Posts tagged social media


Is social media re-wiring a generation?

May 27th

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On a rainy day, I was sitting in a shopping mall people-watching. About 75% of the folks between the ages of 13 and 25 were either texting or talking on their phone as they were walking – even if they were with a group.
Being a teen is all about connecting with friends and social media is the perfect channel to do that. In fact, the average teen in America texts nearly 1,500 times a month and 15,000/month is not unheard of (that’s 500 messages per day!)
Clearly, screen-based stimulation has become the primary source of socialization and entertainment among teens and increasingly younger children. Just a few generations ago, the vast majority of a child’s time was playing with friends in the dirt, kicking a ball or playing “house” (or if you go way back, I guess they played “cave.”) What’s the impact of the “highly-wired child” in our new world?
The social media brain
An individual’s neural framework is nearly set by the time they are 15 years old. Everything a child experiences forms neural pathways, and the most-used pathways become aspects of their personality and the foundation of how they interact as adults. Before the days of screen-based entertainment (most of human history!), the strongest pathways were naturally formed by intense socialization with family members and friends, physical activity and interacting with nature in some way.
With so many children spending MOST of their time in front of keyboards and flashing screen, I began to think about this impact on their development and on society. Wouldn’t personality development in the digital age have to be fundamentally, drastically and permanently different?
A disregard for consequence
New research confirms this. A professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln College (U.K.) claims social network sites risk infantilizing the mid-21st century mind, leaving it characterized by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathize, and a shaky sense of identity.
Professor Lady Greenfield said the rapid-fire reward of video games and text messaging could be a cause of the three-fold rise in Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) over the past 10 years.
She warned against “a marked preference for the here-and-now, where the immediacy of an experience trumps any regard for the consequences. After all, whenever you play a computer game, you can always just play it again; everything you do is reversible. The emphasis is on the thrill of the moment, the buzz of rescuing the princess in the game. No care is given for the princess herself, for the content, or for any long-term significance, because there is none. This type of activity — a disregard for consequence — can be compared with the thrill of compulsive gambling or compulsive eating.
“The sheer compulsion of reliable and almost immediate reward is being linked to similar chemical systems in the brain that may also play a part in drug addiction, Greenwood said. “So we should not underestimate the ‘pleasure’ of interacting with a screen when we puzzle over why it seems so appealing to young people.”
A new way of relating
For teens already struggling with insecurity, social networking can provide a constant reassurance that they are listened to, recognized, and valued. That can be a good thing unless there is no balance with other life skills such as learning to interpret non-verbal behaviors, holding a conversation, and dealing with conflict when you don’t have the time to think up a witty text message.
Free, instantaneous, global communication is creating a generation who will recoil at the thought of three-dimensional conversations, whose social identity and self-esteem will be validated by flashing messages on a computer or cellphone screen. The sanitized, detached world of social media has become the norm, and will reach even younger children with new innovations that avoid live interactions.
While this sounds depressing, follow the logic through to its conclusion. Social media is not going away … quite the opposite. So in the ADD world of our future, those who grew up as digital natives of the Facebook society should have an ADVANTAGE over those who were sheltered. Can you imagine a world where an articulate, well-spoken, well-read individual is the social outcast? If you’re under 20, it’s here.
Life was so much simpler when I was playing in the dirt.
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Authenticity and the new world of "earned media"

May 18th

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“Being real” has always been a keystone of marketing and advertising, but in a digital world where impressions are fast and last forever, authenticity is more important than ever.
I recently engaged in a discussion with Michael Torano, President at Sevens Full (a consultant who works on digital out-of-home advertising), who had some great insights into becoming a successful participant in social media:
“The old adage “Content is King” also applies to social networking, social media and online community efforts for business. Advertising has historically been a one-way conversation as marketers “shout” their message in whatever medium reaches potential customers. Social media should be treated as “EARNED MEDIA” and is an opportunity to engage and participate in the conversation rather than direct it.
“For this reason, successful and efficient social media marketing tactics should be a participatory engagement with the sharing of information, tips, etc. relevant to your business. If your engeagement (updates, tweets, blog, etc.) is delivered as yet another “media channel” with a constant stream of offers, ads, coupons, etc. you’ll find that it is treated as advertising and “tuned out.” Who wants to “follow” an advertiser for commercials anyway?
“Regarding online communities and other social networking media, be prepared to surrender control of the conversation. You’ll have to take the bad with the good and respond to both. This provides an inexpensive, real-time opportunity to hear/read what your customers and prospective customers have to say about your product and/or service.
“Many firms utilize social media as an additional channel for customer service and FAQ support rather than marketing. There’s nothing wrong with adding a little “personality” (humor, daily activities, opinions, etc.) to the stream of updates. Most will consider it pleasant and even reply; this places a real person in your stream and invites even further engagement. Place a marketing message in your stream. Just be sure it’s surrounded by non-advertising related content to keep the dialogue going and to attract followers and community.”
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Tonight, the Twitter Era became official

May 18th

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It’s nearly 1 a.m. and I am glued to my computer watching the Twitter “tweets” from folks in California experiencing a 5.0 earthquake. By chance, I was online and saw a message come through that an earthquake was rattling Central L.A. I searched for the keyword and watched a steady stream of communication come through that expressed many human emotions — fear, relief and humor.

