The good, the bad and the ugly of social media.

Here are a couple of examples of good social media, social media gone bad-and ugly social media efforts.....

The good: Rachel Harris and her website: http://www.iwanttogotonotredame.com/
As a result of her social media tactic, inspired by Barack Obama’s utilization of web technology during his campaign, Harris has already been featured on various news outlets: Detroit Free Press, Muskegon Chronicle, USA Today, WZZM 13 News Channel, NBC2 Fort Myers, FL affiliate. Hopefully, Harris’ social media campaign will help her get the $46,000 a year that she needs for tuition.

The site and effort is ingenious, however Harris should continue to expand her efforts onto twitter, a facebook page and maybe an online blog/diary tracking her efforts throughout school. Harris should also rethink her major to PR/Communications instead of pre-med.

The bad: Mistrials as a result of iphones.

More and more jurors are looking to outside sources for information. With the popularity of iphones and blackberry’s, jurors only need to reach to their pocket to do their own independent research. Although jurors might think that looking up traffic routes, or other information on their own to inform themselves and develop their own ideas is a good idea-it in fact is hindering the judicial process. Not only is it illegal, but also it is resulting in mistrials.


The ugly: The new Facebook. I know. Facebook is trying to be more like twitter-but I personally think it’s ugly and now the home and the friend pages are sort of redundant.

Why isn't Oprah on Facebook?

Here is an article that is all about brands that embrace social media, quietly.  PBS is listed as starting social media because of the engaging and educational programming like "This Old House".  HGTV, Oprah and ESPN round out the rest of the list.

Oddly enough, some of these influencers are more quiet than others.  It's odd to me that Oprah is not on Facebook.  There are several fake Oprah or Harpo facebook pages, but nothing dedicated to the official, original influencer herself.  Furthermore, a preliminary Twitter search produced only an "O" home magazine tweet.  O home magazine can maybe live on online, since the hard copy is now defunct.  

Myth Busters on Discovery Channel, was not on this list, but is an influencer in my eyes.  The show could not go on without viewer input and participation.  In terms of engaging, conversational and educational criteria, it seems that Myth Busters has (like PBS) been using social media way before it was even called social media.  And although the show is popular (it's on broadcast TV!), Myth Busters is not on Facebook (officially) or on Twitter-two of social media's largest networks.

Why aren't the real social media influencers or inventors like Oprah and Myth Busters on the two biggest social media networks?  It seems like they have nothing to lose, and can only gain influence and popularity. 

Just a curious observation.

Ethics and the Internet

The Internet is a fairly new medium, but more importantly, it is not a regulated medium.  This means that there is a lot of room for unethical things to happen on the Internet.  And boy do they happen!

The initial ethical issues that most people worry about are the privacy concerns.  What if someone gets my password?  What if they can log into my Internet banking?  Here is a website that lists a lot of similar worries.  Notice that exploitation of internet workers is not listed.

My ethical concern with the Internet is regarding the finances and exploitation of the workers.  Thankfully, the largest payers in the Internet game (Google as an example) have used their powers for good: offering free service, being transparent and valuing their employees.  However, could you imagine if the people who ran America's banks were instead running America's search engines or servers?  Yikes!

My contention is about the business of blogs, forums and websites, aka web 2.0 or social media.  There is no standardization or protection or regulation.  A web developer could therefore charge whatever price they want to develop a site-which is great.  But at the same time-there are no protections for developers, or bloggers when corporations are misguided about the value they offer.  

There are many corporations and decision makers that don't understand development or social media/web 2.0, and therefore don't want to pay for the work being done.  My concern is the ethical implications of a non-regulated internet-not for privacy concerns, but for the exploitation of the work that people are doing for companies that do not want to pay for it.  

Brands are getting endorsements by bloggers, often without pay, yet at the same time, the brands or corporations balk at the idea of actually paying a blogger to immerse the company in web 2.0.

I foresee corporations trying to take all that they can from social media, without paying for the work or the endorsements, and that to me is unethical.  

Social Media can disconnect people.

I blogged about a 9 year old app whiz kid in Malaysia.  Here is an article that shows the other (or negative) side of immersing children into technology.  

I never thought that exposing children to technology could have a negative effect, but I have to say that after reading this article-I agree.  The main point of the article is that children embracing technology are doing so at the expense of learning social skills.

