All posts tagged facebook

In defence of Facebook lists (is Google+ really that great?)

by admin on July 11, 2011 in Social Media, the googletubes, The Internet with No comments

I wouldn’t be me without being a little contrary, would I?

Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being one of the select few (million) people who were invited (read: had a friend who used the invite workaround) to Google’s new-fangled social media network, Google+.

I had a play. And have continued to play with it for the last few weeks. And, despite being initially impressed, joining the chorus of “DEATH TO FACEBOOK! AND TWITTER!”, I dunno. I am now a little bit “meh”.

Sure, the circles interface is pretty. And the Hangout feature is really, really impressive. And, the integration with my Google and Youtube accounts… handy. But, I am still using Facebook. And am no longer in that anti-Facebook chorus… and you know why?

Facebook has evolved. And, besides some UI improvements and the really excellent Hangout feature, Google+ does little that Facebook doesn’t already do. Most people just aren’t aware of it.

Now, I am not merely dissing Google+ for the fun of it. After all, I am an avid user of social media and am thrilled to see the innovations and “game changers” go at it… because ultimately it is better for all users to have them competing.

But… you know…

Meh.

As I say to all of my clients, social media is not about gadgets, or technology, or tools. It is about reaching people on their terms, and applying traditional communication & marketing techniques in a new space. They are just tools. And getting your average person to switch their whole communication over to a new platform… well… that’s tricky.

I hear you say “ohhhh but what about MySpace, huh? Facebook killed that when people were saying it wouldn’t!”

There’s a reason for that. MySpace sucked balls. Facebook added something new: minimalism and hyper-connectivity like never seen before. And Facebook evolved over time into what it is today. They removed graffiti walls (oh how I miss drawing penises on my friends walls), refined the UI gradually, added applications, and now has a unified inbox that I actually love, and use every day.

Facebook has had some pretty severe problems with regards to default user settings and privacy, but… I don’t think anyone can underestimate that Google has a fight on its hands if it is going to get the 750 million (!) or so people to move over.

On “Circles” (and why it is not all that innovative really)

One feature that got everyone in a tizzy was “Circles”. The ability to add people to circles and follow people, filter feeds etc based on groups. Well, you may not be aware, but Facebook already does this. Facebook lists are very powerful, and I have been using them for some time. You can opt to share status updates with networks, friends of friends, and “Everyone”. You can filter your chat to only appear online to certain groups.

Let me show you.

Facebook has the ability to create lists, so you can control who sees what, who has access to you on chat, who can message you, add you, stalk you, see photos… in fact, the granular Facebook settings are tremendously powerful.

See? Go into your Friends list and you can create a list. You can put people into said lists, and then control the features. For example, I set it so that clients cannot contact me after hours on Facebook chat. Similarly, so that family cannot contact me during work hours. And… other settings depending on what sort of chat mood I am in.

I also have a default setting that allows any underaged or… more… wowsery people on my friend lists, not see my statuses by default. Which is good for the ol’ drunk Facebooking! But also has powerful utility. You may notice that I have lists that are for different “voices”. Professional me, Candid me, Anything goes me, a list for those that truly “get” what I am about (for the weirder bits!), family… it’s all there and easy to control.

Like I have said a hundred times… switching tools will not necessarily “fix” your problems if you aren’t using the tools correctly. Whether Google+ gains ground beyond the geek crowd remains to be seen, but we shouldn’t overestimate the innovation that has occurred either.

Facebook already supplies these sorts of features. These are just tools. And there are already mumblings about concerns about Google+ privacy… whether you do have true control over your content (for example having your statuses shared), and a plethora of other teething problems that Facebook are slowly ironing out over time.

I will continue to use both, but whether Google+ is truly innovative, or just another Google attempt at showing geeks shiny things, remains to be seen.

 

Well, I do believe that is called a backlash…

by admin on March 15, 2010 in The Internet with No comments

I have had such an amazing response from my post yesterday about why I have decided to quit Facebook. So many people have emailed me and DMed me on Twitter voicing their support and similar concerns.

It has got me thinking a LOT about why I decided to end it. It seemed like a bit of a knee-jerk reaction at the time, but the more I think about it, the more I realise that Facebook is an addiction. It’s weird for me to admit that, because I honestly wouldn’t say that I use Facebook any more than your average desk-bound person. In fact, in many ways, I use it a lot less (don’t use those stupid applications like Farmville etc). So it’s weird that I would be saying that I feel “addicted” to Facebook.

It makes me wonder out loud how the brain responds to notifications, messages, likes etc… and whether there is some propensity in people to become addicted to an endorphin rush via a psychological reward system… and that withdrawal from that is something similar to an actual physical withdrawal.

