The Periodic Table of the Social Media Elements
Social Media really is a lot like chemistry. There is a huge pool of elements you can choose from and an infinite variety of combinations you can create. Twitter + sharing + commenting will give you a different result than blogging + LinkedIn + Flickr. Then of course there are the active ingredients - the people. A dash of Chris Brogan plus a big helping of David Armano and the whole thing changes again.
Well, this got me to thinking. It would be handy to have a Periodic Table of the Social Media Elements. So, I created one:
Social Media: Art? Or Science?
You can grab this from Flickr here. Please feel free to download and share.
Now, if I’m being honest there is nothing particularly scientific about the table. In fact, your table could be very different from my table. You have favorite applications, people and habits. That’s cool. The magic comes with using them all and putting them together in different combinations. According to Wikipedia (so it must be true), the Periodic Table is not a static thing:
“The layout of the table has been refined and extended over time, as new elements have been discovered, and new theoretical models have been developed to explain chemical behavior.”
So maybe in six months or a year I’ll revise this and add some new people, take out others, and mix things up a bit. I think it’s also a cool way to brainstorm – coming up with different ways to connect different elements of Social Media.
A lot of this is going to be old news to Social Media practitioners, but if you have friends, colleagues, parents, students or bosses who are having trouble keeping all the elements of Social Media straight, you may want to download/print this chart out for them.
I know what you’re thinking now (assuming you’ve been kind enough to read this far): Cool idea Rick, but what do all the abbreviations stand for?
Here’s the key:
Social Media Behaviours: (These are the positive things you choose to do)
Sh = Share
Mt = Monitor
Fr = Friend
Cv = Converse
Cu = Customize
Li = Listen
En = Engage
Di = Dialogue
Social Media All-Rounders: (These are the people you can find all over the Social Media landscape)
Mc = Mack Collier (The Viral Garden)
To = Todd Defren (PR Squared)
Lo = Lee Odden (Online Marketing Blog)
Dr = Darren Rowse (ProBlogger)
Mj = Mitch Joel (Six Pixels of Separation)
Ds = David Meerman Scott (Web Ink Now)
Pe = Peter Kim (Being Peter Kim)
Bs = Brian Solis (PR 2.0)
Sz = Shel Holtz (A Shel of my Former Self)
Rb = Rohit Bhargava (Influential Markeitng Blog)
Gl = Geoff Livingston (The Buzz Bin)
As = Andy Sernovitz (Damn! I Wish I’d Thought of That!)
An = Andy Beal Marketing Pilgrim
Ad = Andy Beard (Niche Marketing)
Al = Alan Wolk (The Toad Stool)
Cc = C.C. Chapman (The Advance Guard)
Nb = Noah Brier (Noah Brier)
Cr = Connie Reece (Every Dot Connects)
Kp = Katja Presnal (Skimbaco Lifestyle)
Da = David Armano (Logic + Emotion)
Jc = Joel Comm (Joel Comm)
Ls = Liz Strauss (Successful Blog)
Jh = Jackie Huba (Church of the Customer)
Vm = Valeria Maltoni (Conversation Agent)
Cg = Chris Garrett (Chrisg)
Ah = Ann Handley (Annarchy & Marketing Profs)
Jj = Joseph Jaffe (Jaffe Juice)
Ju = Joe Pulizzi (Junta42)
Ng = Nigel Hollis (Straight Talk)
Nh = Neville Hobson (Neville Hobson)
Bl = B.L. Ochman (What’s Next)
Si = Shel Israel (Global Neighbourhoods)
Ni = Nick Burcher (Nick Burcher)
Social Media Tools: (These are the applications and tools essential to Social Media)
De = Delicious
Su = StumbleUpon
Td = TweetDeck
Fe = FeedBurner
Dp = Dopplr
Tu = TinyURL
Tb = Tumblr
Fb = Facebook
Lk = LinkedIn
Te = Technorati
Fk = Flickr
Ms = MySpace
Go = Google
Dg = Digg
Social Media Practices: (Do these to maximize your Social Media experience)
Fl = Follow
Ht = Hashtag
Po = Post
St = Status Update
Sp = Spread
Se = Search
Hp = Hat tip
Fd = Feed
Rt = Retweet
Ud = Update
Cm = Comment
Jn = Join
Up = Upload
Tg = Tag
Tc = Tag clouds
Dm = Direct Message
Rx = Remix
Ln = Link
Mu = Mashup
Sb = Subscribe
Rf = Refer
Sr = Stream
Re = Reply
Rc = Recommend
Sn = Syndicate
Pk = Poke
Pm = Promote
Ib = Imbed
Social Media Live: (Bringing the Social Media experience to the real world)
Pf = Piers Fawkes (Likemind)
