Ta-tas and Tiaras: The Real Power in Social Networking

Success can be difficult to replicate because it’s hard to deconstruct.  There are too many variables, and it’s human nature to reduce the complex to a single silver bullet.  This happens a lot with social media (which often gets more credit than it deserves).

Others have written about this in explaining how Gary Vaynerchuk was able to create his own flash mob at SXSW one year after being unable to get into the Google party.  The take-away is that Vaynerchuk was able to draw a huge crowd in a matter of minutes not because of social media, but because he’d spent years cultivating relationships with people that he was able to flex USING social media.

Here’s a great example local to West Michigan of the power of social networks:

In grad school I met an astounding woman.  Her name is Adrienne.  Being around her feels like someone swapped all of the lightbulbs in the room for a higher wattage. She’s a force of nature.  In fact, odds are you know her.

She and two of her friends recently organized a “Queen for a Night” party to benefit the “Career Closet” for the Center for Women in Transition.    For those who have experience domestic abuse – it’s often a huge undertaking to break out on one’s own and earn a living in our appearance-conscious culture so they need professional clothing and apparel.

The event wasn’t meant to be anything huge – just a night of martinis, formal wear and tiaras at the posh City Flats Hotel in Holland – attendees were asked to bring their unwanted handbags, jewelry and other accessories.

It ended up being huge: they collected 24 laundry baskets full of purses (most of which were stuffed with jewelry) and another two trunks full of the same that one of their friends collected at work.  There are still more donations coming in from donation sites set up by people from 5/3 Bank, Meijer, Herman Miller, and Haworth who couldn’t attend.

The work of Adrienne “the divine”, Cynthia “the great”  (owner of Square Peg Events) and Jennifer “the radiant” (of Serendipity Publishing) wasn’t successful because of the copy they wrote, or the design of the flyer, or the fact that they used Facebook to get the word out.  It was successful because they have great relationships with a lot of people and everyone knows how personally they are invested in the cause.

As the traditional mass media continues its southward slide – these three gorgeous women are examples of what will replace it: (1) effective communicators (2) who are great at building relationships and (3) who are passionate about what they’re doing.  It’s a thing of beauty to see in action.

If you want to see photos of the event, they should be available soon at http://www.junebugphotoblog.com/

100 Percent of Companies/Organizations Have a Social Media Policy

See? It's true - I have a pie chart and everything.

It’s true.  100 percent.  They just don’t know it.

Research by Manpower (published at mashable.com) turned up that only 29 percent of corporations have a social media policy.  Problem is, employees are using social media in both their professional lives (which affects your organization) and in their personal lives (which affects your organization – and which isn’t hampered in the least by banning the use of social media at work).

Just like with sex – it’s never too early to start talking to people about it.  You don’t have to have every single detail nailed down with bullet points and legalese approved by your general counsel – just let your employees know that we’re in a new world where what goes online is much more accessible and permanent than ever before so they should use their good judgment.  Most of the social media face plants I’ve seen have been from sheer ignorance – not malice – and a kind warning likely would have stopped them.

So for those institutions that think they DON’T have a social media policy – you’re wrong. You have one – and right now it’s “ANYTHING GOES.” Better do something about that.

Tales of ORM: The Return of Pritam Iyer, Troll Extrordinare

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my brother (an insurance agent) had the bad luck to run across a disgruntled customer who decided to engage in a campaign of harassment online by posting false negative reviews of my brother’s business in online directories/review sites using various pseudonyms.  Virtually all of the comments were left either on the same day (in some cases using the same pseudonym) or within days of one another).

We were able to get the majority of them removed (though Google disappointed me by being the only organization that wouldn’t take action to remove the libelous content).  Unfortunately, the troll has returned.

I had refrained from naming the individual in the previous post  (hoping it was just an infantile gesture and that this individual didn’t fully understand what he was doing), but given that he’s now costing my family time and possibly money – I’m no longer affording him that courtesy.

The troll’s name is Pritam Iyer.

To recap: Iyer is angry because his application for a homeowners policy was denied because he attempted to commit fraud.  He signed an application for a standard homeowners policy, deliberately concealing that his mother was operating a business out of the residence (a fact quickly uncovered by the insurance company).  His money was refunded in full, but he’s decided to take out his anger that he was caught lying on my brother (a guy struggling to get a new business off the ground).