It’s weird, because when I sat down today to start work, I checked Twitter. I checked email. I didn’t check Facebook. And it was all compete in 20 minutes. My typical day would generally be me checking email, checking Twitter, checking Facebook, getting lost in Facebook for half an hour, wondering what this-person-meant-by-this and why-they’ve-commented-on-her-status-but-not-mine and my-friends-obviously-all-hate-me… then checking email & Twitter again until it was 11am.

Today, I did some work, my phone rang. I spoke on the phone, found a pause and, like some sort of weird automatic nervous tick, opened Safari. Then realised that I didn’t have any Facebook. I have done this at least… 3 times today.

It’s at that point that I actually realised how many times a day I would log-in without even thinking about it. Not to mention the times I have been out and about somewhere and been on the iPhone app, or whatever.

If you had asked me a week ago how much I use Facebook, I would have said maybe once or twice a day, some days more, some days not at all, because that’s about the time I am active and reply. But the number of times I CHECK Facebook per day would be at least 8-10. Possibly even more. And I would honestly not have even realised I was doing it, because I stay logged in all the time.

I genuinely feel at a bit of a loss for myself because I am quite literally fitting in a work day and having spare time. I NEVER have spare time. I am studying full time, running a business and trying to be a parent for at least 5 minutes a day. Suddenly, I can fit it in.

I really had no idea how much of my day was taken up with Facebook till I quit cold turkey.

How about you? Be honest…

Why I deactivated my Facebook Account (and will probably delete it).

by admin on March 14, 2010 in The Internet with No comments

It’s hard to imagine a world without hyper-connectivity. It started with mobile phones, extended into social media and at the moment, the biggest trend is telling people where you are, what you are doing AT THIS VERY SECOND AND HERE’S A MAP OF THE RESTAURANT I AM EATING AT.

I attended a Conference where people were lauding Facebook and Twitter (and related services) as a revolution in the way we communicate. Whilst this is partially true, I think that not enough attention has been given to the potential pitfalls of evangelising it.

With all of the geeky tech things like FBConnect & APIs aside, which are very exciting and allow for many possibilities, what is the real personal cost of hyperconnectivity?

This is something I have been pondering for quite a while, so for anyone thinking it’s just one event and want to say “OMFG WHAT HAPPENED?”… relaaaax. It’s not about you. Or you. Or you.

And I am not talking about the headlines that drag social media in, like “MYSPACE MURDERS!”, “TWITTER BLAH BLAH”.

What are the real, actual effects on your day?

For me, because I work in front of a screen all day and often in a browser, Facebook is just a streaming timeline of everyone’s day. Mine included. But it’s become more pervasive than that and I believe that it has started to affect my psyche. It dominates my day, it is integrated into my thoughts. It sometimes even completely wastes my day. And sometimes, I will admit that it affects me negatively.

But you know? I hit a point where I realised that at least 95% of the people on my list never commented, never contacted me, never showed any interest. And I hadn’t actually met. And I share my innermost thoughts with them more often than anywhere else. It’s not real.

And for the people that I *had* met… it changed the dynamics, where non-comments resulted in me assuming I had been hidden, or made me second-guess friendships, or made me think to end them altogether.

It’s a bit of a destructive force in the life of someone, like me, who derives energy from other people… who lives their life very much (too much) to please others, to seek acknowledgement from others… to have this medium that allows it to become my fuel.

So now, I have decided to deactivate my account for 30 days, as an experiment, just to see what happens. I am still contactable on Twitter, Email, and good old fashioned telephone. But I am just interested to see what happens. Don’t assume I have deleted you, because I haven’t :)

It will be interesting to see who contacts, who emails, who calls… not just as a dramatic exit and “I’m taking my ball home”, but as a truly intellectually interesting exercise to see if a) I can live without it b) any of those relationships continue outside of it and c) whether others join me.

I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this, too… assuming, of course, anyone reads blogs anymore (seeing as I am not posting this on Facebook! ;))

We use twitter because… wait… what exactly is it again?

by admin on February 26, 2010 in Uncategorized with No comments

Yesterday I had the great privilege of attending the Media140 Conference here in Perth. It was a great event for many reasons – to match real people to usernames, or to ‘network’ – but also, from a web designer’s point of view, it was good to try and gauge the general mood about social media in various organisations.

In early 2007, I was talking up Twitter, Facebook and Flickr before I had even really embraced them myself. I had a Twitter account myself, of course, but it was pretty inactive, and I distinctly remember telling @lisaloeb4real about this new “group SMS” type feature. I thought that, knowing Lisa, she would love the ability to just SMS from the airport, or backstage, or whilst eating the world’s greatest donut. So there she was, tweeting away, and in fact, I think she was one of the very early “celebrity” adopters of these new social media tools.

