Tag Archives: Twitter

February 4, 2012 · 11:06 AM

Is Social Media Addictive?

Has this ever happened to you?

You would have finished a current work project a long time ago, but you just couldn’t ween yourself away from your Twitter feed long enough to concentrate.

You’re kind of depressed that you don’t feel as happy as all my your Facebook friends seem to be.

If the answer is “yes,” perhaps it’s time to admit powerlessness and get yourself to a meeting of Social Media Addicts Anonymous (SMAA), a new group for folks addicted to all things social and unable to manage their lives, careers and relationships.

If this sounds ridiculous, check out this post from Erik Sass at The Social Graf, or this December 2011 article from Danial Gulati in the Harvard Business Review.

In the former, Sass cites a recent study following 250 social media users (ages 18 to 85) in Wurzburg, Germany. As reported in the journal Psychological Science, when asked to give up all social media, subjects reported:

“…social media was harder to resist than a gamut of other behaviors: ‘In contrast, people were relatively successful at resisting sports inclinations, sexual urges, and spending impulses, which seems surprising given the salience in modern culture of disastrous failures to control sexual impulses and urges to spend money.’ Likewise, the subjects’ reports for alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine marked their desires for these substances at relatively low levels compared to social media.”

Social media more addictive than alcohol, caffeine, tobacco and sex???

Wow.

HBR’s Gulati, author of the book Passion & Purpose, observes three major trends emerging among heavy Facebook users:

A tendency to compare their own personal situation unfavorably to those of their “friends.” In other words, people read the happy posts and see the smiling photos of their online friends and begin to feel that their own happiness and worth are wanting when compared to others’. (I wrote about this Facebook-depression link in a previous post.)
Time fragmentation. We’re so busy checking our Facebook pages or Twitter feeds that we’re not able to fully concentrate on our work or everyday tasks. “Multitasking” has taken on a life of its own, to the point where people are switching back and forth between “real life” and social media on a minute-by-minute basis.
A decline in close personal relationships. Why get together with your girlfriend for lunch when you can get caught up with her via Facebook? Connecting via social media is just like having a real relationship without all the mess. You can share what you want and you can quit listening at any time.

Just as the addict seeks to fill the void in his life with drink or drug, a person addicted to social media crave the “connection” these technologies provide as a way to fill the holes in his life.

As marketers, we talk about using social media as a way to “connect” with consumers and how companies can use Facebook, Twitter, etc., to “humanize” themselves and “become more authentic.”

But are we really accomplishing these goals, or merely contributing to a global addiction that ultimately will leave us all distracted, disconnected and depressed?

At this point, no one knows.

As someone who sits at a desk the majority of the day, I know it’s hard for me to get out and actually have a real conversation with a live human being (which means listening as well as talking) as often as I’d like.

However, I have found through my professional experience that it’s that face-to-face interaction that enables the type of trust and personal connection that makes business work.

If you want your company to behave more humanely, consider the interactions between the humans who work for you and the humans who buy from you. Is technology helping or hurting?

Are you doing all you can to foster true connection? Or are you merely trying to seduce and sedate your audience into an unhealthy relationship?

See you at the coffee shop.

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Filed under Listening, Social Media

Tagged as addiction, Facebook, Harvard Business Review, relationships, social media, technology, Twitter

June 22, 2011 · 10:58 AM

#RogerEbert, #SocialMedia and the #FirstAmendment

I kinda figured Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago) wasn’t a fan of the “Jackass” television shows and movies (although I personally find them gut-bustingly hilarious despite my alleged high IQ and fancy college degree), but the famed film critic ruffled feathers when he posted the following tweet after “Jackass” player Ryan Dunn’s death in a car crash early Monday morning:

As one might imagine, response to Mr. Ebert’s missive elicited some angry responses, so much so that Facebook pulled his page from the site. Ebert fired back:

The thumbs and keyboards of Ebert defenders and defamers, as well as Ebert himself, have been working overtime ever since.

Facebook spokeman Andrew Noyes later was quoted as saying that Mr. Ebert’s page “was removed in error.”

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a libertarian when it comes to the First Amendment, and I applaud anyone who chooses to exercise this right and out himself as a jerk or an idiot….it makes life easier for demographers to sort them into target audiences boxes.

But the larger issue here is the impact of social media on the laws of free speech.

For instance, let’s say the leadership at Facebook tomorrow decides they really want to see Barack Obama re-elected next year, and that they’re going to pull the pages of every other candidate. In theory, it’s their bat and ball, and they can make up the rules as they see fit.

