29th
JAN
Who is the ME in Social Media?
Posted by admin under Social Media
Good friend Stowe Boyd recently shared a quote by Gabriel García Márquez, “Everyone has three lives: a public life, a private life, and a secret life.”
Indeed, quite simply many of us live life allowing specific, trusted individuals to know us in one or more of our personae. Our moral compass as well as outside influences affect how we balance our three lives. The size and permeability of our personal dividers vary in the separation of each life and resemble doors that open and close based on our desires. We nurture each individually with slight coalescence, but concentrate on the establishment of a distinct ecosystem for cultivating and grooming who we are in public, private, and in secret.
The challenge, and sometimes the quiet objective, is to balance the opening and closing of each door, and to what extent, where we either intentionally or inadvertently allow our lives to touch and inspire the others. The risk however, is that with too much exposure, we may forever alter our personal standards and ultimately our identity. If the lines slowly vanish and cease to partition our compartmentalized characters, we disrupt the state, ethics, and relationships we distinctly support and preserve. A butterfly effect ensues and creates catastrophic fallout that forces mending and restoration and sometimes, complete demolition and the building of something entirely new.
For most of us, this inner struggle was delicately orchestrated and performed in seclusion and concealed in intimacy.
As Josh Harris believes, the web compels us to live in public, “The Internet is a new human experience. At first, we’re all going to like it. But, there will be a fundamental change in the human condition. One day we’re all going to wake up and realize that we’re all servants. It captured us.”
Josh Harris and Brian Solis, Sundance 2009
Harris famously experimented with technology on human behavior, much of which is captured and presented by Ondi Timoner as a powerful documentary. We Live in Public premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and earned the Grand Jury prize.
Jason Calacanis, a very good friend of Josh and part of the New York tech scene during the public broadcasting of personal lives, described Harris as a visionary, “He was always trying to advance the invertible. This is going to happen, let’s try it now.”
In the era of the social Web, however, we increasingly distort the laws and perceptions of privacy, willfully sharing details of our lives in public channels. As a result, we are perpetually resetting values, codes, and moral thresholds, exposing more about our intentions, views, and desires than we may realize or care to acknowledge.
Bowd observed, “Some people are the web equivalent of nudists: they live very open lives on the web, revealing the intimate details of their relationships, what they think of friends and co-workers, their interactions with family and authorities. But . . . even these apparently wide open web denizens may keep some things private, or secret.”
The socialization of media and the frictionless access to publishing tools and distribution channels that carry built-in audiences is creating a new genre of digital extroverts and information socialites. The desire to not only start the clock ticking towards 15 minutes of fame is only reinforced when we realize that we can extend it through the publishing of each new social object.
- It’s the pictures we share in DailyBooth that reveal our inner sanctum and persona
- It’s the personal videos we share on YouTube and Justin.tv that expose who we really are
- It’s the tweets we publish that blur the lines between status updates and vocalizing our inner monologue
The list goes on…
We are seduced and seemingly obsessed by the prospect of becoming Internet Famous and as a result, an intoxicating and addictive form of micro celebrity emerges.
In many ways, this new chapter in media represents the end of a previous state of innocence. Indeed, with Social Media, comes great responsibility…
Regardless of intent, sharing aspects of our private or secret life are no longer containable. Meaning, sharing secrets or confidential information online is the equivalent of buying billboard space. Eventually, someone will see it and it usually will include those we had hoped would not.
Thus in social media, privacy is both in contention and harmony with publicity. Social scientists, including Boyd, refer to this as “publicy.”
There is a countervailing trend away from privacy and secrecy and toward openness and transparency. . .And on the web, we have had several major steps forward in social tools that suggest at least the outlines of a complement, or opposite, to privacy and secrecy: publicy. The idea of publicy is no more than this: rather than concealing things, and limiting access to those explicitly invited, tools based on publicy default to things being open and with open access.
