This week two great posts pointed to the same thing: ‘social’ is becoming a consumer mindset, not just a platform.
Loic LeMeur wrote about the end of the traditional media company. Jeremiah Owyang wrote about how consumers now expect to be heard.
Taken together, the picture is this: people increasingly expect participation, not just consumption. They expect to be able to respond, contribute, share, and be acknowledged.
This is a profound shift. It means the one-way broadcast model is not just less effective – it’s increasingly offensive. It says: your voice doesn’t matter here. Just consume what we produce.
Organisations that understand this are redesigning how they communicate. Not just adding a Twitter account to the existing broadcast machine. Fundamentally rethinking who gets to speak, what the conversation is for, and how people can meaningfully participate.
The consumer mindset is social. The question is whether your organisation is.