George Washington knows Social Media

It’s time for a big confession: I’m a quote junkie. That’s right, I’m one of those people who troll the web for endless quotations from great thinkers of the past and attempt to apply them to my present. In the spirit of using quotes to better understand the world of today, I’ve employed a few from the first president of our country to help us get a firmer grasp on social media. Here goes…

“Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.”

Mr. Washington must have possessed the excellent gift of foresight, as many today are struggling with reputations online and how to maintain them. I suppose if one took this advice to heart, one would be obliged to investigate the people he/she follows to ensure they are worthy of one’s attention. This is not being snobby because Washington said to do it, and he’s the most down-to-earth dude that ever existed; he had wooden teeth for cryin’ out loud! Moving on…

“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the slaughter.”

This is a sentiment quite becoming of the first president of the United States and one we still hold strongly to today. As an eternal advocate of the people anywhere and a supporter of revolution in general, I hold this particular freedom (the one of speech) very highly. If the government doesn’t fear the revolt of its people, it has more freedom to abuse its power and that don’t jive with me. I’m sure George would be proud to know that people all over the world are still exercising their freedom to tweet. Oops, I meant speak. And finally,

“Let your Discourse with Men of Business be Short and Comprehensive.”

Do you mean like 140 characters short, Mr. President? Cause I’ve got that mess on lock-down. Word.

Social Media Ethics

There is a certain ethical code observed by social network users that states you don’t use other people’s work as your own. I believe it is the same ethical code observed by fifth graders when writing book reports. There is, of course, a way around this by simply stating where you found your art, content or statistics. I do declare it is called an attribution, and it’s pretty acceptable in this culture of share share share.

While Flickr and YouTube have specific rules stating that you cannot post content that you did not create yourself, this doesn’t stop a great deal of people from doing so. Most of the time users attribute to whom they have borrowed a photo or song and no one says anything. Occasionally people get their stuff taken down when it’s flat-out stolen.

The issue I must raise here is with the lack of guidelines by which social network staffers choose what content to remove and what can stay.

Yesterday, The New York Times reported that, Hossam el-Hamalawy posted photos he’d obtained of Egypt’s state security forces on Flickr, only to have them removed because he had not taken them himself.  I don’t know how Mr. el-Hamalawy obtained these photos and I’m not condoning stealing or plagiarism.

With that said, I find it unacceptable for Flickr to single out these photos to remove when so many other second-hand photos remain. If they don’t now remove all the other photos posted by a third party, they are making a statement on what it is and isn’t okay to steal and that doesn’t sit well with me.

It seems like a dangerous and slippery slope for Flickr to be making politicized statements like this. I think they need to put their feet firmly in one camp: either it is okay to post photos from other sources or it isn’t, bottom line.

Social Media V. Nature Pt.1

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/21304009″>Social Media V. Nature Pt. 1</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user2273904″>Lea Spencer</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

Social Media Headlines

This week’s social media-related headlines that were just too obvious or ridiculous to go un-commented on.

1. Facebook “Likes” More Profitable Than Tweets (Mashable)

What? Do you mean to tell me that Facebook, a social network with more than 500 million users, would score higher with advertisers and consumers than Twitter, one with 200 million users? I am shocked at those conclusions. Oh wait, no that actually makes perfectly logical sense. Never mind.

2. For Some Clergy, Social Media a Blessing (North County Times)

Very clever. I hope the Pope is the kind of guy who can appreciate a well-crafted pun.

3. Social Media Popularity Can Predict Stock Prices (VentureBeat)

Right. And my Tweet Rank can predict natural disasters. I had a lower number when there were no hurricanes or earthquakes, and when one did happened, my number was higher. I know it’s not a coincidence. Why? Because I’ve written a report that says it isn’t.

4. Social Media 101 for Corporations: Be Human (Huffington Post)

Really? Come on, Arianna.

5. Social Media a Growing Player in Elections (The Caucus– NYTimes)

Are you sure you didn’t mean to publish this in 2008, when social media was still a growing player in elections? A Pew Research study in concluded that, in 2010, 6 out of 10 Americans get some of their news from online sources. Since social media seems to know no party lines, as both sides have strong online presences, 2012 should be amusing to say the least.

Socrates and Social Media

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for. – Socrates

In our 21st century world of share share sharing articles, I’ve returned to the ancients to help us better understand our methods of learning and communication.

Many people use Twitter, Facebook and other social media to promote their own products and writings. However, any good Tweep knows it takes a lot more than self-promotion to gain a substantial following. In order to become a “thought leader” in your industry, one must be aware of all that is being written on their subject. Furthermore, one must be willing and able to share that information in a timely fashion, otherwise why would people bother following?

