Social Media

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Fans or Lemmings…and ethics debate on status updates

Do we want fans or lemmings? Do we want to build a community where people follow and do what we tell them or empower them to have a voice of authenticity? Are we encouraging our fans and fan bases to not only drink the kool-aid but to share it as well…and do it in a manner that is not disclosed?

I have been watching numerous social feeds and noticed status updates and posts from individuals that seem to be canned, pre-scripted social updates created by organizations that they follow. What do I mean?

Have you watched your news feed and someone talks about a brand or organization that they are passionate about. You can tell they wrote it because they use their own, personalized vernacular when sharing. Sometimes they provide a link and with this update they might tell a personal story.

Recently I have noticed many individuals posting updates that seemed detached and use a marketing language that leads me to believe organizations are providing pre-scripted status updates for their fans to share as their own updates.

First of all, here are some reasons I have issue and debate this practice:

1) Transparency – Who is this status update coming from…the person or the organization? And if this update is coming from the organization, does the person that copied and pasted the “suggested” status update deem it authentic. Are they disclosing where this update originated?

2) Authenticity –  How do I know that the person truly shares the same opinions as the organization? Copy and pasting suggested status updates in our personal spaces suggests we are acting on behalf of the organization, thus actin in proxy. So who am I talking to if I respond?

3) Disclosure – If  a person is copying and pasting suggested status updates from a branded organization, they should disclose this relationship. It should be stated that this update is “quoted” and that person is acting on behalf of the organization. You can read Part 255.5 of the FTC’s Disclosure of Material Connections by CLICKING HERE.

4) Legitimacy – Is this person who they say they are….or representing an organization in their online social spaces. How do we know if this is a legitimate update from the person or the organization? How do we know if an organization has been using someones’ personal social outlet to share their branded messages? And if an organization is willing to speak via proxy through someone’s personal space, what else are they willing to do to share their message?

For this very reason I am discussing this topic, the people at Facebook and Twitter have made this easy. The organization should update their accounts, then their fans can “ReTweet”, “Share”, or “Like” these updates. This allows the organization to share then the fan re-share with their friends. To me…this is pretty simple. This also allows the fan base to add a personal message with this “ReTweet” or “Share”.

So how do I feel about organizations creating “Like” and “Share” campaigns…I think that is perfectly fine. Organizations are merely trying to solicit their fan base to “Like”, “Share”, and “ReTweet”. Organizations might even ask their fan base to solicit their friends to do the same, but I think the fan base should disclose their relationship to the organization.

I do not think individuals should grant organizations access to their personal, social outlets like Facebook and Twitter to solicit and update their statuses. Facebook and Twitter have both laid out strict rules and regulations on how to use these outlets:

Facebook Rules and Regulations – https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms

Twitter Terms of Service – https://twitter.com/tos

Look, I know it is tempting to have a big ole meeting, lunch, dinner, event with your fan base and pass out pre-scripted status updates for an upcoming event. In the world of marketing, sometimes we get to far into the trenches and our ethical scales slip and slide from one side to the next. But sometimes we have to remember we are dealing with real people.

There are some great resources to read and consider when creating social campaigns and how the FTC and leading trade organizations deem this practice:

Here are the FTC’s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising – CLICK HERE to DOWNLOAD PDF.

Here is WOMMA.org’s Ethics Code (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) – CLICK HERE to DOWNLOAD PDF.

If you would like to read what predicated this blog post, you can read a discussion that happened on Facebook where me and my friends debated this every issue: CLICK HERE.

***Image is from Bama Escapes…thanks so much! 

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Next Phase of Social/Digital Strategy?

What is our social/digital strategy in a 2.0 world or even a 3.0 world. Is it one of social/digital practicality or is it just trying to begin to pull all these elements together? It is more than just having a social presence, having a website(s), having blogs, etc…how are we using these tools in our overall strategies as we communicate. What do we want to measure and how do we want to starting tracking “success”? I break this concept into two categories:

1) Community Building
2) Marketing

Community Building
Community Building is a huge portion of this social/digital initiative…and will always be when we are using social/digital tools. This includes all our PR efforts, community activities, blogging, give-aways, sharing, promotions, etc.

