Social Cache.
A Nemo blog. Dealing with uncommon cents.

Plausible. Fits with my thoughts on how we can’t help but socialize. This could be a winning campaign..

Schooled in Social Networking

Beginning next year, Birmingham City University in the UK will begin offering a one-year course in social media with an emphasis on using social networking sites as communications and marketing tools. Costing over 6,000 U.S. dollars, the program will also teach students how to set up blogs and publish podcasts.

Though the school reports that there has already been significant interest in the course, a few initial thoughts come to mind. First off, many students are already very skilled in social media; is it necessary to dedicate an entire year to the subject when ample resources are available online for free? Secondly, social applications and technology are changing so rapidly that one has to wonder if, by the time the year-long course is up if much of the content will still be relevant…

Stars Love Twitter

Did you know (or care) that Martha Stewart is on Twitter? Currently, she has over 200,000 followers, including Jane Fonda and Michael Phelps. In return, she follows P. Diddy and Snoop Dogg (who refers to Twitter as “twizzle”).

Other famous tweeters include Trent Reznor, Courtney Love, Shaq, Ashton Kutcher, John Mayer, Yoko Ono, Al Gore and Demi Moore.

When celebrities join Twitter, it lends a sense of credibility and authenticity to their brand. And more importantly, they’re generating a constant stream of free publicity with the ability to set the record straight when something unflattering arises.

Fans love tuning in to hear random tidbits from idols’ their daily lives such as when Martha tweeted on March 4th that she had just dined out with Ludacris. According to her, “he loved lunch–esp. the choc cake.”

Of course, there is always a potential downside when a celebrity is allowed to run free with technology away from the watchful eyes of their publicists. Recently, Beyoncé’s little sis Solange Knowles sent out erratic messages to her thousands of followers, only to follow up with a tweet the next day, wondering how she had ended up in the hospital.

Fans prefer the real thing, even when it’s a train wreck in progress. One of Courtney Love’s recent tweets was as dramatic as ever; “THIS MOVE HAS BEEN A TRAGEDY. THIS HOUSE IS CHAOS BEYOND WHAT I COULD HAVE IMAGINED, SOMEONE THREW OUT A HUGELY EXPENSIVE PIECE OF ART!”

While most celebrities compose their own tweets, there’s a handful that hand off the task to their staff, including 50 Cent. His 230,000 followers weren’t impressed when they learned that he has his “web guy” write and post for him. Though, there’s no need to get angry since “the energy of it is all him.” On the temptation of hiring someone else to tweet for him, Shaquille O’Neal nailed the general consensus by saying that “It’s 140 characters. It’s so few characters. If you need a ghostwriter for that, I feel sorry for you.”

If you really can’t get enough of celebrities on Twitter, Celebrity Tweet (complete with the too-obvious tagline “Stalk Celebrities on Twitter!”) provides a real-time feed of their tweets.

Not surprisingly, Twitter really has become a self-induced stalker’s paradise.

Admit it, your mom is on Facebook.

Not surprisingly, Nielsen has just released a report claiming that two-thirds of the world’s population visit social networking or blogging sites.

The data was collected from December 2007 to December 2008 and even more rapid growth is expected since time spent on both social networking and blogging sites is increasing at three times the rate of overall internet growth.

In the beginning, social networking was primarily geared towards a younger audience but Facebook has played a prominent role with drawing in a much older audience. People ranging from 35 to 49 years old have given Facebook its biggest growth with 24.1 million new visitors while 50 to 64 year olds now number over 13.6 million. Rejoice, your parents are now probably on Facebook.

Image from Blog of Mr Tweet.

Recently on the blog known as MrTweet a question was posed – “How are you using Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter differently?”

If I had been asked I would have responded as follows: Those three networking platforms can be grouped into a historical context – Facebook past, Linkedin future/present, and Twitter future.

Facebook is the past. I have been a member of Facebook for what seems like an eternity but in fact it has been a little under two years. I have 1,472 “friends” as of writing and it’s fair to say that I only know about 15% of these “friends” very well. As a minor music celebrity I have attracted a lot of musicians, bands and labels. As Director, Insights & Digital Media at Nemo and as someone who speaks regularly at conferences on social media as well as online music issues, I have attracted those cohorts too. Just this past week my sister and brother who still reside in the UK joined Facebook and brought along with them various nephews, nieces, cousins, aunts and uncles. I now have no excuse for not being in touch with my family more regularly – technology shortens the distance between us. On Facebook that is not necessarily a good thing.

The author centre, tagged in a picture from the early 80’s

Facebook is historical white noise to me. I am constantly tagged in pictures and videos and more often than not in an unflattering light. There I am at a wedding in 1987 clearly drunk, and there I am in some unnamed establishment sitting next to some old girlfriend who is probably mortified to see that photo in such a public forum after all these years. [Insert landscape and memory essay here.] I have spent many hours un-tagging myself in photos and videos just to have someone tag them right back after I’ve moved along. One day soon I fully expect to find a video of myself dancing naked on a table at a party. And that’s what is wrong with Facebook for me; the complete lack of control of message, my message.

Facebook really is for college students who want to catalogue images and videos of their crazy drunken selves for all the world to see; images they will live to regret when applying for a job. Closing your account is the only means of control on FB.

For the more mature types on Facebook [apparently there has been a surge of new members in the 40+ demographic] there is the shock of discovering that all those folks in high school or college -the ones that you had left behind and wiped from memory – are now waiting in your email inbox as “friend” requests. There was of course a reason for leaving all that behind. I could go on. Clearly Facebook is best left to the young who actually seem to enjoy being stalked across social networks.