I attended a Conference in late 2008, and after seeing it’s true potential, I was hooked. I finally understood (sort of) what a hashtag is. What it meant to “RT”. And it appears, that, to date, at least 80 million people, including a bunch of fairly inane celebrities, enjoy it too.

But, after attending the Media140 Conference yesterday, I have a feeling that there has been a whole industry of people who, despite selling “social media consulting” somewhere in their services, are still in the idea of talking up social media and it’s potential without fully embracing it – or even using it appropriately.

I had the opportunity to meet quite a few people who work in various aspects of Health care. Some get it and some don’t. It was actually very interesting what came out of these discussions, because the common theme at the Conference was the idea of how “the BRAND” is affected, how companies can “CONTROL” negative information on the internet, and I daren’t count how many times the words “engage”, “citizen journalist”, “social media policy” and other buzzwords cropped up from the speakers. There was so much talk about top-down internet communities that it actually made me wonder if people really understood the power of social media at all.

The precise point is that you cannot control negative messaging. But what social media does is provide you with the tools to try and intervene at the word-of-mouth level and make it better. This, without buzzwords, is what is so great about Twitter.

But a big part of Twitter is not so much the bottom line stuff… because that can have mixed results… and by continually focusing on mere dollars and cents, you miss the entire point.

Twitter is more than just dollars per tweet.

Twitter in particular has intangible benefits in so many other ways that make “branding” and “bottom line” seem, honestly, so trivial that hearing those words from “experts” made me feel a little nauseous.

We heard from the HR Rep telling us about how they are policing and monitoring the social media activities (and by implication, disciplining) their staff online. NOT about how they create communities, or improve morale, or that they add a third dimension to the inevitable death of the faceless corporation that hide behind PR & Lawyers. Instead, it was about risks, and controls, and potential client losses.

People are afraid of Twitter when they needn’t be. And in all honesty? I think way too much emphasis is placed this arbitrary line between employee/business owner and human being. And instead of corporations speaking in really great buzzwords, like “humanising your corporation” – how about the idea of the generic “consumer” finally having a face. And a VOICE.

The conduit for community

I had a chat to a couple of people who, after hearing all of the speakers, still weren’t entirely sure on how Twitter, or Facebook, or social networking in general, applied to their organisation. For those who are in service delivery organisations like Mental Health and Community Services, the temptation is to make Twitter a means of broadcasting out to the “80 million people on Twitter”.

I’ll tell you now, that there are not 80 million people on Twitter. There is a potential audience of 80 million, sure. But people tout this figure off like it is some big huge deal when you know what? It means NOTHING to most businesses. Especially seeing as there is so much bad advice about using Twitter in the first place – the chances of people reading your message by accident, is, frankly, overstated.

I read an article in 2008, in reference to the music industry, about how all you need to make a decent living, is 1000 True Fans (and arguably, no crippling record label contract ;)), but this applies, figuratively, in so many ways to other businesses as well.

The strength of Twitter is in the building of micro communities. The Perth Twitter community is a good example of people who have found each other, through various means, over time, and a community has been built that is not just an audience, but a support network.

For me, during the day, Twitter is my chatterbox with other people who work in Home Offices. For others, it is a stress release from their day jobs. For others, it is just having a laugh, sharing a joke. I am also part of a few other networks, but to simplify, I know that at any time of day, someone in my community will be around to talk to.

This is the power of “Twitter for business”. We don’t talk about business much and when it does come up, it is understated and fairly innocuous (much like a social occasion where people ask what you do and leave it at that… you don’t launch into an Amway sales pitch on first meeting….do you…?)

When people can find a community, they can also find a support network, a counsellor, a group of people who understand. This has massive implications for service delivery, or health organisations that are on the ball, to start having discussions with your clients. Build a community of people who have a shared experience and let that community organically grow.

How about a discussion for parents of children with cancer or other chronic illness? How about a support group for those who battle Bipolar disorder or Schizophrenia? How about asking your clients what they want from you? Despite buzzwords like “engagement”, it is more than just talking one on one with your clients, customers, etc. It’s about allowing a community to build organically alongside your traditional means. In the health industry, these support networks can quite literally be a lifesaver, for people who may feel isolated.

Twitter is as much about shared experience as it is about access to information.

Stop talking and start LISTENING

Noone wants to be talked at. If you’re anything like me, you have emails, tweets, Facebook messages, radio ads, billboards, TV, internet banner ads and limitless numbers of people trying to sell you limitless amounts of stuff you don’t want or need. I for one am saturated. I am immune to corporate messaging. Most people are. But if you stop, and listen to what your clients actually want, you’ll be surprised that all they are trying to tell you is that they want to connect, in a meaningful way, not with a 2 dimensional CORPORATION, but with 3 dimensional people. People who understand. People who are flawed. People who might accidentally drunktweet and make bad mistakes sometimes. People who make them laugh one time and can have a deep & meaningful conversation another. All social media is… is people trying to connect.