As Erick Schonfeld observed in a public and online discussion with Andrew Keen on Twitter, “instead of making the private public, we will make the public private. When public is the default, you deliberately select what to keep private instead of the other way around.”
Crowd Science recently published a study that measured attitudes towards social media. The goal was to understand usage patterns and behaviors around online social media, particularly MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. Overall, the study surfaced the allure of “me” that unites fa”me” and social “me”dia.
45% reported that they want to be heard, enjoying the reactions that stem from sharing updates. The attraction of popularity leads some to either stretch the truth or reveal TMI or too much personal information. 36% believe however, that others are more concerned with what they have to say.
Attitudes Surrounding Social Media
In general, over 50% are either unsure, ambivalent or feel that they spend too much time online engaging and contributing to social media while 49% feel their time is rightly focused. 14% state that they often neglect important activities to spend time on online social media.
I was captivated by the sentiment of those social media users who contributed reluctantly, feeling pressure from others, or from fear of losing social status. 12% agree that stopping/reducing usage of online social media would be damaging to their social status.
As well, the emergence of regret seems to only grow in importance as we cast digital shadows. 25% of online social media users reportedly have said things on online social media that theyʼve later regretted.
Social Media provides a window into the lives of those whom we follow. Sometimes, the view is tempting.
Almost 50% of social media users donʼt necessarily disagree (and 20% agree) that other peopleʼs lives are more interesting than their own.
We are witnessing how we view, forge, and value relationships. While many prefer to maintain direct or in-person contact, a growing number prefer the empowerment of expressing themselves online.
32% of respondents suggest that they would rather communicate with friends/contacts through online social media than by telephone. And, while 80% disagree that social media is preferable to face-to-face contact, almost 10% prefer to use online social media instead.
And what of privacy or at least the semblance of a new form of separating our public from our private and secret lives? 76% care about privacy, but 14% are uncertain and 11% have no concern.
Self expression may have served as an appetizer in the societal buffet of new media, however, current behavior reflects a migration towards narcissism, fueling a transformation from conversational ecosystems to self-serving egosystems.
As mentioned earlier, 45% really ‘like it’ when people notice them. Over 1/3 feel that people are interested in what they have to say. 10% stretch the truth when portraying themselves online with 18% assuming a neutral position on the subject. 16% believe it’s important to maintain a flock of friends with 21% on the fence about the subject.
16% admitted to revealing things about themselves on online social media that they wouldnʼt under any other circumstances (14% remained neutral).
I refer to this phenomenon as the Verizon Network Theory (until I can come up with a better name.) We gain confidence in online interaction reinforced by every new update, follower, retweet, public @ (acknowledgment), and linkback. I suggest that this may actually have a positive impact on society as we then carry this new found courage back into the real world, supported by our invisible army of supporters who define our social graph. We carry this unseen support framework with us wherever we go.
Gender
In an interesting observation, Crowd Science suggests that there are no significant differences between males and females with the exception of specific attributes and within certain age groups.
We all know in Social Media, women rule…
54% of female study participants over age 21 who use social media vs. 38% of males of the same age believe they spend far too much time on online social media. One half more females than males over the age of 30 (45% vs. 29%) believe that most people are interested in what they have to say on social media.
Almost 25% of female social media users over 20 years old report that they use online social media much more than their friends/contacts – twice the proportion of males (13%).
Age Trends
35% of teens believe social media offers a unique opportunity to present personal facts about themselves that they wouldnʼt reveal under other circumstances. 40% posted or said things on social media that they have later regretted.
Significantly larger proportions of those under age 30 would consider it extremely damaging to their social status if they stopped or reduced their usage of online social media, compared with their older counterparts.
46% of teens and 38% of respondents aged 18-29 believe they spend too much time on social media.
Publicy vs. Branding
In describing publicy, Laurent Haug paints a picture of what he refers to as the “plausible you,” but it is his idea around new privacy and intention that serves as the light at the end of the tunnel:
Now that you are back in the driver seat, you have your privacy back. Just of a different kind. You have built a space that could be called “publicy”, or “the plausible me”. It is a credible space where people expect to see information about you. Whatever credible information you say in there will be taken as true by the world. That is your new privacy. A space that is public but that you control, where you can say anything you want and have it taken as true.