So let’s think about what we do when we are building our community:
1) We share to grow our followers (build our tribe).
2) We share to build digital awareness (spread our brand)
3) We share to engage conversation (get people to comment, like, retweet, etc.)

We leverage this community from a Community Building perspective when we have something exciting that is happening, crisis communication, event engagement, etc. But if you look above, each one of those three points is trackable.

So let’s look again:

1) We share to grow our followers (build our tribe).2) We share to build digital awareness (spread our brand)3) We share to engage conversation (get people to comment, like, retweet, etc.)

OK…let’s shift gears to Marketing…

Marketing
In the marketing world, this works hand-in-hand with community building. How can we leverage the community that we have built to create downstream revenue opportunities. Many hospitals talk about number of patients, so we have to decide what the “bean counters” consider the most important. How can we create social/digital initiatives that we can track over a period of time to find increase in downstream revenue opportunities.

Here is an example from my friend and colleague Reed Smith in Austin, TX. St. Davids in Austin has an an initiative called the HeartSaver CT…a simple example to consider. The goal is to promote this initiative using social, digital, and traditional means to get individuals to sign-up and have a HeartSaver CT. Basically, you sign up a form inside the website to come in for a $200 evaluation and chat with the doctor.

Here is a link to the page inside the website:
http://www.hearthospitalofaustin.com/our-services/heartsaver-ct

Here is a link to sign-up form:

http://www.hearthospitalofaustin.com/our-services/heartsaver-ct/contact-form

They used specific Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and traditional marketing efforts to direct people to this page, to fill out the form, and come in for this HeartSaver CT. This is done so they can track the following:

1) How many clicks to the page
2) How many of those clicks came from social outlets (Facebook, Twitter)
3) How many impressions in social outlets
4) How many filled out the form (Collected trackable information like name, address, etc.)
5) How many came in for the HeartSaver CT (immediate revenue opportunity of $200 per person)
6) Track downstream revenue from those individuals that had broader services from this visit (Track over a longer period of time)

Each of those items are trackable. Each of those gives us an idea how our digital efforts worked and if it create immediate and downstream revenue opportunities. From a social/digital perspective…you have to have built an online, social community. So when you share, there are people there to click and hopefully re-share. You are not only measuring the revenue, but you are measuring the value of the online community. You also measuring the value of their reach…so to speak.

So…you all are just as smart (if not smarter) than me and probably are already creating initiatives in our digital/social space that integrates marketing opportunities like this…so we can ultimately measure some success. In my most humble opinion (as we look at all of our social/digital outlets) I think we should ask ourselves the following from each of our outlets social/digital outlets:

1) What is the mission/purpose of this outlet? (social sites and web sites)
2) Who is our audience in this online community or digital outlet? (social sites and web sites)
3) How/what are we going to communicate to build community?
4) How are being a good steward of the larger community? (sharing to make the online community a better place)
3) How/what are we going to promote (initiatives) that we can track downstream revenue opportunities?

We want to build a strong online community. We also want to contribute to this larger community to make it a better experience. But we also want to share opportunities that create revenue as well…or do we?

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A New…Digital/Social Media Strategy –> We are hungry for the next stage?

As I sit in a meeting discussing next years digital/social media strategy…I feel hints of my old days sitting in those morning editorial meetings as a journalist. Every morning, we talked about the stories of the day, relevance to the audience, timelines, how to tease, and how to cross promote.

Large organizations are no longer structuring new media & social media strategies…they are online content creators and providers. In the age of digital media…it is no longer about delivering content, it is sharing content. Big difference. Delivering and sharing are two completely different models and mind sets.

Today, my friend Sandy Dees of GHS.org shared a New York Times article about the digital/social strategy behind the movie Hunger Games. “Danielle DePalma, senior vice president for digital marketing, drafted a chronology for the entire online effort, using spreadsheets (coded in 12 colors) that detailed what would be introduced on a day-by-day, and even minute-by-minute, basis over months.”

