I know the first thing you’re thinking: “Facebook does not a social media campaign make.” But, you know, it’s a start.
I'm a guy who needs a little space for my mind to roam.
Archives for posts with tag: Facebook
Over the course of the day I will be left with several “themes” via Twitter. These range from the typical, “Wow, look at everyone using localtweeps.com, I wonder if that will ever take off?” -or- the “Man, how many people are really thinking that Google is going to acquire Twitter?“
From the mundane to the extraordinary (relatively), Twitter picks up and loves to populate certain topics (hey, you knew there had to be a reason those digg.com guys have done so well). Today’s topic circled around the frustration with a few of my favorite online hangouts:
So, a few (mounting) instances of user distraught.
Nothing crazy, eye-popping or earth shattering by any extent of the imagination. But the consistency and pacing of these messages seemed to happen endlessly throughout the day (the aforementioned being a select few).
I know it’s how I found myself stumbling around with the seemingly perpetual thought of, “Oh my god, we’re making money off something we have no control over!” and the “All my information I save online is going to one day disappear!”. PANIC!
Yes, I went straight apocalyptic in my brain today; the death of the Internet played out with vivid recourse.
My goal here is not to incite fear, or venture to say that anyone has been thinking/doing it wrong. Frankly, saving media online is the case study on how to most safely harbor, maintain and share information, ever (that’s like forever, ever; sometime before 1985 is when time began I believe, but I digress). Your stuff is safe, just read up on “cloud computing” (thanks to @mattsingley for highlighting that thought).
I want to get to the heart of this issue without denying relevance to our work. We are working inside a medium that we do not always control. Publishing a video on YouTube, posting a Page on Facebook, maintaing contacts and conversation on Twitter all could end tomorrow, leaving us no recourse to justify an investment of any kind. Facebook “went down” today for two hours; what was the value-loss of that standard maintenance to say the Dell Consumer Page?
My point being is that we still have questions; as do all forms of free-services and many advertising mediums. The contract we enter with “Social Media” sites is based solely on the pretense that the service is a universal and fully functioning vehicle, but what happens when that vehicle breaks or needs repair, or worse yet, goes out of business?
These are the questions we still grapple with everyday. We’ve only begun to start answering, hell, we’ve only begun asking pointed, smart questions about “new media” and its offshoots. The answers we have postulated are undoubtedly wrong in most instances, so we will all discover a patience as we trudge through the very necessary trial and error.
And yes, there are hundreds upon thousands of people working tirelessly everyday to ensure that our information is safe and protected for the ages (Google “Google” and read down 2 pages).
I remember my first defense for contributing on Twitter. I was thinking how cool it would have been to read the thoughts of people who came before me (maybe the jobless advertiser during the Great Depression, or Paul Newman’s days before landing his first acting gig, or my great-great grandfather’s first trip to America) in stark transparency. These were the stories that could have been saved in the tomes of a server rack somewhere in Des Moines, IA or Austin, TX given the technology. Think about the leave behind; I think the awesomeness, absoluteness and beauty of the reward far outweighs all of the risk.
Peace.
mjb
Facebook turned 5 years old today. What’s that mean? Who’s that affect? Does Mark Zuckerburg have to worry about his “feisty five” year-old. Great, grand, wonderful! I’m glad he’s worth 30 billion theoretical internet dollars.
So Twitter you say?
Twitter‘s only a terrible-two, having surged to the frontlines around 3Q of 2006 (if you can even call it completely “frontlined” yet). For those of you who have yet to experience Twitter’s near infinite potential, the site is designed as a “microblog” or micro messaging service. Basically, you have 140 characters (about the same amount of characters of previous, standard text messages) to say what you’re thinking, doing, needing; anything and everything is at your fingertips (in 140 keystrokes).
I was a self-proclaimed early skeptic of the service. Finding two major flaws: 1.) The overall lack of information (seemingly limited profiles with seemingly limited content) and 2.) An interface that is at best overwhelming and at worst disheveled (like a magazine rack hit with a hydrogen bomb). It was hyped by just about every Social Media guy I had run into, but of course the fraternity of second-tier-marketing-geeks would think so (hey, I consider myself part of that industrious group, we’re definitely not always the “cool-kids”). That’s the great thing about social media; you can’t really pigeonhole anyone (we’ll talk about the resurgence of the “me” somewhere down the line). But I digress…
I sucked it up, signed up and 20-minutes later found myself “tweeting” with people I had never met, let alone heard of. I’ve been on Twitter for about 6-months now in varying degrees. My experience has been great, reaching out to potential clients, vendors and friends in a succinct and somewhat fashionable form. That’s the great thing about Twitter, you can “follow” people without that weird “morning after” feeling you get after connecting with someone on LinkedIn that you knew was a stretch from the beginning (You know who I’m talking about Mr. LinkedIn creep-job). Following someone on Twitter let’s you reach (either through a private direct message, or public @message) anybody (literally, a potential client, consumer, vendor, friend). It’s a relatively early-adoptive, open community so there’s always someone looking to help.
Back to my major problems with Twitter: 1.) Lack of info. False. People update and post great info all the time on Twitter. In fact, the first pictures of the downed U.S. Airways flight in the Hudson surfaced on Twitter about fifteen-minutes before any of the major news networks we’re broadcasting (through a service called “TwitPic” that lets you link pictures directly to Twitter). Yes, cool pictures of an amazing commercial jet landing are awesome, but more selfishly, your customers are on Twitter talking about you. Have a consumer brand? go to Twitter Search and type it in. Watch and be attentive (you see a whole set of brands listening and learning on Twitter: @comcastcares @zappos @MolsonFerg to name a few prominent members of each company).
Problem 2.) Crappy interface. False. Sort of. The Twitter web interface is a little strange and not the easiest to navigate. But the great open source developers out there have your answer. Need a Twitter program on your desktop? I use the Beta version of twhirl that runs using Adobe Air. Although the Twitterverse’s prominent service is the TweetDeck.
Need Twitter on your cell phone? Blackberry has an app. The iPhone has countless Twitter apps, with my favorites being Tweetie and the free-version of Twitterific.
So on the 5th Anniversary of Facebook what can we take away? Twitter is an efficient (by design), highly powerful tool that let’s you branch out, connect with friends, and make that dreaded cold-call in a manner that won’t put you on a “Unsubscribe” list. Oh yea, it also let’s you peer into the day to day happenings of anyone who is willing to share. George Orwell is rolling in his grave.
Peace.
mjb
(I know this post is about a year out of date, but we’re still newbies here in St. Louis so bear with me…)