Same thing with Twitter. I doubt that’s going to happen, but it could.

I may be wrong here, but unlike the “equal time” rules governing broadcast media (which use the public airwaves to deliver their messages), there are no laws governing what private businesses can and cannot do with their online media properties.

And that means that anything you’re posting to a social media site belongs to someone else, and that they have the power to remove, edit, block or delete your content depending on how they feel on any given morning.

Your freedom of speech is only as free as the owners of social media platforms want it to be.

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Filed under Issues Management, Social Media

Tagged as Facebook, First Amendment, Jackass, Roger Ebert, Twitter

June 20, 2011 · 12:57 PM

@FrankEliason’s Four Tips on Using Twitter for #CustomerService

Thanks to PR Daily publisher Mark Ragan for posting his conversation with former @ComcastCares social media guru, Frank Eliason, who’s now a senior vice president with Citi, on how to use Twitter for customer service.

If you’ve got five minutes to spare, check out the video HERE.

Eliason, whose efforts helped reverse negative public perceptions of the cable giant, offers four tips for companies considering Twitter (and other social media) when responding to customer complaints:

Be a person. Eliason suggests using your own name and Twitter handle when responding to a complaint, rather than having a response coming from @BigConglomerateX. “Hello, my name is Frank, and I work for Comcast, what seems to be the problem?” establishes a person-to-person connection that can help speed resolution of the problem.
Invite empathy. Think about the situation from your customer’s perspective. How would you want to be treated? It’s important to acknowledge the problem and it’s okay to say, “I’m sorry.”
Speed matters. Respond in a matter of minutes, if you can. You can be more deliberate with other forms of social media, such as blogs, but Twitter is instant.
Establish trust within your organization. Many corporate communicators worry about how to apply traditional approval processes to Twitter and other social media. Eliason urges teams to meet with senior management and legal to explain the how and why of social media, and then develop simple rules to enable team members to respond quickly and without exposing the company to additional risk.

Great way to start the week. Best of luck in your new job, Frank. And thank you for the wisdom.

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Filed under crisis communications, Issues Management, Listening, Social Media

Tagged as @ComcastCares, Citi, Frank Eliason, Mark Ragan, PR Daily, Twitter

May 6, 2011 · 9:00 AM

More Marketers Getting Engaged

Two great articles from last week on marketers’ shift from impressions to engagement as key performance measures:

The first, from our good friends at the Harvard Business Review, authored by Coca-Cola Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing & Commercial Officer Joe Tripodi, profiles the corporation’s growing interest in harnessing the power of brand advocates in pursuit of doubling worldwide revenues by the year 2020.

“In the near term, ‘consumer impressions’ will remain the backbone of our measurement because it is the metric universally used to compare audiences across nearly all types of media. But impressions only tell advertisers the raw size of the audience. By definition, impressions are passive. They give us no real sense of engagement, and consumer engagement with our brands is ultimately what we’re striving to achieve. Awareness is fine, but advocacy will take your business to the next level.”

Tripodi notes that Coca-Cola-related content generated 146 million views on YouTube, but only 26 million of those views were of content actually created by Coke! Wouldn’t it be great if you had your marketing messages amplified by a factor of five-and-a-half?

The second article, by Weber Shandwick’s Tim Marklein, offers an excellent practical guide for marketers seeking to align impressions with expressions when measuring the impact of traditional and social media messages. His advice:

Integrate analytics across multiple channels;
Track engagement and impressions in parallel; and
“Contextualize,” which is my favorite point of all:

“[I]f you’re targeting consumers, then USA Today (3.3 million daily readers) might be valuable to you because of the audience and media context within which it appears. If you’re targeting business leaders, then WSJ.com (12 million monthly readers) is probably more beneficial in reaching your broad audience. The industry blog (10,000 daily readers) might be a more targeted way to reach specific decision-makers who would buy your company’s product.

Now let’s add engagement into the mix. Generally speaking, people consume daily newspapers in a passive way with limited engagement. While newspapers certainly impact opinions and behaviors, that impact is hard to track and fragmented across a broad audience. With the WSJ.com piece, by contrast, advocates and detractors alike can easily share it via email, blogs and Twitter. The industry blog might only have 10,000 readers, but they might be ‘the right 10,000′ — and if it’s a good blog, then they’re actively sharing, debating and commenting on the post, which extends the reach through trusted peers and leads to even more engagement.”

There is strength in numbers to be sure, but real growth comes from engagement.