As you read the article…this digital distribution strategy is more than just an editorial calendar, it is a timeline associated to digital scavenger hunts using Twitter; cultivating fans to take part in a virtual world like the movie Hunger Games.

We are moving past exploration…it is no longer about just creating a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a YouTube channel…we are in the age of engaging conversations and learning we must let the audiences guide us. It is no longer about using social and digital outlets to just post content and hope the audiences will come…more about how can we cultivate conversations.

Now, I know I am sharing what we already know…but do we really? We are still creating post card websites, YouTube channels full of content that no one will watch, Twitter feeds with little interaction. Large hospitals all over have numerous pages for no other reason than pleasing another department and hoping they are updating the page in three months. I have them in my newsfeed, numerous hospitals and none of them make me want to click…AT ALL. Or is that the point?

My colleague Reed Smith, who helps manage social and digital efforts for numerous healthcare organizations in Texas, shared some insight from his conversations with many of his counter parts from other hospitals during the social conference at the May Clinic. He explained that many large hospitals are dealing with the same situation…learning how to deal with digital and social efforts in a 2.0/3.0 world. Lots of departments, services lines, physician practices want to take part in the social space yet have a hard time living up the true burden, how to truly engage their audiences. Lots of spaces, lots of websites, lots of social accounts…leading to a house of brands.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center shares their social/digital tool kit online…funneling people inside the hospital to this site who are interested in having a social presence. If you want to join in the conversation…you must fill out the form. Cool tool kit…but it is more than a checklist…it is a culture.

Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson is a pioneer in this space, leading us down a path of understanding how to integrate the social space into the daily routine of a physician.

As stated in an opinion article from the LATimes:

“The problem, Swanson said at the South by Southwest conference Sunday, is that insurers won’t pay for the videos she creates to educate patients or the blog posts she writes about important new developments in pediatric care. No matter that these steps would lead to healthier patients who place fewer demands on the healthcare system.

She does them anyway, but the idea of communicating online with patients is anathema to her fellow doctors. “There’s an overwhelming climate of fear” among physicians, she said, about the liability they may incur or the privacy violations they might commit if they respond to emails or write blog posts about medicine.”

We are our own news organizations. We are taking control of our content…but are we building communities? We can find metrics for success by building fan bases, creating social strategies to sell services? But are we really measuring success or just graphing some numbers to make ourselves feel better? Better that we are empowering our organizations as we take control of our content?

I asked my wife today, why would you want to follow a healthcare organizations fan page? What would you want to get from that experience? She wants information that she can use, invitations to events to educate her about our child’s care. Relevant services that make sense to her daily life. No where did she say she wanted to see awards of recognition as a top hospital, best “this” and best “that”…she wants information that make sense to her.

I think I have to agree with Dr. V’s thinking:

“I can’t help but wonder if we’re in the midst of a social health correction – a readjustment of expectations and beliefs about the near-term potential of social media to revolutionize health.”

And I love this as he continues…

“We created filter bubbles that allowed us to hear the messages of those telling us precisely what we wanted to hear.  We saw the rise, plateau, and ultimate dissolution of social media consultants who would save us by telling us how to correctly use Twitter.”

It is time to move on and actually start engaging our tribe before we loose what we supposedly built over the last few years. It is time to consolidate, focus, and have a conversation with those who are our brand ambassadors. These social/digital outlets cannot save us..especially when all we do is use those channels/outlets as a one directional conversation and push our stuff. If we want to be a newsroom, content providers…it better be relevant or it will diminish faster than many traditional news outlets.

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Japan Tsunami Remembered … the Social Documentary Continues

This past Sunday, March 11th marked the one year anniversary of the Tsunami in Japan. One year ago, we all watched it unfold online, on television, via radio…where ever we could get information. It was a disaster of international reach.

A colleague of mine from my television day told me a story as I was asking for help trying to find some unique video tapes. He told me this video tape was rare because of the Tsunami. The video tape was made in Japan by Sony and stored in a warehouse that was under water after the Tsunami . But the story only begins here…the engineers and staff from Sony had climbed to safety on the top floor only to notice another building off in the distance had school children on the roof, waiting to be rescued.