• Superpages.com | Left 1/22/10
• Superpages Review | Left 1/14/10
• Switchboard.com | Left 1/15/10
• Yellowpages.com | by by “DanielDayLouis1″ | Left 1/14/10
• Yellowpages.com | by “Chad_OchoSinco” |Left 01/22/10

I’m somewhat disappointed because Yellowpages.com appears to have changed their policy and rejected my request to have the false negative reviews removed (whereas last time they promptly took action and wiped them from the directory).  What’s worrisome is that one of the reviews had notched 11 views – qualitative evidence that people are seeing these reviews and being influenced by them in their decision-making process.

Letter to GRCC’s Student Newspaper, The Collegiate

A screen capture of James Wisner's Facebook profile where he wishes a "Happy James Earl Ray Day" to his friends.

To Whom it May Concern:

I’m disappointed in the editorial published by the Collegiate in response to the recent attempt by white supremacist student James Wisner to form a  “White Culture Club.”

Sometimes there aren’t two equal sides to a story; on occasion one side is demonstrably in the wrong and attempting to treat both parties equally is a miscarriage of journalism.  This is one of those cases.

Wisner, who recently wished his friends on Facebook a “happy James Earl Ray Day” (on Martin Luther King Day), doesn’t deserve the space the Collegiate afforded him to defame my colleague and good friend, Eric Mullen.

Anyone who knows Eric Mullen knows him to be fiercely devoted to the students of GRCC and a committed advocate for fairness in all respects.  The thought that anyone might, for a second, entertain the delusion that Mullen is anything but a supremely generous and honorable person sickens me.

Moreover, the Black Student Union doesn’t deserve to be put in the same league with Wisner’s bigoted attempt at a student organization.  Your characterization of them as an organization that “draw[s] lines” is so irresponsible it borders on contemptible.  The BSU (currently presided over by a president who is Hispanic) doesn’t “draw lines” – it acknowledges the realities that lines are already drawn for black students by society and attempts to bridge them.  All of my interactions with them over the eight years I’ve worked at GRCC affirm this fact.

Something else that disturbs me about the Collegiate’s handling of the situation is that one of James Wisner’s friends (visible on Facebook), Mike Peterson, contributed to the story. I shouldn’t have to explain this to journalism students, but it’s poor journalistic ethics and puts the objectivity of the story in jeopardy when a reporter writes a story about a friend/associate.

Derek DeVries
GRCC Employee / Adjunct Faculty

Recommended Search Tools for Job Seekers to Manage Their Online Reputations

With more and more employers (45% according to CareerBuilder) using the web to research the available information about prospective (and current) employees, it’s important to know what’s out there about you (and how to manage it).  While Google is a great go-to, these are some of my favorite search tools for looking people up:

• Pipl (www.pipl.com): A very powerful meta-engine with a really user-friendly results page for looking up people (hence the name).  It searches a ton of other engines and organizes the information in various categories: phone directories, background reports, social media profiles, profile photos, professional/business directories, public records (like court documents), publications, news results, photos, videos, etc.  Pipl is a favorite of Lifehacker users – and I agree.
• 123 People (www.123people.com): Similar to Pipl, this meta-engine is all about individuals and it pulls from a broad array of sources all deposited neatly into an easy-to-digest results page.  It searches for text records and also media (like profile photos).
• Wink (www.wink.com): Another people search engine that does a good job of narrowing down by location (though this means sacrificing some of the quantity of results).
• Resurrect Pages (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2570): An add-on to the Firefox web browser, this tool comes in handy when you find a dead link (either because the content has been removed or traffic has taken the site down).  With a right-click of your mouse, it quickly and easily gives you access to the cached/archived/mirror versions of webpages from several different resources (CoralCDN, Google Cache, Yahoo! Cache, The Internet Archive, MSN Cache, Gigablast, and WebCite).

There are a few other search tools but they’re not as good (like PeekYou) or they’re defunct (like Spock which is now owned by Intelius).