Rd = Russell Davies (Interesting)
Cb = Chris Brogan (PodCamp)
Sg = Seth Godin (Seth Live)
Ha = Peter Shankman (Help a Reporter Out)
Facebook People: (Power users of the Social Media Networking platform)
Jp = Jeff Pulver
Zf = Ze Frank
Twitter People: (Masters of leveraging microblogging)
Gk = Guy Kawasaki @guykawasaki
Wl = Gary Vaynerchuk @garyvee
Aa = Aloha Arleen @AlohaArleen
Sm = Scott Monty @scottmonty
Jo = Jeremiah Owyang @jowyang
Sa = Sarah Evans @PRSarahEvans
Sc = Robert Scoble @scobleizer
Sq = The Real Shaq @THE_REAL_SHAQ
Pc = Laura Fitton @pistachio
Tm = Warren Sukernek @warrenss
YouTube People: (Pioneers in developing content for social media video)
Ij = iJustine
Jl = Judson Laipply
Blog People: (Consistently intellingent, thought-provoking & educational)
Sy = Shoe Money
Ar = Ad Rants
Mp = Micro Persuasion
Aw = Ads of the World
Cf = Common Craft
Cp = CopyBlogger
Ba = Brand Autopsy
Sd = Search Engine Land
Dd = Dosh Dosh
Gv = Gaping Void
Ma = Mashable
Of course — but I think we can both agree they aren’t the same thing
[sort of like how "disaster" originally referred to something related to unfavorable astrology, but now simply means "catastrophe"]
Yeah, there’s a definite distinction now. But, people who refer to Sir Isaac Newton as an alchemist picture him as trying to turn lead into gold or find the elixir of life. Whereas in fact he was simply “the chemist”, a god-fearing one allegedly, but not an alchemist, in the modern sense of the word. Anyway, if you do find the philosopher’s stone, give me a call…
Wasn’t the philosopher’s stone somewhere between “Twitter” and “Digg”?
[sorry, that's a really awful joke
]
I had *heard* that Newton had a bizarre obsession with alchemy — was my source (it was a book, I think it may have been Bryson’s “Short History of Nearly Everything”) incorrect?
In a sense, Newton was at the end of the era of what we know as alchemy, but I don’t think he was into boiling up vats of urine and mercury to achieve immortality…
This is a great overview of social media. The basic elements are all waiting to be mixed to something even more powerfull, more usefull.
[...] Liebling en eyecube desarrolla la nomenclatura de cada uno de los elementos y su significado. Todo para entender mejor [...]
I bookmarked your blog, thanks for sharing this very interesting post
I am a man of science. Or I tend to think with a scientific methodology. Now, after studying the-periodic-table-of-the-social-media-elements, I ventured into creating some compounds to test of they can fit the marketing model of various companies, and their market and industry positioning, and found not to explore practicality, for example:
Say we are made out of 75% of H2O as a result about 62% of O2 in every single cell is transported by the Fe in the blood, and that is why oxidizes into and the red color results from it. How can I prove the practical value of this table?
So I started applying the various Social Media Behaviours, and noticed entertain was missing, as well as smell! and then I realized behavior was determine by the senses and emotions.
Also for the elements associated to the Social Media Tools, why is e-mail not considered? E-mail is delivering social media in a static way, for us to decide that we want to expand and go to those places mentioned: flickr, digg, facebook.
I think the element of intention is also not considered as a mean, but the end, or reaction upon a stimuli. Since we are trying to deliver compounds that deciphers human behavior and social interacions.
However, this is a good start, and how sustainable this model can become!? always changing, what are the new players up to? what is been recycle? how mobile capabilities come into place?
My personal feedback is: Well Done.
Cheers!
LAF
[...] The Periodic Table of the Social Media Elements « eyecube Interesting, lateral thinking here. Not sure how far the metaphor extends but simply as a list of categories, it's nice. (tags: measurement visualisation socialmediaperiodictable) Posted in socialmedia. [...]
[...] 3 social media jewels of past week Jump to Comments What’s handier than a Periodic Table of the Social Media Elements? [...]
