I started commenting on Chip Griffin’s excellent article, “Throwing Out the Social Media Rulebook”, over on Media Bullseye, but the comment started to get too long so I decided to make it a post here.

Chip’s overarching message is one with which I completely agree:

Far too many of my colleagues who share a passion for the social media space treat this new media world more as a religion than as an art. Attending conferences, reading blogs, listening to podcasts, and talking at meetups will reveal rule after rule that many think cannot be broken in order for an activity to qualify as legitimate and successful.

Let’s face it. There are no rules in social media. When someone says, “Videos should never exceed three minutes,” it’s an opinion, even if the individual offering up the wisdom calls it a rule. “Do not exceed 35 mph” is a rule. If you violate it and get caught, you get a ticket, pay a fine, and see your insurance rates increase. If your video runs five minutes, you suffer no such consequences.

Most of the rules we hear are, in fact, guidelines. There often are sound reasons for those guidelines, but there are just as often many reasons to ignore them. Even rules, we are told, are meant to be broken, as long as we understand the reason we’re breaking them. James Joyce made a heck of a reputation for himself breaking the rules of English grammar.

That said, I agree with some of Chip’s specific assertions and disagree with others—even though I agree that none of these are actual rules. Here’s a quick review:

It isn’t a blog without RSS—Since Blogger.com didn’t even offer RSS until its recent upgrade, this one’s hard to argue. It’s certainly still a blog without RSS. However, it’s probably a blog that isn’t being read as much as it would if it did have RSS. I don’t know about you, but I consume most of my blog reading in feeds. If I actually had to visit each website, I’d never do anything else and I still wouldn’t get through them all. While you don’t need RSS to qualify as a blog, you’d be nuts to not include it.

It isn’t a blog without comments—Even though none of the formal definitions of “blog” insist that comments are integral, I’m going to take issue with this one. Blogging software can be used to produce a lot of non-blog content. I’ve created several websites using blogging software; the content management capabilities of such software are more than most small organizations need and the price is right. But these are websites, not blogs. But what of sites using blogging software in which an individual publishes posts? Without comments, I submit that these are columns published with blogging software. There’s nothing wrong with that. But the notion of a “blog” is that it’s an attempt to engage in a conversation, and without comments, that conversation is entirely one-sided. Dave Winer, whose Radio Userland was one of the first blogging platforms, insisted in an interview with the Online Journalism Review that if you want to comment on something he posted, do it on your blog. That’s a fine sentiment, but most people don’t have blogs. While there is no rule that says comments are required, I’d suggest that it’s the conversational element that makes a blog a blog; otherwise, as I say, it’s just a column published with blogging tools.

The press release is dead—Absolutely. There’s plenty of commentary on this blog (comments included) to support the continued usefulness of traditional press releases, even though I’d prefer it if so many of them didn’t…umm…suck. (Examples from past posts are here, here, here, here and here.)

The social media release is king—I agree with this, too, notably the bit about the social media release as evolution instead of revolution. However, Chip errs when he says, “the social media release ain???t nothing but a press release served up in chunks rather than in story fashion.” Chunks are an element of the social media release, but that ain’t all they are—or even the most important part. The idea behind the social media release is to provide one-stop shopping for information and content about a company’s news in a format that bloggers and online journalists can use. This includes audio and video, RSS feeds, Technorati tags and a host of other elements. A del.icio.us account populated with bookmarks linking to other coverage of the news has nothing to do with chunks. And it’s important to remember that the social media release working group is developing a tagging scheme so that seach engines can identify elements of any press release on an apples-to-apples basis. Ultimately, the social media release is designed to make it easy for bloggers and online journalists to use the information that is not so easy to use in the format developed decades and decades ago for print.

It’s all about conversation, not messages—The conversation is the channel for the message. All the buzz about converation isn’t that it replaces the message, but rather with increasing frequency, people reject messages rammed down their throats through one-way, top-down messaging. Participation in the conversation is the new way to persuade and influence people with your message. Apples and oranges, Chip.

The customer controls the relationship—Absolutely; it’s a two-way street. Public relations, after all, is about helping organizations manage relationships. But I must admit, I haven’t heard this particular “rule” before. What I hear is, “The customer controls the message.” But I don’t buy this, either. What’s changed is that the company no longer controls the message. In fact, I don’t think anybody controls the message any more, which is why influence and persuasion through assymetrical, two-way communication is so very important.

Authenticity and transparency are immutable truths—I…must…control…myself. I’m writing a book on transparency, so I could easily spiral out of control here. Transparency does not mean throwing open the door to every bit of company information. After all, doing so would put companies in serious violation of some pretty important laws. But I can’t agree when Chip argues, “there???s no reason why a CEO who can???t write well shouldn???t rely on a ghostwriter.” At least, not if he means a ghostwriter for a blog. If a CEo can’t write well and needs a ghostwriter, he or she should have a column where such behavior is accepted. But the whole idea of a blog is this: “I want to have a dialogue with you.” When a CEO (or anybody else) invites readers to have a genuine, authentic, personal conversation, but then secretly has someone else engage in that conversation on his or her behalf, it is disingenuous at the very least. I have no doubt that many organizations will (and several have) corrupt this tool, but it’s still important to remember that blogs rose to prominence because people were sick and tired of phony communication channels. Good grief; there are so many communication channels where it’s acceptable to have a ghostwriter, why pollute this one? But remember: This is a guideline, not a rule. If you want to violate it, then disclose it. At least that way, you won’t get caught and vilified.

Audience is a word of the past—Couldn’t agree more, Chip. There are still plenty of audiences. And in fact, when Jay Rosen wrote about “the people formerly known as the audience,” he never intended to suggest that there are no more audiences. In a comment to one of my posts, Rosen wrote:

Look, media people. We are still perfectly content to listen to our radios while driving, sit passively in the darkness of the local multiplex, watch TV while motionless and glassy-eyed in bed, and read silently to ourselves as we always have.

Should we attend the theatre, we are unlikely to storm the stage for purposes of putting on our own production. We feel there is nothing wrong with old style, one-way, top-down media consumption. Big Media pleasures will not be denied us. You provide them, we???ll consume them and you can have yourselves a nice little business.

Rosen’s statement has been frequently taken out of context. Audiences are everywhere.

Lack of comments means lack of influence—Indeed. Comments are one way to wield influence among many. Since print still rocks, you have to ask yourself, did Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” suffer diminished influence because it lacked comments?

Chip notes at the end of his piece that there are a lot of other so-called “rules” out there (like the three-minute video rule) and invites comment. Again, there are no rules, just guidelines. It’s also worth remembering that social media is new enough that those guidelines will evolve and change on an almost daily basis. But the guidelines we have evolved from others’ mistakes. It’s worth at least paying attention to them so we don’t repeat those mistakes and, as noted earlier, we know why we’re dismissing those guidelines when we do.