By the way – the same goes for EMPLOYERS; any employee worth hiring is searching for all available information about a prospective employer not only to bone up for the interview but to find out if an organization is good to work for.  (Leaving an “easter egg” somewhere online for prospective employees to find might make for an interesting way to test who is web-savvy).  Here are a few sites that cater to employees who want to review employers:

• Glassdoor (www.glassdoor.com)
• JobVent (www.jobvent.com)
• JobBite (www.jobbite.com)

Blogging Clergy? Bad idea.

iPope image courtesy ~brights

The Pope recently recommended that priests in the Catholic Church start blogging and using social media to connect with congregants.  Unless the Vatican is also re-thinking its entire stance on transparency – this is a bad idea.

An institution like the Vatican, legendary for how secretive its operations are, is poorly-positioned for social media which demands transparency.  Here are just some of the myriad problems they’re going to run into:

• Accidental Releases: Invariably when large numbers of people in an organization begin to use social media, the walls of the organization become much more porous.  This will shine light on things that could be controversial, from political stances to divisions within the church.
• Handling Dissent: the free-wheeling web demands that dissent be heard and these blogs/social media presences will be magnets for honest dissenters and trolls alike.  It’s challenging enough to respond to these people when your life is an open book, and it would be downright impossible if there are subjects one can’t broach.
• Tracking:  there are already social media apps that track behavior and make it public – one could easily imagine it coming out that such tools uncover some church leaders paying a little too much attention to photographs of some members of their congregation.  (Perhaps that isn’t such a bad thing).

My advice to any member of the clergy who intends to take the Pope up on his request: get a copy of Radically Transparent by Andy Beal and Judy Strauss and read it cover-to-cover before you get started.

The Unique Benefit of Livetweeting

It’s a gross analogy (forgive me) but Livetweeting is great because it’s like pre-chewing someone’s food for them.

One of my favorite ways to keep up with lectures or conferences I can’t attend (moreso than streaming video) is by following those livetweeting them because they do the hard work of selecting/attending to speakers, parsing out the nuggets of valuable information, and distilling them into bite-sided morsels.  Then like a mother bird, they regurgitate it into our gaping maws.

Not only that, but they establish a tangible record one can reference later if necessary.

The downside is that concision demanded by 140 characters can cause problems of translation and mixed messages.  But it’s good enough for an era of Perpetual Beta.  In addition, there are typically multiple people livetweeting the same event and one can compare their conclusions to get a good idea of what is actually being said.

Innovation? – There’s NOT an App for That

Save your organization some money: don’t create an app for the sake of creating an app.

As an attempt at innovative thinking, that idea is well past its shelf life because the novelty has worn off.  They’re the digital equivalent of a pen with your logo and address on it.

Unless you’re truly providing something that people demand, something of value (ie something they can’t get any other way), or using an app in a unique way – you’re wasting resources.  This is particularly true if you’re developing an application for regular web use (as opposed to a mobile platform where computing power and bandwith are scarce and something compact/convenient is itself a benefit … for now).

Rather than letting fans vote on the contents of your beverage, find out what color alert we’re on, or telling a naked woman what to wear/sing in the shower – consider these questions:

• Does your brand already have a community built around it and can you enhance that community with an app?
• Is the nature of your product/service such that customers benefit from interacting with it while on the go?
• Would you like to provide special access/benefits to a select group of early adopters and ardent fans?

If it’s not meeting those criteria – you’d probably be better off putting the money into beefing up your customer service operations.

The Futility of Abstaining From Social Media: A Plea for Rationality

Mashable just published an article surveying some of the recent stories of people rejecting social media (Anti-Social Media: A Rising Rebellion Against Web 2.0?).  They cite examples like the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine, workplace bans (citing productivity concerns), and the phenomena of teens rejecting Facebook.

An abstinence-only approach to social media will likely be as ineffective as the abstinence-only approach to sex education: both rely on ignorance and are based on the assumption that one can control the behavior of others.  It’s far more effective to  be pragmatic and arm people with information so that they’re empowered to make decisions about their future.

Problem is, it doesn’t matter if a handful of teens are rejecting Facebook; that’s not going to stop information about them (or any of us) from ending up online.

The details of your life are online whether or not you choose to publish them: friends and neighbors are posting photos of you, corporations are digitizing records, and government documents are going online.  The process has been slower for digital immigrants, but for digital natives – it can begin even before they’re born as parents and relatives post sonogram photos or blog the intimate details of the pregnancy.

