Chaos Tamer
Social media presents huge opportunities to engage with all your stakeholders: customers, owners, and the larger community.
Funny discussion recently: using non-phone photos on Instagram…cheating or no? Fascinating thoughts about purpose, medium, and veracity. To me, all art embraces a zen quality. Cheating doesn’t exist. Well, not in this context. Plagiarism, another beast, another story.
So, the question remains, and no answer comes from me. You?
Perhaps you’ve heard this trending story about Brian Presley (an actor) & Melissa (a model). (if not, here’s a brief summation here) via Huffington Post
Just read David Amerland’s piece, When Melissa Met Brian: A Lesson in Social Media Ethics over at Social Media Today.
So, my take. Melissa started with the assumption that Brian was attempting to cheat on his wife with her and ran with that. In analysis, this seems an act of arrogance on her part. (The man in the seat next to you is talking to you. The only reason is he wants sleep with you?)
Be that as it may, she unleashed the mindless reactivity of the internet. It’s amazing how quickly that can get launched and how nearly impossible it is to put that “genie back in the bottle”.
Sure, it’s important for us social media users to think before we post, but we should also consider thinking before acting on something we read. Always remember there are two sides to a story.
(Mea cupla: I saw this as it was trending hot on Twitter and thought Brian a cad. As this has shaken out, I’m realizing he’s not as culpable as first appeared. In particular, at no point does he proposition her, or even ask for a phone number).
After working in real estate for the past few months, several things became clear. In today’s age, a small home owners or condo owners association must, MUST have a website. This should contain contact information and the scope of the org. Really, this is a basic yet powerful communication tool for your membership. A simple blog would do wonders.
I’ve heard many HOAs reps complain about banks not dues. Yet they make it nearly impossible to track them down. A basic website, around long enough for crawlers to grab key SEO terms, can get this accomplished.
Extend this out to small governmental and quasi-governmental orgs. I’m thinking mainly, right now, about small water associations. A simple website can make you, well, findable.
So, a little rant on a Saturday morning. Thanks for listening. Well, reading. Peace and well-being to you all.
I’ve wondered for awhile what’s <a href=”http://www.linkedin.com/in/carlsetzer” target=”_blank”>LinkedIn’s</a> place in the social media realm. There just doesn’t seem to be as much interaction there. Yet it’s been the place to explore professional connections. Now that Facebook has several professional apps, does that threaten LI? People are more engaged on Facebook, or so it seems to me.
On idea I’ve had is for LinkedIn to focus solidly in career management. Expand past job hunting & sales connections. Help people explore themselves and find ways (and opportunities) to become the best professionals they can.
A few rambling thoughts this Sunday. Leave a comment below: I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Here’s a good post raising questions about all those “social media experts”. It’s easy, I guess, to become bedazzled by buzz terms (Twitter, Facebook, et al). However, if your company is looking to invest actual money in something like this, if behooves you to spend some time researching.
One site I learned about from this, though, is Help A Reporter Out. Peter Shankman’s effort to connect reporters with good, solid sources. It looks like a great way to help both reporters get in front of real sources (not just PR shlocks) as well as get good PR folks in front of relevant media. One of those real solid “win wins” we hear so much about.
One of my chums posted a very thoughtful piece about the Web 2.0 and how it is resulting in more ego-centrism (give the Angry African a read here). Thoughtful thoughts should beget thoughtful thoughts, don’t you think? Well, here are mine (for what they’re worth…money back if not delighted).
One great danger of Web 2.0 comes from our ever demanding ego. The temptation is great to simply feed it by tracking our followers on Twitter, reviewing our blog stats, ever checking our Technorati ratings, ad nauseum. Also, the temptation to simply post things to generate more readers is challenging. I see this thinking related to the adolescent mind. The form of thinking that only sees the group in terms of me. Group acceptance is paramount, even though it stems from a desire (or so claimed, at least) for independence.
Perhaps the issue, really, stems from the fact that the web, like all societal institutions, is accessible to people regardless of the state of maturity. Thus, we’re stuck with people focusing more on the numbers of interactions than on the quality. The members of our society are evolving at different rates, starting at different times. Web 2.0 loves them all.
The Angry African also brings up poverty, and the resulting lack of access. My sincerest hope is that Moore’s law combining with the economies of scale will bring these tools to more and more people globally. However, until that time, we are left with hoping their voices are heard. Most of that comes from those who “care”. Sadly, many of those are drowning in paternalism. Finding ways to ensure the voices of the impoverished and exploited are heard in a genuine way is deeply challenging.
For me, the medium summed up as tech, offers the world so very much. Perhaps I’m too Pollyannaish.
We have a bear running around the Seattle area. Amazing for a bear to racing around our urban confines. What’s fun, though, is how the social media scene is taking this and running with it. Twitter has a few threads: #bearalert and #seattlebear. Also, someone has started posted to Twitter as Seattlebear. If you’re interested, you can go to seattlepi.com and vote on a name for the fella.
We have a bear running around the Seattle area. Amazing for a bear to racing around our urban confines. What’s fun, though, is how the social media scene is taking this and running with it. Twitter has a few threads: #bearalert and #seattlebear. Also, someone has started posted to Twitter as Seattlebear. If you’re interested, you can go to seattlepi.com and vote on a name for the fella.
Another of my chums has abandoned Twitter. For him, the problem boils down to communication. The platform blasts out 140 character tidbits, a pretty small droplet of information. Twitter’s strength is for the mobile, sending these small info drops from moment to moment, wherever you are. Such things are the FreeRoxana campaigns utilize this amazingly well. For many of us, though, perhaps most of us, Facebook is better. It’s easier to control who sees what, you can post more information, and for many of the key platforms, there are robust mobile applications. Twitter is still a valuable tool, but it looks like it is starting to shake out, as far as who it is valuable to.
from xkcd.com