Beth's Blog is the place to learn about social media

Too often social media experts portray themselves as wizards of the highest order, either talking down to lay people or pretending to have found the Holy Grail. Rarely do these experts lay out social media practices in a way that lay people can understand and execute.

Beth's Blog is the exception to that rule.

Take today's guest post by Gaurav Mishra, for example: the blog clearly lays out the 4Cs in the social media framework. For those keeping score at home, they are Content, Collaboration, Community and Collective Intelligence.

I won't rehash the blog here, because you should read it for yourself, but I will post the summary to prod you to wander over there:

So, the 4Cs form a hierarchy of what is possible with social media. As we move from Content to Collaboration to Community to Collective Intelligence, it becomes increasingly difficult to both observe these layers and activate them. Also each layer is often, but not always, a pre-requisite for the next layer. Compelling content is a pre-requisite for meaningful collaboration, which is a pre-requisite for a vibrant community, which, in turn, is a pre-requisite for collective intelligence.

Although I designed the 4Cs framework to explain how I see social
media, I have also found it to be a useful tools to evaluate specific social media initiatives. The best social media initiatives leverage all these four layers, but I have seen that most initiatives get stuck between the Collaboration and Community layers. Examples of social media initiatives that leverage the Community or Collective Intelligence layers are few and far between. It’s important to note, however, that each layer is valuable in itself, and it’s OK to design an initiative to only exploit the Content or Collaboration layers.

While you are there, I urge you to sign up to have the blog delivered to your mailbox. Today's post is typical of the solid advice she gives practioners in this field.