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Filed under Return On Investment, Social Media

Tagged as Coca-Cola, Engagement, Harvard Business Review, Impressions, Joe Tripodi, measurement, PRSA, Tim Marklein, Twitter, Weber Shandwick, YouTube

April 21, 2011 · 11:53 AM

In The Race to Be First, You Lose

A thought-provoking post from Tom Gable in today’s Daily Dog, responding to a claim by the Harvard Business Review’s Joshua Gans that, “Facebook is the largest news organization ever.”

While Gable spends a lot of time distinguishing between the “news” value of your cousin Sally’s Facebook post about her labradoodle puppy and, say, the situation in Libya, the larger point he makes about social media and the importance of “being first” should keep your CEO and IR department awake at night. Gable writes:

“Professional journalism traditionally aims for accuracy, enlightenment and fairness. Some Bloggers and Twits claim to practice citizen journalism, which others dismiss as fluff, hype and churnalism. Legitimate media, including top bloggers, post corrections and updates when stories are wrong. Doing a search for corrections on Twitter doesn’t turn up much. Younger consumers of news and information may have difficulty discerning the difference between professional journalism and faux fast news. The race to be first is having an impact on financial news coverage as well.”

Gable cites an article entitled, “Twitter, tech bubbles, and the nostalgia of the technology press” by Tim Carmody, which notes that Twitter, bloggers and Quora are driving corporate stock prices, with information moving as fast or faster than the traditional journalists covering the industry.

When anonymous messages appearing from out of the ether have the same or greater impact as well-researched articles published by reputable news organizations, millions of dollars and jobs are at stake.

Today’s investor relations officer must spend at least as much time monitoring what’s being said about his company as he does getting the word out. It’s like playing Whac-a-Mole while simultaneously making a phone call and typing a press release.

Hope your multitasking skills are up to snuff.

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Filed under Journalism, Social Media

Tagged as Facebook, Harvard Business Review, Joshua Gans, Quora, Tim Carmody, Tom Gable, Twitter, Whac-a-Mole

March 14, 2011 · 10:31 AM

Chrysler, Twitter and the #FBomb

Gini Dietrich and others have already weighed in on this issue, but I have my own take that I thought I should share.

In case you’ve missed it, last week, a representative of Chrysler’s now-former social media agency, posted the following tweet via the @ChryslerAutos Twitter account:

“I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f**king drive”

Both the employee and his agency, New Media Strategies, found themselves out of work and out of a client, respectively, in short order.

In my opinion, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.

My heart goes out to the newly pink-slipped employee, who just learned a valuable career lesson. Trust me, it’ll make for a good war story when you’re older. Don’t ask me how I know.

The larger issue is how much faith companies and agencies are placing in the hands of youngsters whose thought processes and judgment haven’t necessarily caught up with their social media savvy.

My inference is that the employee in question may very well have been managing multiple Twitter accounts using Tweetdeck, Hootsuite or some other aggregator, and simply didn’t realize which account he was using when he chose to opine on the driving acumen of Detroit motorists.

I’ll bet he dropped another F-bomb just after he pressed “tweet” and realized his thoughts were now attributed to an important client and would be preserved in the Twittersphere for all eternity.

Should he have lost his job? You bet. Some mistakes an employer cannot forgive.

But should New Media Strategies have had safeguards in place to prevent something like this from happening in the first place? Absolutely.

You wouldn’t send a med student into the OR to perform an appendectomy, so why would an agency risk its clients’ reputations and its own livelihood on a system that is one thumbstroke away from disaster?

I find the response to New Media Strategies’ CEO Pete Snyder’s blog post regarding the fiasco of great interest. You can check those out by clicking HERE.

Whether you’re a corporate communicator or work for an agency with access to its clients’ social media accounts, now would be a good time to review your safeguards and make sure you’re not one F-bomb away from the unemployment line.

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Filed under Issues Management, Social Media

Tagged as Chrysler, F-Bomb, New Media Strategies, social media safeguards, Twitter

February 25, 2011 · 9:16 AM

Social Media Spreads More Than Soundbites

Peggy Noonan, the former Reagan speechwriter and Wall Street Journal columnist, shares an interesting counterpoint to the notion that social media is about sharing ideas in tidbits and 140-character clips.

In “The Internet Helps Us Get Serious,” she notes with optimism that the ability for politicians to engage in serious political and philosophical debate has been greatly enhanced by Web-based technologies—an important and often-overlooked counter trend to the mass media soundbite world we’ve been living in for the past few decades.