This is a significant event for two reasons. First, this is the first natural disaster since Twitter reached a critical mass of users in the last few months. Without the numbers supporting it, it could not have been an effective “personal broadcast channel.” I witnessed the power of in-the-moment communication through thousands of perspectives.

Second, because of the platform’s immediacy, eyewitness accounts of the quake were streaming out of the city before the traditional media could catch up. In fact, 12 minutes after the news was streaming out of L.A. on Twitter, there was still no post on the CNN website.

Yes, most of the communication I’m seeing is garbage … one fellow posted, “If Twitter is the future of news, and it’s 20,000 stories in 5 minutes saying “there was totally just an earthquake” … we’re in trouble.”

And there is a lot of humor, too. (“To minimize loss and damage in a quake, try not to own things.”) … probably because the natural disaster apparently is not too serious this time.

But woven through the OMG’s and LMAO’s was a compelling thread of humanity and an entirely new way to experience a current event. The next time there is a terrorist attack or crisis, many will “tune in” to Twitter for their news.

Twitter grew up tonight.

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Corporate social media guidelines emerge

May 15th

1 comment

One of the hottest topics in social media right now is how to handle these rapidly emerging communications platforms in the context of a public company and corporate responsibility.
This is the Wild West of Internet communications and it’s getting wilder by the minute as people stream onto social media platforms and, inevitably figure out how to abuse it.
All communications, everywhere, all the time presents a nightmare scenario for corporate communications professionals. Where does the line cross between free speech and corporate responsibility? Between open community and terms of employment? How does a large company possibly monitor hundreds of thousands messages that may represent a permanent communication record?
In a recent article, I forecast that companies would have to provide strict guidelines and hierarchical lines of communication in this new era, just as it had in the old. Some readers disagreed, and the results remain to be seen, but in the last week, I’ve read about the first public revelations on internal guidelines that explicitly prohibit employees from engaging in online communications that could denigrate the reputation of the company. Some forbid employees from even revealing who they work for, in some social media situations.
Predictably, the first hard guidelines are coming from news organizations, where the lines between reporting and personal commentary cannot be blurred.
This week the Wall Street Journal posted ground rules for its employees on how to use Twitter and other social media platforms. The rules include:
  • Sharing your personal opinions, as well as expressing partisan political views, whether on Dow Jones sites or on the larger Web, could open us to criticism that we have biases and could make a reporter ineligible to cover topics in the future for Dow Jones.
  • Consult your editor before “connecting” to or “friending” any reporting contacts.
  • Let our coverage speak for itself, and don’t detail how an article was reported, written or edited.
  • Don’t disparage the work of colleagues or competitors.
  • Business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter … if you are in doubt about the appropriateness of a Tweet or posting, discuss it with your editor before sending.
The New York Times internal guidelines caution:
“… personal blogs and “tweets” represent you to the outside world just as much as an 800-word article does. If you have or are getting a Facebook page, leave blank the section that asks about your political views.”
“Anything you post online can and might be publicly disseminated, and can be twisted to be used against you by those who wish you or The Times ill.”
“Just remember that we are always under scrutiny by magnifying glass and that the possibilities of digital distortion are virtually unlimited, so always ask yourself, could this be deliberately misconstrued or misunderstood by somebody who wants to make me look bad?
And the BBC took a similar approach when it said its employees:
  • Should not engage in activities on the Internet which might bring the BBC into disrepute.
  • Should not post derogatory or offensive comments on the Internet.
  • Should be mindful of the information they disclose on social networking sites. Where they associate themselves with the Corporation (through providing work details or joining a BBC network) they should act in a manner which does not bring the BBC into disrepute.
  • Cannot indicate where they are employed on their personal blogs.

Companies are not democracies and they have the right to employ people who do not want to cause them harm. Although the media companies were among the first to deploy strict guidelines on personal use of social media, the desire to maintain an untarnished reputation is no less important for other companies and we certainly see this practice become prevalent.

Missing from any of these published policies i– consequences. How far will companies go to reach into the public domain of free speech to protect their reputations? And what about disgruntled employees who have an axe to grind against an employer? Another prediction: Companies will begin offering monetary pay-outs to employees they dismiss, with the legal condition that they engage in no public communication to disparage the company.

I think we will soon see the first examples of companies punshing employees who violate these guidelines, setting the stage for new court cases examining the rights to free speech and the role of social media in our world.

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