Social Media: from art to science

I rarely do these kind of posts (mostly quoting others); but this one is totally worth it (and doesn't fit in Twitter)

Quoting from: There Will Be Web Jobs for Social Scientists

In a recent report "Social Science Meets Technology in Next-Generation Jobs," Gartner Vice President Kathy Harri discussed 4 areas of jobs needed in Social Media / Social Networking:

• Web User Experience roles that include UI designers, virtual-assistant designers and interaction directors.

• Behavior Analysis roles that include Web psychologists, community designers, and Web/social network miners.

• Information Specialist roles that include information anthropologists who are expected to play historical Web fact finding and assisting in legal analysis, intellectual property management and where the quality of information is at risk.

• Digital Lifestyle Experts roles that include helping senior management understand whats going on and stay aware, and building personal brands and managing online personas for desired online effect.

I am particularly excited about the formal recognition of the last three bullets; this is a concept long overdue!

What do you htink?

Filiberto Selvas

Filiberto.Selvas@Gamil.Com

Social Media Prohibition versus Education

Lately we have seen news of a few notable and (in my opinion) unfortunate decisions from some major entities banning or strongly discouraging use of Social Networks by their members / employees: The Marines banning access to Facebook, MySpace and Twitter in their network, and the NFL where both Green Bay and Miami Dolphin players were “strongly discouraged” from using Social Media Channels as a couple notable examples.

The thought of these has been brewing in my mind; and I thought I’d go and search from some official source as to how well prohibition works; here a couple quotes of one of the many documents I found (“Teaching With Documents: The Volstead Act and Related Prohibition Documents”, Form the National Archives):

• “The intensity of the temperance advocates was matched only by the inventiveness of those who wanted to keep drinking”
• “Prohibition made life in America more violent, with open rebellion against the law and organized crime”
• “"the great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far reaching in purpose" as Herbert Hoover called it, did not work.”

I believe the Marines and NFL will find themselves facing similar situations in their attempts to stifle Social Media adoption among its ranks; we are social being and it is in our nature to have social interactions; the current online social media phenomena is nothing but an elimination of friction, extension of reach and amplification of impact of something we have been doing forever… and honestly; both institutions would benefit a lot from the proper use of social media.

Let’s look at the education approach on the other side; fortunately we have many encouraging examples here as well:

• SAP Social Media Guidelines
• Intel Social Media Guidelines
• IBM Social Computing Guidelines
• Kodak’s approach to Social Media (Interview) and their great efforts to educate (love how that image educates in a simple and yet effective way) and anchor everything on Business Principles so that they can keep it evolving as new Social Media tools arise.

These are points I made before about Corporate Social Media Guidelines:

• Corporations/organizations should anchor their social media guidelines/policies in their business conduct guidelines; social media presents new forms of communication and relationship management but the business conduct guidelines should simply be extended and applied to this space.
• Guidelines should do a good job of encouraging; by helping people understand the benefits this can bring to the organization they work for as well as themselves as individuals.
• Clear “limits” should be drawn; I like how IBM did it.
• Clear guidelines regarding Copyright, IP and Confidentiality aspects should be put forward.
• Mistakes should be expected (we are humans, after all) and proper processes to deal with those. (see HP’s)

So on one side hopeless prohibition; on the other side smart education and empowerment; I think you know what my pick is.

What do you think?

Filiberto Selvas

Filiberto.Selvas@Gmail.Com

Podcast on FB Connect and its Marketing Implications

I sometimes have the privilege to post here as a "curator"; I define curator as the person that helps call attention to that that is worthwhile and “connect the dots"…. This Podcast is definitely worth of attention; and below some nuggets to help you connect the dots:

In the podcast: VP Marketing at Powered Inc. Aaron Strout, Forrester senior analyst, Jeremiah Owyang, digital editor of AdWeek, Brian Morrissey and marketing blogger/consultant, Susan Getgood.

• Is about Social Marketing; getting people to interact with each other (and as consequence of that advance your business objective)
• We have gone through a series of iterations: 1^st build isolated communities, 2^nd build communities in the playground (i.e. Facebook), 3rd iteration: bridge both
• “Knowing what people find interesting to share is as important as knowing what they are looking at themselves.... the idea that they thought something was important enough to share… gives a company of any size the kind of information to know what kind of content really engages your customer and you can build more of it.”
• Enriched Social Profile can drive more relevant / contextual experiences if user chooses to expose it.
• FB Connect lowers barrier to entry (registration).
• "If you could think about an implementation where people could sign in with Twitter and have things going back and forth that would lead to a lot higher engagement and higher traffic"
• The concept of the Web Site has changed; "Corporate Presence is fragmented and connecting to communities where they are"
• Increases engagement: sites with Facebook Connect see a 15-100% increase in reviews and other user generated content
• Drives traffic: For each story published in Facebook, we see roughly 3 clicks back to the site. Nearly half the stories in the Stream get clicked on.

What do you think?

Filiberto Selvas