Noonan credits social media for enabling citizens to share and digest “serious speeches” that enable them to analyze and understand where our political leaders stand on key issues, and to make informed decisions based on this knowledge:

“People in politics think it’s all Facebook and Twitter now, but it’s not. Not everything is fractured and in pieces, some things are becoming more whole. People hunger for serious, fleshed-out ideas about what is happening in our country. We all know it’s a pivotal time.”

Often, we in the communications business get so caught up in creating a clever headline or breaking off a quick Tweet in the hopes of garnering the attention that we forget to include the ideas that actually sell the product. And getting attention is a critical first step, as Alec Baldwin will tell you (starting at the 3:27 mark), but that doesn’t mean we should be afraid to put our ideas out there.

If you have 20 minutes worth of stuff to say, go ahead and put it out there…chances are good someone wants to hear what you have to say.

Just ask U.S. Senator Ron Johnson. Again from Noonan:

“[Johnson] was thinking of running for the Senate against an incumbent, Democratic heavy-hitter Russ Feingold. He started making speeches talking about his conception of freedom. They were serious, sober, and not sound-bitey at all. A conservative radio host named Charlie Sykes got hold of a speech Mr. Johnson gave at a Lincoln Day dinner in Oshkosh. He liked it and read it aloud on his show for 20 minutes. A speech! The audience listened and loved it. A man called in and said, ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ Another said, ‘I have to agree with everything that guy said.’ Mr. Johnson decided to run because of that reaction, and in November he won. This week he said, ‘The reason I’m a U.S. senator is because Charlie Sykes did that.’ But the reason Mr. Sykes did it is that Mr. Johnson made a serious speech.”

Don’t discount what you have to say. The people who care want to hear you.

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Filed under Issues Management, Listening, Social Media

Tagged as Charlie Sykes, Facebook, Peggy Noonan, Ron Johnson, Twitter, Wall Street Journal

October 5, 2010 · 8:28 AM

Why the Networks are Terrified of #Google TV

I just Tweeted a link to the New York Times story about Google TV’s announcement yesterday to deliver content via Web-connected televisions and set top boxes.

The major networks—ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC—are not involved in the Google TV deal just yet, but Time Warner’s HBO and Turner Broadcasting are on board, as are CNBC, Twitter, Netflix and Amazon.

The benefit of Google TV for viewers, as I see it, is the ability to surf and view virtually any piece of Web-based content from the comfort of the couch, while interacting with friends and strangers of like interest at the same time. I’d also envision technologies similar to those created by ESPN on its 360 site, which enable viewers to “customize” their viewing experience by choosing camera angles and accessing related content, such as player stats.

The battle will come down to content copyrights and advertising revenue. Expect major lawsuits over the former and some sort of amicable compromise on the latter.

But rest assured, your TV and your home computer will someday be the same appliance.

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Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as ABC, Amazon, CBS, CNBC, ESPN 360, Fox, Google TV, HBO, NBC, Netflix, Turner Broadcasting, Twitter

September 8, 2010 · 3:05 PM

I’ve Got a Hunch

Interesting post from Rohit Barghava today on the Influential Marketing Blog on the never-ending quest to use algorithms to figure out what people really like.

Reminds me of a story from a while back about computers choosing picking potential hit music, it seems that none of us is as good at picking the hits as all of us is.

Barghava’s article mentions about a group who earned a $1 million prize from Netflix that uses an algorithm capable of “learning” which movies you like and then recommending new titles for you based on the information you’ve provided over time.

Personally, I think these folks are just too darn smart for their own good, but it does prove that the nerds will indeed rule the world someday. (If they don’t already.)

Which brings me to a site called Hunch that Barghava mentions later in the article.

I just signed up and it’s pretty cool. By answering a series of questions, Hunch compares your answers to information in their database and spits out recommendations on any number of topics.

(For instance, Hunch suggested that I might like Husker Du and They Might Be Giants…and I do.)

You can connect Hunch to your Facebook and Twitter accounts, which will perhaps pull more consumers into the fold, in turn increasing the amount of data the algorithms can crunch and enhancing the accuracy of Hunch results.

It will be interesting to see if Hunch opens its application for research that could help marketers more effectively sell products and services.

Stay tuned, I’ve got a hunch this could be big. (Sorry, I couldn’t help it.)

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Filed under Creativity, Listening, Social Media

Tagged as Facebook, Hunch, Influential Marketing Blog, Netflix, Rohit Bhargava, Twitter

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Why the Networks are Terrified of #Google TV

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