The article explains that teens are opting to avoid the awkwardness that is puberty.  It's easy to hide behind an icon on facebook, or to connect over technology instead of say...regular old fashioned conversation.  Unfortunately, those awkward experiences are what teenagers have gone through for the history of mankind.  These experiences shape who are are as adults, and have contributed to our culture.  Without these awkward experiences, we never would have had "Catcher in the Rye" or "Great Expectations" or my personal favorite "Time to Change" from the Brady Bunch.

In my experience of dealing with social media experts, gurus and mavens, these people generally have an abundance of friends online, but in person are lonely and can barely hold a conversation.  They have a serious lack of social skills, probably because the only human interaction they have is online.  I have seen social media colleagues get asked by clients to be removed from accounts or have creatives refuse to work with them, because of their inability to connect on a personal level.

Social media, when used in conjunction with traditional human social activity can be great, but it by no means should be used as a substitute.  

9 Year Old App Maker

A large part of social media is programming. Programmers are necessary in the creation of applications, websites and pretty much anything else involved with web 2.0.

And honestly, programmers amaze me. For starters, they learn and work in various languages-that aren’t spoken. I have enough of a hard time saying “Yo quiro Taco Bell” correctly, that I can’t imagine typing a language to produce something intelligent. Secondly, the creativity and thirst for innovation to continue to create new products, applications, websites and functions is never ending and inspiring.

So programmers alone, already have my respect. They earn even more respect when they know several programs, but here is the kicker: Lim Ding Wen knows about 6 different programming languages and has completed about 20 programming is only 9 years old.

My hypothesis is that he is going to one-day take over the world. So far he has used his talents for goods, developing the iPhone app “Doodle Kids”, which allows users to draw with their finger on their iPhone, to entertain his younger sisters. I hope that he continues to use his powers for good, and not evil.

Social media has a niche for ANYBODY!!!

In addition to Hoffspace the David Hasslehoff social network, which offers a feature where you can leave a message for David, or in other words-hassle the Hoff-here is my new favorite social media site.  If you have a cat-you will enjoy this.  I have already checked it several times today...so many cats, so many sinks....and surprisingly-so many fans!

No such thing as a social media expert

http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/2008/12/18/top-25-ways-to-tell-if-your-social-media-expert-is-a-carpetbagger/

This blog is titled “Top 25 ways to tell if your social media expert is a carpetbagger”. 

I could probably list about a million other ways to tell if your social media expert is a carpet bagger (they work from home, they offer free services, they rely solely on you “trusting them”), so this blog doesn’t really tell you anything that new, useful or interesting.  If this blog wanted to actually say something-it would list ways to make sure your social media expert is NOT a carpetbagger.  But that’s not what they did, and here is my beef:

From my perspective-any social media “expert” is a carpetbagger.  Social Media is still being defined, shaped and developed.  It is not a tangible thing-so to be an expert in it is a silly thought.  It’s like being an expert of the paranormal-it’s measuring something you can’t see, feel or measure-so instead these so called “experts” measure indicators like electro-conductivity in the paranormal sector or impressions in social media. 

Just because you have impressions does not mean that you have ROI, just like if a room has a high electro-conductivity, that does not mean you have a ghost.

The last time I checked-there was no set standard, no regulating group and no universal way to measure social media.  Therefore, since success can’t be defined-how can anybody be an expert?

 

 

Giving Thanks...

I am giving thanks this holiday for working in social media.  While advertising and marketing budgets are getting slashed all over-social media and digital spending has been holding steady.  There are many articles siting the growth of online and digital users/consumers-so I won't bore you with numbers, but what I would recommend to anybody in advertising (even those that already have a place in traditional media)-is to invest and try to get into social media.  

If you are trying to get in yourself-write a blog, become a part of a social network, etc..  Try the new technology, because you will only learn something, and then you will be able to say you are proficient.  Clients and agencies are starved for people who have an understanding of this new medium.  Even if you have a background in print, or broadcast TV-try to make the conversion yourself-before others get hip to the swing that is about to happen when digital becomes the primary source for entertainment and information.  

So I am thankful to have a job, that is teaching me valuable new things everyday and that is in a booming market.  How about you?