This culture of sharing articles is so ingrained in us at this stage in the social media game, we don’t even realize we’re doing it. If I read an article that I find the least bit interesting, I have several sharing options available to me right from the news/blog page. It takes relatively no effort and yet, this is one great way to build a positive online presence.

Obviously, it would be ideal if you, yourself, were able to break the stories and write the articles, but not everyone is a journalist and even fewer people can get jobs in journalism. So where does that leave the rest of us? You guessed it! Tweeting and blogging.

It’s the next level of communicating. The first level would be researching, interviewing and writing a news article. The next level is essentially compiling all the news and blogs written about your subject and feeding them through Twitter. You can even write your own blog about the subject and sprinkle links to it in with the other news.

Once you begin establishing yourself as a hub of knowledge in your industry, people will slowly start regarding you as such. Eventually, when they want to know what is going on in whatever field you write about, they will check out your Twitter page and/or blog. You have then essentially become the journalist in the 21st century definition of the word.

You aren’t doing all the grunt work that goes into writing a news article. Maybe your blog will have original interviews, but even if it never does, you can become important online without doing anything more than studying the writings of those around you. With varied research and extensive knowledge of how to find news and blogs on your subject, you will be able to do like Socrates says and use, with great ease, that which others have labored long on.

Maybe this sounds unethical, but I would argue that when given proper credit (which is paramount) anyone would appreciate their article/blog being cited in someone else’s or shared on Twitter. I know I would. Anyone disagree?

Social Media Sweeps SXSW

Austin is a different kind of town.

It has both an unwashed hipster feel and a techy, almost nerdy energy that permeates its streets. If I met a man who was a software designer by day and a pedicab driver by night I’d probably just nod my head and think, “yeah that’s about right.”

South By Southwest has been an Austin institution since 1987 and as a matter of fact, so have I. During the year and in the place of my birth, South By began as both a music and a media festival and evolved in the nineties to include film and interactive media sections.

So it’s really no surprise that this year’s social media explosion has been easily adopted by the festival. The SXSW website hosts a directory tool with new social media capabilities for 2011. This year, registrants can be notified of any Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn friends also attending.

If you’re from the Austin area, you know someone who is in a band, so even though it’s much more than just a music festival, South By often gets dubbed as such. Usually the buzz surrounding it is, by and large, about the different bands that are playing and locally, if your friends made it or not. But this year social media has dominated the conversation.

Being home to UT, one of the largest universities in the country, Austin has an ideal atmosphere for debuting whatever super cool app you’ve been working on this year. This is because a typical Austinite must have the newest gadget as soon as it comes out even though he’s still rocking a pair of suspenders belonging to his grandfather.

Foursquare was launched at the 2009 festival and in two short years has gained 7.5 million users.

Twitter had its “Coming Out Party” at SXSW in 2007. The Telegraph reported this morning that, on its 5th birthday, Twitter now has more than 200 million users. So it’s not difficult to see why people come out in tens of thousands with an equal number of ideas, all hoping to be “the next big thing” in social media.

Will they emulate the great success of others before them? Maybe some of them. Will they come back next year to do it all again? Most definitely. Any year could be their year.

‘Cause Austin’s a different kind of town.

Social Media in Space

I’ve been longing to add a multimedia aspect to this blog. So for lack of originality and general kitschy-ness, I’ve chosen Monday for purely alliteration purposes.

I’ll be posting either a photo, photo composites or video that deal with Social Media on some level. Consider this Multimedia Monday number one. Holler back.

Did Social Media Kill Privacy?

“Privacy is dead, and social media hold the smoking gun.” – Pete Cashmore, Mashable CEO

I read this quote on a list of quotes, available here, and it struck me as odd. Both because Mashable is a social media news site that could obviously not exist if not for social media, and also because I disagree. The former is just an observation, one I’m sure you could have made for yourself. The latter, however, is my opinion and with that we begin…

Privacy is defined by Merriam-Webster online as “the quality or state of being apart from company or observation” or “freedom from unauthorized intrusion.” While I don’t particularly care for the first definition, because there are two, my response will have to be two-fold.

First, “the state of being apart from company” is something we elect to give up when we join social networks. No one made you be on Facebook or Twitter. If you truly have given away some of your privacy by simply joining one of these networks, you can get it back quickly just by ditching your account.

Secondly, once you are on Facebook or Twitter, you have supreme reign over that account. This means that you can exercise your free will to maintain whichever level of privacy you feel comfortable with. If you don’t want someone to see your posts/tweets, you can block them. Or if the number of people you want reading your posts is so small that it would be easier to select who can than who can’t you can make your profile private to only people you friend/follow. Any intrusions on your privacy are therefore authorized by you and only you.