So those Sony engineers and staff built a boat. There was a huge boat on display downstairs of the Sony building…so they worked to transform that boat into a usable form of rescue. They eventually put it in the water and made their way over to the school to try to rescue the children. This story was passed around by executives during last year’s NAB conference.

Each day we are telling stories. Each day we hear new ones. Each day we read articles like this from Mashable using a timeline to document the events from a past event, specifically the Japan Tsunami.  We are human and we like to share, recount, and re-live a time from “our” past. So how about the technology, the social technology that now surrounds us to document these events.

We still remember January 28, 1986…the day the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in front of our eyes. I remember watching from my 6th grade classroom as we watched the first school teacher go to space. It was just a few days ago, March 9th to be exact, that Huffington Post reported the finding of a new Super 8 film of an amateur recording of the explosion.

The article talks about how many people stored away old film from their past, and as they begin to go through their belongings…they find artifacts of national importance right in their drawers, closets, and attics.

These artifacts are so very precious, so rare, so valuable that even the Huffington Post finds the need to purchase the rights to this newly uncovered Super 8 film.  Compare this event to the Tsunami where we have thousands of user generated accounts of this day. Tweets, pictures, video, blog posts, Wiki entries…all of which unfold along with the main stream media’s reporting.

We no longer are having to rely on the individual to “just so happen” to find that Super 8 film, we now just do a Google search and the social documentary of our present day events unfolds right infront of us. We are writing the social documentary…and it is more that just recounting the day. It is sharing our thoughts, feelings, and expressions upon every update and upload.

How many of you saved stuff/articles from 9/11? I know I did…I purchased the NewYork Times and USA Today from Sept. 12, 2001. I saved every digital image I could find during those days so I could share them with my children one day. Sarah recorded the whole day of reporting from NBC News on VHS tape. All of this is locked away in safety deposit boxes.

Outlets like Facebook and Twitter bring the social documentary to the forefront. They interweave social memories using media in a time line fashion. No wonder Facebook has moved to the timeline interface, because we want to remember. Hashtags allows us to aggregate topics based on two variables: the particular hashtag and time.

We are creating the social documentary and it is unfolding right in front of us.

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Is your social story your truth or someone else’s?

The social documentary is one of the most fascinating layers of this new era of social discourse that is believe is truly shaping our culture. We are surrounded by it, we are engulfed in the conversation, we are in dire need to interact…yet we sometimes despise the outcomes.

Everywhere we look…we are documenting our very thoughts. For every tweet we post, every status we share, every check-in, pin, video created…a time stamp and internet location bears down on this global platform of social commerce.

Why…why do we take part? Why do we so gingerly engage in this social drama to feed the ever changing need to share just one more time. We do it so colorfully that we take great pride interweaving our social drama…sharing when we are at the lowest and at the highest of peaks.

We find ourselves submitted to the brand autopsy leading charge as we are influenced to follow. Each time we document, each time we share, each piece of data…bits…bytes are uploading into the cloud for the social brothers to create more reports to feed the social machine.

This social documentary is interwoven in our everyday lives. I ask my students, what are the first things you do when you get out of bed and I wonder if it differs from most connected business leaders…”we” check our Facebook page then our email. Oh, then we get out of bed. We then share our morning thought and a morning picture of our loved ones. We then check-in for a coffee and a status update like we are turning on the keys of our automobile. Social sharing is as easily created as breathing the every breathe of our day.

This technological documentation is one hell of an aggregator. We can be found and held accountable for each tweet, update, picture, check-in, video shared. We find ourselves scared to talk more freely and engage in collaborative innovation through connectivity. Steven Johnson was hoping that this social share would allow a since of transparency that would cultivate thought and break through barriers. But now we are scared to say what we want because now the social share is our own social morality.