In Social Media, it is our responsibility to define who we are and why we are significant. Who we are online is formed by an assemblage of everything we contribute – whether intended or not. Regardless of medium, we save ourselves from ourselves through the practice of restraint and the recognition that we are what we share. The socialization of media distributes pieces of us across the Web and without our knowledge, they are reassembled at will, without our ability to directly shape perception. Thus, our digital shadow is a reflection of our persona and reputation and therefore requires dedication to the active, thoughtful shaping and feeding of the “brand you” through everything you share. In doing so, we dictate who we are today as well as who we become tomorrow and over time. The doors between public, private, and secret must remain discrete and preserved. While we embrace an era of publicy, we do not relinquish privacy, for without it, we fulfill the prediction of becoming servants of the Web instead of its engineers and conductors.
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28th
JAN
Expertise Location: Not Just A Tooling Issue
Posted by admin under Social Media
Source: http://twitter.com/CRozwell Expertise location enabled by social software – interesting article in Sloan Mgmt Review http://bit.ly/HSExW 6:54 AM Jan 25th from TweetDeck
I found this article from my new colleague, Carol Rozwell. It is an interesting article and worth reading. Perhaps though, it is too enthusiastic about social tools (blogs, wikis, social networks, tagging) in-and-of-themselves solving a complex challenge in many large organizations (finding experts/expertise). My comments might make more sense after you read the article (link below) – and it is worth reading by the way. I do believe that social environments can have a powerful impact on an organization’s “lateral connectivity” so to speak (vs. top-down). As background, I’ve looked at expertise location/automation systems since they emerged in the late nineties with Tacit (recently acquired by Oracle) perhaps being the most well-known.
1. Scarcity: In many situations – “the expert” is already very busy and/or there are not enough experts to go around. Having experts more easily discoverable and accessible may make matters worse for that individual.
2. Accessibility: In other situations, the expert is not visible due to policies that prevent communication between different business units, or for reasons related to security. That is why some expertise location products supported single-blind and double-blind filters to handle sensitive use case scenarios.
2. Ownership: Management might not want to make the expert visible, or share the expert with others in the organization. There could be a variety of reasons for such a situation. Politics of course could be one reason.
4. Incentives: The way managers (and expert for that matter) are incented to complete a project or task-at-hand may make that activity a higher priority than helping colleagues. Not all requests for expertise are simply Q&A resolved in a few minutes over the phone. Some interactions might span days and take up a noticeable amount of time or even a deliverable of some sort -without some type of compensation / reward / incentive / recognition (formal or social), the manger and/or expert may not engage with the requestor.
5. Time: It takes more time to participate in social tools. While it’s nice to think that people will blog frequently, take on the role of a wiki gardener, etc – these activities are often voluntary. Since participation in communities and social network sites are often at the discretion of employees – they may not have the time to contribute on any type of regular basis.
6. Personal Value: De-valuing personal brand might be another reason for these tools to be less-than-perfect. There is a very good argument that participation and contribution improves your personal brand but that argument is somewhat dependent on the culture of the organization. In some organizations that are highly competitive, or live in a world of sensitive intellectual property – there may be barriers to the type of open and transparent sharing that makes expertise easily discoverable. In “unhealthy cultures”, or when job longevity is a concern, people may believe that they are over-sharing what might be one asset that keeps them around. In environments that are “need to know” – information silos may prevent the type of lateral connections social environments might promote.
These are some of the reasons who organizational factors need to be considered in addition to tooling. I do agree the with main gist of the article and the proposed benefits in a general sense can be compelling. However, I typically find “expertise” over-sold when framed in techno-centric manners or when it is based on altruistic participation and contributions that may not exist in many workplace environments. I would also point out that participation and contribution in social environments is opening up an exciting area around social analytics. Topics such as social identities, social roles, reputation, and community equity will be fascinating to watch unfold.