Don’t believe me?  Search for yourself with Pipl (a seach engine focused on gathering information about individuals) and see what you find.

I sympathize with the privacy concerns (I, like most, used to do everything online under pseudonyms), but here are two realities you can count on:

1. More information will be published about you online.
2. The tools we use to aggregate, sort, index, and categorize information online will continue to improve.

In that context – abstaining from social media seems a bit foolish.  By trying to stay off the grid, you’re voiding your say in how you’re portrayed online.  People (university admissions offices, romantic prospects, and employers) will invariably use the web to learn about you, and it’s prudent to participate in the identity that is created for you online.  At the very least, it pays off to have a Facebook account so that you can keep track of what your friends are saying and posting about you (and ask them to hide or untag photos/videos or other content that you’d rather not have go public).

Employers attempting to force employees to abstain from social media to maintain productivity might want to more closely evaluate that approach.  First, it’s expensive and time-consuming to try to block access to everything online (and most efforts can easily be defeated anyway).  Second, it hasn’t been established whether or not social networking adversely affects productivity (the research thus far is pretty skimpy – and it’s mostly based on surveys as opposed to measuring/observing employees at work).  You’ll likely want to evaluate the type of work each employee is doing and consider factors like these before making a decision:

1. Do they need to incorporate creativity in their work?
2. Do they need to collaborate with others (including customers/clients) on their work?
3. Do they need to be aware of current events or social trends?
4. Do they need to stay in contact with co-workers/customers/clients who aren’t within yelling distance?
5. Do they need to frequently reference resources to do their job?

Be Your Own Guru: 15,740 Social Media Experts Can’t do it For You

According to B.L. Ochman, there are now nearly 16,000 social media “experts” on Twitter (up from 4,487 in May 2009).  Peter Shankman (@skydiver) had a great post a while ago (Is Your Social Media Expert Really an Expert?)  that featured a list of things to look for in a social media professional.  It’s a riff Brian Solis (@briansolis) has hit on as well.

Measuring expertise is a challenge because the concept is so new, there isn’t really a way for higher education to credential experts (and even if they could – given the “glacial” pace at which degree programs are approved it would certainly be outdated by the first graduating class).  It’s also not easy to parse out from job titles or an employment history.  Perhaps the most universal feature of social media expertise is the unending sprint to keep up with its evolution.

Regardless of how good a social media rockstar/guru/sufi/sage is, the reality is that there’s only so much he/she can do for you.  The most important part of “social media” is the “social” part – and they can’t do the heavy lifting for you there.  You need to be able to represent yourself.  That means you need to teach yourself through trial and error experimentation.  If you want something done right . . .

Teh Interwebs is more than the sum of its memes.  Beyond understanding the tools and how they work, much of social media expertise is tied up in understanding how to read the terrain, understand the trends and communicate with the tribes.  I imagine it’s feels similar to be an envoy or missionary.

Communication scholars used to think that there aren’t very many nonverbal cues in computer-mediated communication (CMC), but over the years they’ve dispelled that notion. Blogs, Tweets, Chatrooms are richly textured with nonverbal elements if one knows what to look for. One of my professors, Dr. Roy Winegar, wrote his doctoral dissertation on the ability to identify the gender of a chatroom participant based on their use of grammar.

Unless you trust an outside entity to answer complaints and give media interviews on your behalf – you need to grow a keener and better-developed use of all of your senses.  Just as valuable information can be gleaned by a hunter from a muddy footprint, much can be deduced online from how a profile photo is cropped or what cultural references someone reaches for in a discussion. When you’ve spent countless days and nights in chatrooms or instant messaging you become saturated with the conventions of the online world (which go well beyond emoticons, acronyms and memes).  I can tell when it’s safe to jump into a conversation online, and I’m really efficient at gathering information online because I can read the cues embedded in search results.  I don’t know that I can teach these things to someone else.

That’s why you need to be your own guru.  Even if one could condense that wisdom into a list of instructions for someone else to follow, everything online is constantly changing and the application of the wisdom changes with it.  Conversely, it’s increasingly difficult for someone outside your organization to speak for it because doing so is a 24-hour-a-day commitment that requires a content expert.

You have to live it.  No better time than now to get started.