So, if you a) choose to be on social media, you are giving up definition 1 of privacy and b) choose not to apply privacy settings, you are yourself responsible for any “unauthorized intrusions,” which rebukes definition 2 of privacy.

I’m afraid the case is closed and the culprit apprehended. Facebook was a red herring, the real criminal is you and me. Just like the NRA says, “social media doesn’t kill privacy; people kill privacy.” It’s all on us.

Charlie Sheen Embarasses Social Media

…and himself. But mostly social media and here’s why:

Out of Sheen’s recent media tornado came a spiral of social media debris, for lack of a better word, and it has been entertaining to the say the least. It all began with Sheen’s exclusive interviews last week on ABC’s 20/20 and NBC‘s Today, who by the way I am sending a dictionary to so they might look up the word “exclusive.”

Watching Sheen in these interviews was utterly anxiety-producing. It was like watching a baby deer learn how to walk; I kept thinking, “You can do it, you can do it,” and while I was hoping Sheen could keep the crazy to a minimum, the social media realm was in a frenzy.

Sheen offered far too many perfectly twitter-sized bites of crazy for me and my tweeps to ignore. My favorite, of course being, “I am on a drug. It’s called Charlie Sheen. It’s not available. If you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.” – I know I should be tweeting and writing about more substantive topics, but come on, this stuff is social media gold.

It was like Christmas on Twitter!

Then, when we all thought it couldn’t get any better, Sheen was fired from his TV show Two and a Half Men. I know what you’re thinking: Didn’t that happen a year ago? I thought so too; but no, apparently, that was just a suspension. I guess they hoped he might get clean and come back to continue, but since the drug he’s on is himself and the only antidote is more goddesses, they must have decided to call it a day.

Just as we expected, Sheen took the classy high road in response to his termination. Channeling Martin Luther King, Jr., he shouted “free at last” from a rooftop while performing what’s being called a machete dance. Please, take a moment to watch the video, I’ll wait.

I know, right! It’s too good; I almost spit out my coffee with glee. So surely this must be his rock bottom. He’ll definitely take some time now to get away from the limelight and sort himself out, right?

Wrong.

Sheen has now hired a self-proclaimed social media guru to ensure his online presence continues to grow without the fame of the TV show. Also, if you’re looking for work, he is now looking for a new goddess, I’m sorry, I meant intern. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that one goddess left him the same day he began accepting intern applications.

And I’m sure this tweet Update: Sober Valley Lodge; Rachel has left the building…, We’re sad…. Over it… Applications now being accepted! #winner is a silly joke. Still, if you want to be among the thousands who have already applied, click here.

Good luck, I hope you get it! And the “it” I’m referring to is infectious disease.

Social Media: Do this, but that.. Don’t do that.

DO

Be on a variety of social networks. Be active on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress/Blogger, yes. BUT also check out some of your more industry-specific networks. If you’re an entertainer for example, check out The Biz or if you’re a lawyer, check out Legally Minded. These are, by no means, a replacement for the global social networks, but they are a good compliment if the community you are trying to foster is industry-specific.

DON’T

Feel the need to follow/friend every person who follows/friends you. This isn’t a fifth grade class on Valentine’s Day and you are under no obligation to give a valentine, approve a friend request or follow anyone you don’t particularly care to. I always try to thank people for following me, but if I don’t feel as though I’d gain much from their tweets, I don’t bother. Maybe that makes me a meanie-head, but I don’t care.

DO

Blog. Blog Blog Blog. I can’t stress the importance of this enough. Any possible topic you could choose to write about has an audience for you to write to. From medical advice to gardening tips, if you are engaging and amusing, people will read your stuff.

DON’T

Drop the ball every few months. If you can’t commit to tweeting daily or blogging at least once a week, blow it off. Unless you are writing for your own personal satisfaction (which is fine) a blog or twitter account that’s only updated once a month is not going to remain on anyone’s radar.

DO

Find a way to stand out. Remember there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of other people writing about the same topic as you. Almost as important as writing frequently is writing about different things or in a different way. This is a blog about social media’s impact on us, as humans. But it’s sassy, and that’s why you’re reading it.

DON’T

Be afraid to disagree with someone. Especially if someone asks for your opinion. I’m inclined to give mine whether or not it’s requested and that probably works to my disadvantage, but if people ask if you have thoughts on something and you do, share them!

DO

Take everything you read with a grain of salt. Social Media has only developed over the last decade so anyone who thinks they know anything about it is guessing at best. Don’t think that just because someone has 100,000 followers that they are the expert. In an industry as ever-evolving as this one, anyone who thinks they’ve “figured it out,” is kidding themselves because by the time they really “get it,” the very it has already changed.