If you can filter out the wanky PR buzzwords, and the talking up of social media from the “experts”, and the “OMG JOURNALISM IS DEAD AND I MUST FIND ANOTHER WAY TO SHOVE MY PRESS RELEASES DOWN PEOPLES THROATS”, and start actively listening, reflecting on what you are hearing, and embracing the incredible humanity and compassion that you see on Twitter every day, you have a small chance of being ahead of the curve. The “Corporation”, as we know it, is dying a slow, painful death. They’re fighting it by trying to control social media, control their employees (or the employees of other companies they work with), but, it’s a futile battle.

And try to write in Haiku. They’re fun.

The pondering of the online persona…

by admin on November 5, 2009 in the googletubes with No comments

I have been thinking a lot about the whole “social media” thing, the whole blog thing, the whole “OMG she swears” thing of late and I still don’t have an answer. I have been using Twitter and Facebook for a long-ish time, and I am conflicted.

I run a comedy blog where I talk about stuff that I would NEVER talk about on the LinkArtist blog. I have many different places for a lot of different thoughts.

Just this week, I have been speaking on social networks about my health problems and my quest for a diagnosis. Sure, my friends and family are interested… but does it reflect on my professionalism? Does it help to explain to clients, on a subliminal level, why I might fall behind on occasion? And more importanty, does it *damage* any perception of my professionalism?

Some of my friends think YES. Some think NO. My friends, it seems are pretty well representative of my inner conflict.

We’re all aware of the “Facebook gone wrong” or more recently the furore over the woman who tweeted her miscarriage during a boardroom meeting. Or all the well-meaning advice about appropriate conduct online… and frankly, I am confused as shit about all of it.

Because as the boss of my very own company (that is quite personality-centric), Twitter and Facebook are excellent ways for people to get to know me better. They are also places where I meet old school friends, talk shit with my “real” friends, and network with colleagues and potential and current clients. It feels like a big warm & fuzzy melting pot, where often my status updates take on a life of their own in the comments… and on a good day, it’s all love and kisses and hugs.

But on a bad day, I look at the stuff I share and I am worried about how it looks to people who aren’t in on the joke. And especially to those prospective clients who don’t realise that my online persona is 20% of who I am.

I go through stages where I use social networks a lot. I also go through stages where I just cannot bear to look at any of it and it just becomes too much input… but ultimately, I really enjoy social networking and that “in the moment”, off the cuff kind of communication that I enjoy.

But, you know, I have SAID SOME SHIT. 99% of the time it is tongue-in-cheek, or deliberately provocative, or just plain vulgar (let’s be honest here). You can generally assume that when I say something there is a big fat smiling face behind it… but I am also acutely aware of the fact that a “foul-mouthed smartarse” (which roughly translates as “woman with opinions”) might turn people off.

I mean, I have a business to run and a reputation to uphold.

And it is these quite conflicted thoughts that run through my head. Ultimately, I end up deciding that a “take no prisoners” approach works for me. I think to have to eat shit and pretend that I *don’t* think these things is probably more damaging in the long run than saying a few dirty words. But it nags me.

Am I just being naive?

Am I seeking instant gratification over long term success?

I go through stages where I lockdown my Twitter feed, or cull Facebook friends (usually because of some interaction with a douchebag who just doesn’t get that I have an online persona separate to me as a person) when I have serious doubts about how my online behaviour might be perceived.

At a meeting with a colleague, he said to me how he talks about my services to (quite important) people, but then inserts a disclaimer “be aware, she swears a LOT” to any potential followers. He doesn’t give me any indication that it’s actually a problem, but I find it interesting that my language is how I am perceived, over the IQ, the good friend, the passion & conviction and the comedian that I see myself as.

It’s all a bit. But how do you explain it?

Should a friend who understands what you are about, who is promoting your services, HAVE to explain?

In other words, am I that uncle that hurls abuse at people whilst his family meekly apologise for his behaviour because “we love him, but that’s just how he is.”

And where do you draw the line?

And is it arrogant of me to assume that people know I am being facetious? That I am a multifaceted, educated, ballsy woman who just happens to enjoy saying the things that noone dare think?

I think all of these things briefly, and then I decide “FUCK IT”. And I post about my urine jug on Facebook.

My business has exploded since being on Twitter and making connections there… but it would be arrogant to assume that it was because of my brutal honesty and comedic candour… and not that my business could actually be bigger if not for my big fat mouth.

What do you do? How do you reconcile it?