Linkedin is Future/Present. Linkedin I term as future/present because I use it to store current details about my career activities [present]. I have built a decent network of like-minded business people with whom I can share job opportunities and details of event activities and/or my role within Nemo [future client work.] There are useful forums where I can post a topical question and via the crowdsourcing effect of Linkedin I often receive a lot of very intelligent answers [I wouldn't try this on Facebook for e.g.]

Linkedin is a dry world whereas Facebook is a week at the beach in Mexico during Spring Break. Linkedin is quiet time in the study where you get things done. It really is all business.

This brings me to Twitter. Although millions of users are on the Twitter platform its audience is in the low millions compared to FB and LI. Many of my peers who open a Twitter account leave me a message soon after joining that invariably includes the phrase “I don’t get it…” Fair enough, but hey everyone what is it you want to get? If you want to have a tool that is the perfect blend of Facebook [without Spring Break] and Linkedin [without retiring to the study] then Twitter is for you.

Twitter put simply is micro-blogging. Used wisely Twitter gives your followers a real-time window into your social, business and working world down to the minute. Use it unwisely you will find yourself in a lonely corner of Twitter twittering to yourself with a dunces hat on. I put Twitter in the future column even though other social media types put it in the present because I believe that when it is used purposefully it has a transcendental power and therefore we will see it being used much more widely in future.

And by purposefully I mean by intent which then leads to a question – what are your goals when using social media? Remember, we have to put technology to one side, this is not about technology it is about doing something that comes very naturally to all human beings [sociopaths excepted,] – it’s called socializing. Technology has shortened the distance between us but it hasn’t changed why we socialize. It is worth noting that Twitter is arguably more successful than any other social network platform for helping to get offline groups organized around conferences and such – they are known as Tweetups. And for e.g., I know of someone tweeting upon arrival at PDX airport asking for a ride downtown who within minutes was picked up and given a ride from a fellow tweeter – Twitter can be that hyper-local.

On a grander global and political scale, Wikipedia notes: Twitter has been used as a “social justice tool” to connect groups of people in critical situations. On April 10 2008, James Buck, a graduate journalism student at UC Berkeley, and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested in Egypt for photographing an anti-government protest. On his way to the police station Buck used his mobile phone to send the message “Arrested” to his 48 “followers” on Twitter. Those followers contacted UC Berkeley, the US Embassy in Cairo, and a number of press organizations on his behalf. Buck was able to send updates about his condition to his “followers” while being detained. He was released the next day from the Mahalla jail after the college hired a lawyer for him.

Should you be arrested or simply lost just remember Twitter is always at your fingertips – text 40404.
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Navigating the murky waters of social networking sites and blogs becomes tricky when an avatar morphs into a less than accurate representation of your real life self. You get to decide what you’d like to add, modify and delete.

With your online representation, you’re in control which photos you’d like to upload, who you’d like to friend and which bands and movies to claim as your favorites. In a way, you get to cultivate a persona that may (or may not) mesh with who you really are.

VOYEURISM

In Sharing is Creepy, Nicholas Carr says that “Your online self … is entirely self-created, and because it determines your identity and social standing in an internet community, each decision you make about how you portray yourself…is fraught, subtly or not, with a kind of existential danger.”

Carr claims that there’s an inherent arrogance to sharing so many details of your life with total strangers. In some ways, he says that it has a sadomasochistic quality because the exchange can become similar to that of a celebrity and a fan. And, when you think about it, there are a group of “A-listers” for almost every blogging niche imaginable.

I understand his assertion and we’ve all witnessed blogs where the person posting receives hundreds of positive and praise-filled comments with barely an opposing opinion in sight. At the same time, there are some bloggers that are posting solid content with a genuine interest in creating a balanced, two-way conversation.

GUILT

Another factor that plays prominently in the cultivation of an online persona is guilt. In The Burden of Twitter, Steven Levy says:

Guilty. I feel guilty that I have a blog and haven’t contributed to it for seven months. Guilty that all my pals on Facebook post cool pictures, while the last shots I uploaded were of Fourth of July fireworks—from 2007. Guilty that I haven’t Dugg anything since, well, ever.

It seems odd that one would feel guilt, not out of something they did or didn’t do in real life, but because they didn’t contribute enough to their social networking activities. But, if you blog, tweet or visit multiple social networking sites regularly, there can be a sense of not being connected if you can’t log in to deliver regular doses of content.

Though, Levy’s guilt of not contributing enough can easily flip when he finally does update.

The more I upload the details of my existence, even in the form of random observations and casual location updates, the more I worry about giving away too much. It’s one thing to share intimacies person- to-person. But with a community? Creepy.

He has a valid point. Do we spill these (sometimes overly personal) details to other random strangers that we know in real life? Do you wax poetic about your new shoes to the mailman? Do you tell the person occupying the seat next to you on the bus about your hot date last night? Probably not. So, what compels you to dish out these voyeuristic details online?

WHY SHARE?

It’s human nature to want to share what interests us. At the same time, we enjoy tiny glimpses into the lives of others who may have talents, personalities (or a hot pair of shoes) that we admire.

The bottom line with social networking is that you’re responsible for what you decide to share online. You have the freedom to share as little or as much about yourself as you’d like. As sociologist Duncan Watts notes, “Now everyone is used to the idea that we are connected [through the internet], and that’s not so interesting. If I had to guess why sites like Facebook are so popular, I would say it doesn’t have anything to do with networking at all. It’s voyeurism and exhibitionism.”

Do you feel that your online profiles accurately represents you? Or, are they part of a cultivated persona? Is this a conscious decision that you’ve made?