Social Media… Behaviours, Tools and Practices
I love that elements 
wow I don’t even know what to say. amazing chart. Thanks for all the great links to people/blogs/tools, everything is great!
[...] not to love social media? It provides tools for sharing, discussing and creating. Check out Eyecube’s blog to drill down on the details. [...]
[...] en etcterritoriocreativo.es Rick Liebling en eyecube desarrolla la nomenclatura de cada uno de los elementos y su significado. Todo para entender mejor [...]
[...] por Rick Liebling (explicación y definiciones), esta tabla resulta en un experimento interesante para observar cómo se comportan los elementos [...]
[...] 5) http://eyecube.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/the-periodic-table-of-the-social-media-elements/ [...]
[...] Tabla periódica de las redes sociales (imagen) [...]
wow. great posts. by the way from where do you get such nice ideas and contents. I love your posts.
[...] I learned with my Periodic Table of Social Media Elements, it’s important to state right up front that this is not done with any sort of scientific [...]
Nice post.
great idea! I’d love to share it as you suggest in the blog post but on flickr you have it marked all rights reserved??
[...] love to see someone with more talent than me make a just for libraryland version! See the lists of blogs & people that are included. [...]
Hmm, didn’t realize it was marked all rights reserved. Please feel free to use/post as you see fit. Thanks for your interest.
[...] Liebling has created a Period Table of Social Elements on eyecube that made me get thinking on brands use of social media. I included the image below, and the key [...]
Rick, accepting that there are many improvements to be made, I’m still pleased that you have created a visualisation for social media and I don’t think that should be knocked quite as hard as it has been. The one comment I would like to make for future versions is why is the Flickr image copyright all rights reserved? How does that facilitate social media? Where’s the creative commons license?
Adam,
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I have changed the rights to a creative commons.
@uksigma:
Not to beat this dead horse anymore than it has been, but in what ways is the visualization useful? There’s a “cool factor” of course, because colors, abbreviations, and popular buzz words are injected into something that many people probably groaned when they saw in grade school science — but how do you find it useful?
[...] Source: http://eyecube.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/the-periodic-table-of-the-social-media-elements/ [...]
[...] The Periodic Table of Social Media Elements [...]
Great stuff, Rick. I’ve been meaning to use this on my blog for some weeks now, but today is the day.
[...] of social media and brands, one size might not fit all. Where does your brand fit? Take a look at eyecube’s Periodic Table of the Social Media Elements and see if the roads of science and media meet [...]
[...] Si vous souhaitez consulter la légende complête ca se passe chez Eyecube. [...]
[...] 再來是社會性媒體元素周期表(The Periodic Table of the Social Media Elements)，相信沒有人看得懂那些字母所代表的含意，那就請參考製表者的部落格吧(link)。相信有使用過社會性媒體的人看了一定很有感覺，可惜表中沒有把 Plurk給列進去 [...]
[...] see the field, you need to be totally aware of your surroundings. Hence, more handy tools like the Periodic Table of the Social Media Elements by Brian [...]
Very Nice Post. I love it. Have a Great day.
[...] love to see someone with more talent than me make a just for libraryland version! See the lists of blogs & people that are included. [...]
[...] a great idea about how social media can work together. Check the blog of Rick [...]
[...] Enlace [...]
Social media has come a long way but it has been abused by marketeers. When I log on Twitter all I see is desperate tweets promoting the products nothing wrong in that but there has to be a fine line on what constitutes a meaningful message and marketing propaganda.
[...] This post was Twitted by RichardGauthier [...]
I found myself looking at this and thinking, “There is a missing piece: STRATEGY.” If is sooo easy to think about these “elements” in isolation. Ot to become enamoured of a few, and want to use them for everything–or come up with novel combinations. But what guides these pieces to make a mark on behavior is a unifying strategy.
Just as in chemistry, one needs a formula, and perhaps a process, to turn individual elements into something usable, so do all these neat elements need a strategy, in order to make the meaningful impact you want.
Ha, interseting post. I like the way you broke it down. Very easy to understand and kind of fun to share with others.
[...] Liebling created this Periodic Table of Social Media Elements. While it isn’t meant to be humorous, there’s some insight here. The elements are people who [...]
[...] Source: rickliebling.com [...]
[...] Periodic Table of Social Media, Liebling [...]
great chart – ive book marked it to come back later