Anatomy of Social Media Marketing presents an interesting analogy: the social media as a body. The Website is the Heart, with your Email Listserv as the Blood. The Blog is the Stomach:
We have to "feed" our blog new content. The blog then breaks down the content and turns it into things like loyal followers (people who regularly read your blog), happy search engines (search engines love new content and good keywords), greater credibility, and increased traffic to your website - just as our stomachs break down our food into the essential nutrients our body needs.
And Social Networks are the Hands and Senses:
Social networks are a lot like our hands because connecting is one of the main functions - we grab onto new contacts and hold onto existing contacts. They are our mouth because they are forums to share our message and tell others about who we are and what we do. Lastly, they are our eyes and ears because if you are active you will definitely get feedback - particularly if you're doing things wrong (bad social network etiquette).
Of course, according to Everett's Law of Pareidolic Comparisons, All Analogies Are Fatal, since we tend to focus on the aptness of the analogy itself, and because an analogy encourages us to read too much into the analogized relationship. ("If Facebook is your hands, is Technorati your ears?") But I liked the way this puts together the various pieces of the internet puzzle. (There I go, analogizing again!)