In update we trust…it has become our truth. We are creating the truths of today each time we document our thoughts, moves, opinions, reviews…etc. Whether if someone has passed away..or not…we choose to follow and tweet just so we can be “the first” regardless of fact…but it is our truth. Just ask Erin Andrews…from the romanticized scandal of the lewd photos to speculative tweets she is leaving ESPN…whose truth? Oh, and how about Komen and Planned Parenthood. Komen is probably hating the social documentary…just go read the recaps on Huffington Post.

We are creating these truths each day and we are shaping beliefs as fast as we can post the link. Why do you think politicos love the social space…ones beliefs can saturate a timeline enough and eventually create a truth which shapes a vote.

I just sit back and think about this large role of the social documentary…we have been creating the layers, the stories of our documented lives and it is unfolding as fast as we can get to a device and share it…or someone share about us. Don’t lie…how many times have you un-tagged a photo because you hated the double chin or even the person you were standing with…are you reversing truth?

The social documentary is all around us and we are taking part in it regardless if you like it or not. It has become our truths and we are shaping it for the brands and the social brothers to aggregate. We are creating their social commerce…we are just the documentary storytellers, sharing our lives with the world.

Is your social story your truth or someone else’s?

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Social Sustainability – Social 3.0

It is time to move on and start thinking about the most important part of this social argument…how the hell we are going to sustain this movement and our communities.

It is time to get past the “Like” programs, the various blog posts for SEO, the YouTube strategies that might get over 100o views…we are emerging into Social 3.0 and it is all about sustainability and connected growth.

So what do we know…

We are in an age of Social 3.0 where we have been trying so many outlets as test beds (Social 1.0 & 2.0) and we are starting to see where we are gaining the most traction. Bottom-line…

1) Website is a primary destination point for fundamental information
2) Facebook is the primary community driver
3) Twitter is the amplification channel & secondary community driver
4) Blogs are our voice (our context) & secondary community driver
5) Pinterest is a Social 3.0 opportunity to engage that new age social/community influencer (women 25 -44)
6) YouTube is a organizations face/voice 3D along with being SEO driver

We know that the Facebook IPO is close and we are getting closer to a sustainable social model unlike the uncertainty of previous social models.

Basically …Facebook will be here for a while and many are predicting that it will be the place where we will push all our web traffic making it the most used dynamic portal to engage audiences. This is and will be a huge shift for organizations with static websites with small dynamic portals of information. What do we do with that site? Or should it be just a post card of information?

Pinterest is gaining traction (Mashable.com article on Dec 22, 2011) –> “The site is especially popular with women between the ages of 25 and 44, which comprise 59% of its readership, and the majority of those visiting Pinterest are female, consisting of 58% of its visitors in the past 12 weeks.”

So given this context…this begs the question of web/digital strategy: Should we force all web traffic through Facebook, making it the destination point for people then expose them to the website inside Facebook. Basically funnel all traffic through it. The analytics are there to support and we do not have to worry about down time.

Well this leads to how Facebook is changing it’s Timeline not only implemented for individuals, but coming to businesses/organizations pages on March 30th. What the hell do you do with that header and what about those tabs you paid for?

The new Facebook header becomes the dynamic portal for discovery.

Each time you change the header, you are uploading a new image. This image is put on the timeline as a public post, along with being placed on the header. So, we could use this as an opportunity for discovery. So think through all the events, initiatives, etc. that we are constantly promoting. We post a link to Facebook for people to click to learn more. With this idea, imagine adding some visual discovery to this scenario…people like to click images, photos, etc that come across the timeline.

With this scenario, uploading an image to that header position carries a promotional aspect. It becomes a main billboard.  So each time you upload this image for the header, it comes across the timeline for people to see and click. This could bring a new dynamic element of discovery to our Facebook page.

So is Social 3.0 about cross promoted social spaces that allows us to discover new places to engage. Audi thinks so…they put a lot of cash into their Super Bowl ads. Last year, Audi tried using a hashtag in their Super Bowl ad to promote a give away (#IsProgress Campaign)  It must have worked but was not sustainable long term.

So this year…they wanted to create a community of conversation around LED lights and vampires. They used the #SoLongVampires hastag in the Super Bowl ad that received over 2 million views and tens of millions of Twitter impressions a week after the ad appeared during the game.