Who Knows What? – Business Insight – Wall Street Journal / MIT Sloan – MIT Sloan Management Review
Every company has in-house experts. So why don’t they use them more?
In-house experts, with their specialized knowledge and skills, could be invaluable to both colleagues and managers. But often workers who could use their help in other departments and locations don’t even know they exist.
Talk about a waste! Because of an inability to tap expertise, problems go unsolved, new ideas never get imagined, employees feel underutilized and underappreciated. These are things that no business can afford anytime—let alone in this tough economic climate. Which is why so-called expertise-locator systems have become a hot topic in corporate IT.
Who Knows What? – Business Insight – Wall Street Journal / MIT Sloan – MIT Sloan Management Review
28th
Community Input: SharePoint 2010
Posted by cgseo under Social Media
OK – this is all draft – nothing is final – everything below is a work-in-progress. I wanted to obtain feedback though… leave comments, thanks… Context Losing the battle but winning the war? Many organizations have invested in Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 as strategic infrastructure for content management and collaboration. However, the market responded negatively to the social tools included within MOSS 2007. Thought-leadership was lost as competitors (e.g., IBM, Jive) delivered social platforms that were far superior to what was delivered out-of-the-box by Microsoft. Microsoft partners (e.g., Atlassian, NewsGator) whose products integrated into SharePoint in ways that alleviated some of the worst functionality (e.g., wikis and communities) filled gaps in social tooling.
27th
JAN
Privacy & Social Network Sites: A Case Of Conflicting Agendas
Posted by admin under Social Media
Earlier this year, Facebook’s Zuckerberg said that the age of privacy is over. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, LinkedIn’s Hoffman echoed that sentiment (view the video below) – musing that privacy was an issue of “old people” and that younger people are not so concerned over privacy. Many will disagree that privacy is a concern only to certain demographics and many will also disagree that people have to cede privacy simply to leverage social networking. It borders on the absurd and demonstrates either a lack of knowledge about a complicated challenge – or reveals the dilemma operators of social network sites face in terms of a credible business model. In this case, I believe it’s both. LinkedIn and Facebook simply do not seem to understand the social dynamics around privacy and compound the problem by implementing technology in a way that exacerbates the privacy challenge (perhaps more so in the case of Facebook).
In order to establish sustainable business models, operators of social network sites will continue to change terms of service and other policies to forcefully encourage people to become uncomfortably public. Twitter perhaps has avoided some of these issues because there are few controls over how people share information Twitter begins the relationship with its members in a more transparent manner – that ”everything is on the public timeline”. However, Facebook long ago set expectations by offering members a more complete set of controls for people to share information on a perceived limited basis. So when executives from consumer social network sites talk about privacy, I react to whatever they say with a health dose of skepticism. It is self-serving in fact for social network site execs to go on stage and diminish the value of privacy when they benefit by its very erosion (to the dismay of members).
The risks and rewards of sharing information online | John Gapper’s Business Blog | FT.com
It can be hard to find an actual disagreement at Davos, given the social effects of sticking a lot of people in workshops and asking them to flesh out the future of the world convivially.
So it was encouraging (for a journalist) to come across a clear and important divide in the first session I attended this morning, on internet social networks.
The topic was privacy, a contentious one for social networks such as Facebook (represented in the session by Randi Zuckerberg, sister of its founder). Facebook’s recent changes to its privacy settings to open up more content to the public caused a backlash.
Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, the professional social network, told the session that “all of the concerns about privacy tend to be old people issues.” Young people generally put mobile phone numbers on social networks because “the value of being connected and transparent is so high.”
