Erica Glasier: Oversocialized!

Don your tinfoil helmets, oh friended ones, and wrap your conspiracy theories around this…

Facebook celebrated their 6th birthday by announcing their network now boasts 400 million souls, or almost 6% of the earth’s population. Facebook’s birthday is February 4th…02/04..2+4 is—gulp—6! If you’re slow with math, that’s three big fat 6’s in a row.

Oh my. Let’s bust out the Bible and see what it has to say about this.

Daniel 8:23-25
And through his policy also he shall cause deceit to prosper in his hand…

Could that refer to a privacy policy, possibly the one that roped in millions of users who never dreamed their friend lists would one day be made public? A policy that, once we had unstoppable group inertia* due to our elderly parents making likely their only leap to social networking, then changed to make way for better search results and advertising revenues? Gosh, I hope not.

Daniel 7:24-27
And he shall speak great words against the most High…and think to change times and laws.

Ok, if “he” is Mark Zuckerberg and “the most High” is the American Constitution (specifically, the Fourth Amendment, guarding against “unreasonable searches” and protecting “a reasonable expectation of privacy”) and the “times” he’d  like to change are the famous social norms regarding privacy, am I painting a scary enough picture for you yet? But wait…

Revelation 13:3-18
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the Mark.

Gartner Research predicts that by 2012—the end of the freaking Mayan calendar—”Facebook will lead the pack in developing the distributed, interoperable social Web through Facebook Connect and similar mechanisms. The interoperability will be critical to survival of other social networks. Other social networks (including Twitter) will continue to develop…However, they will all revolve around Facebook.” In other words Facebook will control the universe. The universe may or may not include your disposable income.

Alrighty then. Nothing to panic about. We knew the end times were probably upon us anyway. Let him that hath understanding reckon the number of the beast. Hopefully this newfound prophetic clarity is a balm for those souls chapped about controlling their own information. Let it help you accept your fate with grace. I, for one, welcome our new Social Overlords. Happy Birthday, Facebook!

*Group inertia, or social inertia, is the critical mass attained when everyone you could possibly care about joins a social network, making it tough to leave lest they not follow to “the next big thing”.

In repsonse to Who should do your social media? my friend Liz Hover commented “I don’t think social media should be ‘assigned’ to a department. I think everyone in an organisation should be a part of social media”. Let’s address this idea as complimentary to establishing an official branded social media channel.

Do you know where advertising is ranked on the list of credibility these days? 17%. That means 83% of people think it’s a waste of time. Couple that with the fact that more information was created in 2009 than in the entire history of the world, and you’ve got a lot of people who don’t have time for your message, and wouldn’t believe it if they were forced to endure it.

Who do people listen to when it comes to a company’s product, service, or reputation?

• 64% take it on faith from “an expert”
• 41% would believe a conversation with an employee
• 44% would be convinced by a friend or peer

And where might people encounter a friend, who might happen to be an employee, who’s surely employed because of their expertise? Why, on a social network, during the almost 20% of time they spend online at all. Your brand voices are out there every day, interacting with existing and potential customers. Continue reading

The below are generalizations intended to help small to medium business owners get their feet wet in social media. There are brilliant exceptions to every rule.

You’re convinced. You heard social media marketing will be a $3 billion industry in the next five years. This is where it’s at. You’re all set to jump into a new decade with a totally techno, super digitally online cyber social media strategy, on the internet and everything. You’re going to listen, make friends, strike up conversations, the whole bit.

You look around your organization and wonder “who the heck is going to do our social media”?

There’s no universal right answer, but there’s a right answer for your company, for sure. It depends what you’re going to use social media for, and the answer to that might make the choice of mediator obvious (see “Customer Service). But barring an “everybody lives the brand, tweet as you will” Zappos-style strategy, you’re probably going to have to pick somebody (and if you’re a Tony Hsieh level-thinker, you don’t need to read any farther. Go innovate!).

Let’s start with a job description. What’s this future socializer going to do? They’re going to socialize! Fundamentally they’re going to make friends with other people and seek to help them out with their troubles, sometimes brand-related, and sometimes hopefully not. Continue reading

You may have felt like this.

Happy Data Privacy Day! A day to relax with family and friends IRL, ponder your digital fingerprint and maybe grill a few Tofurkey sausages.

I’m celebrating Data Privacy Day by staying offline for 24 hours. By “offline”, I mean “not on Facebook”, lest you think I have magic analogue blogging powers. I’m  temporarily defecting from the Big F, as a conscientious objection to its recent bait and switch privacy shenanigans. 24 hours logged out of the world’s most popular social network. I can totally do that. It’s just one little website.

Bleary this morning without my usual cup of decaf (I’m whitening), my mouse moves automatically toward the little blue and white ‘f’ icon in my bookmarks toolbar. Whoa! I think, barely deflecting the click in time. Let’s visit somewhere else. Twitter, perhaps. Twitter use doesn’t strike me as contrary to the spirit of Privacy Day, because despite the fact that it’s actually more publicly searchable, I use it for business and it contains no pictures of me drinking beer.

In support of my Privacy Day tweet, I google* “Data Privacy Day”. The second search result is a Facebook page. Ubiquitous little bugger, that Facebook. I neatly avoid that particular link and go on about my day.

On the road, I wonder how my husband’s convergent media panel at ALL ACCESS: The Digital Incubator is going. Normally I’d Facebook him and see what was shaking. Unlocking my iPhone and heading for the blue square is almost one smooth motion; again I brake and consider my other communication options. I’m not going to phone him, for Pete’s sake. What’s this “messages” icon? Huh. I suppose I could text him. That would actually be faster. Ok. Continue reading

The spread of smartphones and location-aware mobile technology is opening up a (smaller) world of local marketing possibilities.

3 words: location, location, location. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

You’re the CEO, Senior VP of Marketing, and Chief Janitor of your very own local small business. You typically place an ad in the yellow pages, stuff a few dayglo flyers in mailboxes, and have a brochure website with an infrequently-updated ‘news’ section (because frankly, you can’t think of a whole lot of news with which to fascinate the public). You’ve heard of this new-fangled socialized media thing, but near as you can tell it’s all retired ladies stalking their in-laws and teenagers sending untoward photos to each other. But you also hear it costs less than fluorescent photocopies.

With major marketing superpowers like Pepsi skipping the superbowl and Coke basically declaring websites obsolete in order to refocus ad dollars on social media, Local Small Businessmen can safely assume the research is in, and traditional advertising isn’t. Social media is officially a great publicity channel. But what makes 2010 the year to dive in? Continue reading

Hooray for boobies!

It was girls gone virtually wild on Facebook yesterday, as a ‘tell us your bra colour’ meme quickly infected the rest of the world from some patient zeros in Detroit. I heard about it on a New York ladies’ forum before I saw it in action, with the rationale that it was for breast cancer awareness. When it popped up amongst my Facebook friends, the ‘awareness’ mechanism became clear: each highly descriptive, cryptic colour was like a wink, forcing you to pause a moment and picture each friend in her skivvies.

So how does that steamy little moment promote breast cancer awareness? Jaded females wondered if they were being pwned by the internet and giving up the goods for free. But think about it: there are a couple approaches to marketing a cause*. Show people the disaster that looms without their support, or make them think about the great thing they already have & threaten to take it away. In the case of boobs, you’ve got a great product to call to mind! Taking a moment (or several, depending on the size of friends list) to reflect on the glory of boobs certainly makes you appreciate them. You’d hate to see any lost to breast cancer. Continue reading