We are learning…we are pulling back. We are starting to realize what is working and what just does not make sense for our communities. We are learning it is hard to create communities when there is nothing to connect people online.

We should no longer spray our marketing mess across all platforms…and hope someone will bite.  It was just a few years ago that males 18-34 were the main targeted demographic, but to me that has shifted with the social space making the female 18-34 a huge influencer, especially in healthcare. But Nielsen’s new Digital Consumer Report shows something interesting…Introducing Generation C:

“The latest Census reports that Americans 18-34 make up 23 percent of the U.S. population, yet they represent an outsized portion of consumers watching online video (27%), visiting social networking/blog sites (27%), owning tablets (33%) and using a smartphone (39%). Their ownership and use of connected devices makes them incredibly unique consumers, representing both a challenge and opportunity for marketers and content providers alike. Generation C is engaging in new ways and there are more touch points for marketers to reach them.”

So how are we growing? How are we sustaining? Are we engaging new audiences? Where are we cutting the fat? Or are we in this just for the SEO and to collect some data points?

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Do we really want Pinterest to become the next Social Marketing Outlet?

How many of you are on Pinterest.? I know I am and have been for about a year…especially after my wife told me about this neat little social network. She had to send me an invite in-order to join and ever since then…I have been pinning away.

What do I use it for? Well, between creating a board for my favorite photography gadgets, my gift wish lists, books I want to read, and even vacation destinations for Sarah and I…I am hooked!

Lately, Pinterest is starting to get lots of interest with the mainstream media including USA Today and Mashable.com.

In October 2012, USA Today wrote an article about Pinterst, “Pinterest stands out in crowded social media field.” They state:

“Time magazine called Pinterest — a website where users post collections of images of their favorite food, clothes, places and everything else — one of the five best social media sites of 2011, along with Google-Plus and Klout. The company has raised $27 million in venture capital led by the firm Andreessen Horowitz, which several tech news outlets have reported as valuing Pinterest at $200 million.”

Mashable.com started posting articles about Pinterest this past June and ever since have been featuring articles about this social outlet, leveraging the holiday audience. To date, you still need an invite to join Pinterest…but if you have a friend, they can invite you to this “some what private” social outlet.

Is the Mashable Effect starting to set-in, since they are the online social media magazine. You can see articles listed headlines including “The Top Brands on Pinterest“, “5 Ways Brands Can Use Pinterest to Boost Consumer Engagement“, and my favorite “Pinterest: A Beginner’s Guide to the Hot New Social Network.”

If you are a growing social network and you want to grow to the masses, you want an online media outlet like Mashable to write about your organization…and write regularly.

But as social consumers and connectors, do we want Mashable to take interest? Do we want main stream media to take interest. Facebook is no longer Facebook with the slick marketing of brands. Twitter is becoming overwhelmed with daily satire of “he said” “she said” quickly jumping to headlines. Between athletes, political outlets, and other individuals…it has become the first place to find people in the match-up of “one-ups”.

Yes…many people are in social media overload. I know I have been…my Facebook page is overloaded with friends, family, and others ranting political discourse leveraging digital word-of-mouth. So…can we keep Pinterest closed…fun…private…and enjoyable?

Do I really want to be influenced inside Pinterest? Do I want brands trying to build an experience for me inside my digital repository of fun-ness? It is the next big un-tapped market…I guess. I have sat through many marketing meetings thinking and wondering if Pinterest is a place to build a brand presence.

Econsultancy.com writes in the article “Revealing the demographics behind Pinterest’s users“:

“comScore says that the blossoming social curation site has over 4m registered users and is growing rapidly, while Google Ad Planner shows that nearly 1.5m people visit Pinterest every day – spending 14 minutes on the site on average.”