The risks and rewards of sharing information online | John Gapper’s Business Blog | FT.com
Key Video From The World Economic Forum’s Social Networking Powerhouse Panel
27th
The Socialization of Email Marketing
Posted by cgseo under Social Media
Follow me on Twitter! Become a fan on Facebook! It seems that everywhere you turn, businesses, media properties, and brands are asking us to connect with them in the social Web. Whether it’s on TV, in press materials, advertising, or email, brands are vying for our “friendship.” In July 2009, Bill McCloskey in partnership with StrongMail, analyzed the email marketing campaigns of top brands and how they integrated social profiles into the marketing presentation. McCloskey observed that top brands were reviving email campaigns with the inclusion of links to social profiles, specifically Facebook, Twitter, and also MySpace. McCloskey reported that top brands such as Nike, Intel, The Gap, Pepsi, Sony, HP, Home Depot, Lane Bryant, Circuit City, Saks Fifth Avenue, Polo Ralph Lauren, Lands’ End, and J.C. Penney included Social Media within email marketing messages. As expected, since 2007, the number of email campaigns that contained links to Facebook and Twitter dramatically increased, becoming the two most prominent links integrated in all email marketing initiatives in 2009. As of June, the number of campaigns that included a link to the branded Twitter account grew to 41,399, with 41,052 for Facebook. As 2009 gave way to a new decade, the StrongMail team published an updated report, “ 2010 Marketing Trends .” The survey documented that nine in 10 planned to either increase or maintain their marketing budgets in twenty ten (2010). And what was at the top of the list? Email marketing… What was second? Social Media… Reviewing the list of marketing programs that will benefit from increased commitments, it seems that almost every element for generating presence through outbound and inbound marketing is set to expand this year – and most likely over the next several years. The democratization of media and the equalization of influence require brands to reassess their strategies and objectives for earning attention, steering perception , and growing a community of loyal customers and advocates. Marketing Programs Expected to Receive Increased Budgets 69% – Email marketing 59% – Social media 42% – Search 28% – Advertising 22% – Mobile 21% – Direct mail 20% – Tradeshows and events 19% – Public relations While marketers believe that customers will increase their spending in 2010, conservative and skeptical executives are also reducing programs that don’t align with adapted ambitions… The socialization of email marketing will continue to fuse social networks and the inbox until one day, they become one. After all, email is technically the largest, untapped, social network in the world. According to the report, over 40% of executives plan on integrating social and email marketing in 2010. How that expands beyond the obvious “follow me” or “become our fan” on Twitter and Facebook intrigues me. Thankfully, StrongMail asked the question that needed to be asked… Are you planning to integrate Social Media into your email marketing campaigns in 2010? 27% – Yes, we have formulated a strategy and have already implemented our program 24% – Yes, we have formulated a strategy and are researching tools for implementation 18% – Yes, but we don’t know where to start 11% – No, but it sounds intriguing 5% – No, I don’t see the value in integrating email marketing with social media 11% – I don’t know 4% – Other Once integrated programs are deployed, measurement dictates the future of our social programming. 42% of executives reported a lift in email campaign performance after integrating social and email, 35% realized zero improvement, and 23% aren’t sure how to measure their results. Clearly, there is room for growth, education, and evolution. Over 50% of marketers believe they are on the right track and already either have plans to execute or directives to discover solutions to place into effect. But again, simply asking people to friend or follow us is not enough. We must convey a sense of purpose and define and spotlight the rewards for clicking through to our points of designation. There must be life beyond the connection. We must package and deliver an experience, cultivated by a series of calls to action. It is through the definition of action that provides us with the foundation to establish and measure activity. And as we’re already realizing, traditional email isn’t the only form of “email marketing.” Many service providers are automating the ability to mass-broadcast content to the inboxes of fans on Facebook and followers on Twitter. With Social Media comes great responsibility… Sometimes the ability to connect and inspire action is driven less by quantity and cultivated through an informed, targeted, and genuine outreach program where less is indeed more. Connect with Brian Solis : Twitter , LinkedIn , Tumblr , Plaxo , or Facebook — Get the new iPhone app! — Click the image below to buy the book/poster : — Image Source: Shutterstock
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The Socialization of Email Marketing
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