By definition, Social Media is user-generated content.

My blog posts are part of Social Media.

Pictures that you put up on Flickr contribute to Social Media.

Comments posted by readers on this blog and the discussions that happen between them via these comments are also content.

All this content becomes part of Social Media.

Everything Internet and mobile users post, upload, share – it all goes into creating Social Media.

Why is this a concern for brands?

Well, for a long while brands spoke to people.

In the hope they will listen, feel and do, as brands wanted them to.

Life has moved on since.

People don’t listen as much anymore.

They talk. They opine. They influence.

Increasingly they create Social Media in this process.

It’s not that people never did this earlier.

It’s just that it has become ridiculously easy for them to do so now.

So if they like or dislike ‘anything’, they can discuss it ‘anywhere’.

Like on the comment section of this blog.

And today, that ‘anything’ can easily be a brand.

Tables turned.

So now, instead of talking to people, brands need to talk with them.

Conversations – as the lingo goes.

That should be easy, no?

There is just one problem.

Who on earth wants to converse with a brand?

The last time, eons back, a representative of a washing powder company wanted to converse with me, I sent my house-help out to tell him I wasn’t at home.

It hasn’t changed since then, at least for me.

So how does a brand converse with people who are more vocal, more opinioned and less interested in ‘conversing’ with them.

By ‘enabling’ Social Media?

Suppose I use an Internet messenger to chat with my friend.

The last thing I want is a telecom brand to barge in with offers, information or questions in the middle of my chat.

But if that Internet messenger itself comes courtesy that telecom brand, I don’t mind.

Maybe I’ll even like it.

Yes, it is an extremely basic example.

But I think the principle works.

I don’t want Facebook to be overrun by brands.

I don’t want to receive tweets from my favorite jean manufacturer.

I hate every promotional text message I get.

I hate every mass mailer that hits my inbox.

Hell, I even delete weekly updates from news sites that I myself signed up for.

How have brands reacted to the new me?

To begin with, they all have websites.

They are gunning for Twitter accounts.

They are starting ‘fan’ pages on social networking sites.

I see their banner and text ads when I access my Internet mail.

Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera.

Do these really draw me?

Honestly, no.

What draws me?

Websites are useful – if I am seeking the information they provide.

Like news, tariff plans, handset details, vacation locales, software updates and downloadable e-papers.

Or if the tools they hand out actually help me.

Like downloadable apps, music, e-books, loan calculators, travel planners, mutual fund performance charts.

I like it when brands tell me something I didn’t know, or offer something useful.

Not when they want to sell me their history or their offers.

Especially in the middle of a conversation I am having with someone else.

As my blogger friend lsbhat pointed out via email:

Brands need to find ways of being useful.

It’s not about being ‘Viral.’

There is a huge element of ‘voluntary’ activity when it comes to the web.

You can’t ‘create’ a viral, force me to ‘view’ it and ‘pass’ it on to everyone in my contact list.

He cites the example of Eco Drive by Fiat.

A great example of being useful to the consumer and making him/her turn to the brand voluntarily.

Indeed, brands need to react differently to the Social Media Revolution.

Brands need to be CAUTIOUS.

The web, as a medium, can be as punishing for a brand as it can be rewarding.

Example?

Today we are seeing aggregation of social media reactions in the same place.

Assume I blog my criticism of the way an airline handled my baggage.

Someone links to this post.

I comment on another post on the same topic.

Someone else comments on the same with his or her own experience.

Someone starts a complaint page on the web.

Now here’s the twist.

There are tools that will collect all conversations linked to my post across different social media platforms and collate the same beneath my post.

That means I don’t need to do much at all.

All the criticism automatically gets added to mine and collects in one single place.

Echo from JS-Kit, expected to roll out any day, is a striking example.

So if the airline was hoping I was a solo voice, it needs to think again.

The nature of Social Media demands that brands be far more cautious, wary, smart and willing to learn the new rules of engagement.

It is no longer the case of a single consumer looking at a TV set.

It is no longer a single voice over the toll-free complaint line.

Go deal with that.