“Google Ad planner shows that Pinterest users are:
– Largely women (a 80% to 20% ratio)
– Aged mainly between 25 and 44 (accounting for 55% of the group, 30% are 25-34, 25% are 35 – 44)
– Just 25% of users have a bachelors degree or higher
– The majority live off a household income of $25-75k”

YES to this statement in the article: “So there’s some truth to Matt Buchanan’s post on Gizmodo yesterday that proclaims Pinterest as ‘a Tumblr for ladies’.”

No wonder brands and marketing staffs are trying to find an open path…this is a rich, wide open playing field. Even though these stats are wide in the bell curve, they seem every similar to the bell curve most healthcare marketers are looking for when connecting their brand to the end consumer.

Well, Facebook must see the value…now you can have a certain area to show off your pins in the new Facebook timeline. Yep…Facebook and Pinterest together connection people to brands. Hmm..

So…WHY. I want to keep it closed. PLEASE??? I want to enjoy pinning, sharing, and interacting with my little want lists. Well…I am not sure we can hold of the wolves, let’s get ready as brands and marketers like myself begin and continue to infiltrate Pinterest. Or maybe it has been open the whole time…we are pinning brands on our boards.

 

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Accountability for ReTweets, Shares, and Likes – SHAME ON US!

Should we be accountable for the information we share, we re-share, re-tweet, “Like”, or repost? What do I mean…should we be accountable when we add to the mis-reporting of information?

Well…this is what had me thinking, and it all started with this report:

Then CBS News reported this on the social space:

Then a barrage of followers, local news outlets, media outlets, and social media consumers began sharing as fast as wildfire. This was just one of the many tweets that were flying around on Facebook, Twitter, and other social outlets…people sharing false information:

This is a tweet that was shared on someone’s Facebook feed. So this one piece of information was shared by three different source before I found it!

So should we be accountable for sharing information and adding to the massive mania that ensued, like tonight with Joe Paterno’s health situation.  Jeff Sonderman of the Poynter Institute does a great job of recounting today’s reporting or information surrounding Joe Paterno. I also used some of his screen shots for this blog post.  Jeff included this in tonights recap:

The Associated Press took some pride in having waited, and thus not reported the false rumor. AP Director of Media Relations Paul Colford told Poynter in an email, “At no time did AP report or imply Paterno’s death on any platform. AP was relying upon actual reporting. Just like with the aftermath of the [Gabrielle] Giffords shooting.”

Oh yeah…remember that!

Steve Safran does a great job recounting the escalation of tweeting and sharing from notable mainstream media outlets during the Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford’s shooting.

“While the story of the Tucson shootings spread, early reports were mixed and often conflicting. This is often the case in a breaking and developing event. However, incorrect reports that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had died spread across the Twittersphere, sparked by tweets by NPR News, Reuters and CNN — some of which were subsequently deleted.”

Oh…I guess if we just retweet, share, or even “Like” mis-reported information, we can just go back and delete it for some damage control. But it is sad when family members have to take on the social space to discount the social eruption of mis-reported information:

There are many great journalists out there and I want to give a shout out to @NewMediaJim for sharing this with us!  Here is the actual tweet from Joe Paterno’s son:

So back to my original question…should we, the collective social media voyeurs be held accountable for mis-reporting of information. Should Twitter, Facebook, and other social outlets hold the users of these accounts to a standard in the terms of agreement?  Here is something interesting in Twitter’s Terms of Services:

“You understand that by using the Services, you may be exposed to Content that might be offensive, harmful, inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate, or in some cases, postings that have been mislabeled or are otherwise deceptive.”

Now I realize that there is no way that we could hold every individual responsible and legally culpable for sharing, re-sharing, retweeting, or even clicking the “Like” button surrounding incorrect information. It is the same as standing in room with your family during Christmas and saying that Aunt Sue has a bad heart, and before you know it the rumor has spread to family members that did not attend the get together that she had died.

But…if you were Joe Paterno’s family dealing with the massive story surrounding Penn State this part year, would you be upset when it was mis-reported that Joe Paterno had died. I would even be inclined to say that they (the Paterno family) might have some legal standing to file a suite against the media outlets’ mis-reporting this information. An how about the Gifford’s family?

