. next post: “why social media?“