Should we as consumers of information hold  the outlets that share this information accountable? Should we publicly question there sources of information and even rally for larger ethical standards. Well…maybe not, we are voyeurs just as much as they are…we are consuming and still following them online.

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Social Media Exhaustion – Over-Loading and Over/Mis-Reporting

Is this us…are we now the media? You know…”The Media”…

You know “those” people that compete to report information to gain readership? To gain clicks? To gain recognition of exclusivity? I used to be “The Media” and know what it means to compete to be the first to report, to provide the first images, the  first information…hell, I lived it! I still claim to be the first to fly over southern Louisiana in a helicopter to capture the first images for the world to see…just after Katrina.

Why does it matter? Why do we compete to stack our timelines when we hear some dies? Is it out of the need to share or to be the first to put it out “that” information? Do we consciously think about it as we do it…or have we bought into the synchronous style of social reporting. Are we digital voyeurs?

Facebook knows it…they openly admit they do not want to be the content creators but the content aggregators. Their timeline has the the “News Ticker” and will be adding new “Gestures” so people can do more than “Like”. Oh yeah…we can now subscribe to people without becoming friends, placing thought leadership into individuals’ timelines.

It can work to our advantage where we watch hurricanes and earthquakes unfold via Twitter. Providing rich information necessary to help people in need when the “mainstream media” had to have two sources to confirm. But…oh but…we see the flip side everyday from mainstream media we trust and support. We watched this misreporting happen during the Rep. Giffords shooting where it was misreported over the airwaves and the social spaces that she had died. Yep…just have to be the one to say it first. Mainstream media led the way and we followed by retweeting faster than we could stand it. We had to be the first to post the unconfirmed information to our timelines…to be the first to tweet and post those links. I wonder how many went back and deleted those posts? I wonder if I fed the frenzy?

We are overloaded…extremely overloaded. USAToday.com published predictions for 2012:

“In general, more and more people seem to be reevaluating their social and digital existence. Even the SOPA battle is revealing some unforeseen schisms. The Stop Online Piracy Act is a bad idea, not because piracy is good, but because of the plan for enforcement is wrong and dangerous. That said, no one who creates content can deny that the digital revolution hasn’t forced them to rethink how they create, sell and distribute content. There are no easy answers here and 2012 will be a year of introspection; one where we possibly rewrite the rules of content, copyrights and social interactions.”

Yes…I bolded the important part. An we are in the midst of a fight over how content is created via the web…all the way up the food chain to the Congressional ranks with SOPA.

Our timelines are overloaded with individuals fighting to report information faster than the next. Lots of unconfirmed information from deaths of people we know to out-of-context quotes from political candidates. My social space is a competition between individuals competing to express opinions formed from mainstream media about political figures to videos captured of political candidates in the midst of heated, out-of-context debate and conversation.

Have we become the 6 O’clock news right inside our own timelines. No offense to the many of my friends and colleagues that are true journalists…but my timeline has become daytime drama from 4-6:30pm replacing the soap operas and 5-6pm news.

We are overloading our friends, family, and colleagues with un-truths in our social spaces. No wonder the numerous predictions across the spectrum have predicted 2012 as the year we pull back from the social space because of fatigue. Forbes.com just reported that Facebook flirting causes 1 in 3 divorces in 2011 overseas in England. This past March, The Guardian reported: “Two-thirds of the lawyers surveyed said that Facebook was the “primary source” of evidence in divorce proceedings, while MySpace with 15% and Twitter with 5% lagged far behind.”

I am a bit overloaded, trying to help clients sift through the social space…in the hopes to find the way to engage in digital word-of-mouth. It is a lot to sift through especially when our own personal space is a barrage of over-achieving social reporters. They are either competing to become the first to report or the first to pick a fight with a local church, hospital, brand, or “ex” something. No wonder customer service has become the next marketing (as reported by Forbes.com), because people have lots to report and fuss about online.

Yep…so who is the customer service for this rant? Well…maybe it is time to just trim back our social spaces; find better connections, richer content, and fonder communities. Time to get real.

***Image from Mashable.com via this link: CLICK HERE