Children and Social Media Project

Posted on November 14, 2013 by marc meyer

I’m starting a new project. I have no time to really be doing this but it means that much to me; and I know it will have an impact, so I’m doing it. First the backstory. It started with an email I sent to the superintendant of our school system. It went unanswered. Here’s a few excerpts:

Dear ____ It’s been awhile since we last talked, the most recent being when we held a social media summit meeting in your office with some of the other “social media” people in our area….

…I continue to think about the impact that digital and social have on our kids. In as much that my children, are pretty heavy users, I’d like to think that I’m better than most parents at monitoring their usage; and that’s what scares me. I have come to the realization that the digital environment in which kids swim in is downstream as their parents swim upstream. We need to fix that

I don’t have the answers right now but what I do know is that there has to be an approach that leverages what we learn from their usage versus what they learn while at school and what parents learn on their own. There is a definite gap. Eventually we won’t be able to escape BYOD in the school sytem, but beyond that, where I think the gap is largest is in a lack of understanding of the mediums and the platforms, their impact and their implications.

I write this as someone who cares not only about my kids but also the kids of parents who just don’t know. I see a lot of kids, mine included, who sometimes don’t handle social properly, understand the impact of social and don’t realize the search implications of social. We have to fix this….

It starts with the wireframe below. it’s just a wireframe but it’s a start. I already have the URL too. It’s called The Social Parent . I’ll eventually hand this over to some developers, but I’m still trying to flesh out what content needs to be there. the key? It has to be updated constantly. Things are changing rapidly. I’m not looking to make money, just make a difference. 🙂

Yelp is Broken and Social Flashmobs Apparently Rule

Posted on May 17, 2013 by marc meyer

I was just reading about the social media meltdown of Amy’s Baking Company in Scottsdale, if you’re not familiar with it, the restaurant was featured on Chef Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares production that airs on the FOX Network. To give you a quick recap, things did not go well for the owners of the restaurant and for the second time since Ramsay has been doing the show, he walked away and essentially refused to help the restauranteurs out. This act in and of itself says a lot since in his own right, Ramsay can be pretty irascible. So for something to essentially send him packing, when we know what he’s capable of, it had to be pretty bad. Suffice it to say, the owners of this restaurant, took it to another level via these Kitchen Nightmare Youtube videos.

Watching the videos of the show you can see why. But, not surprisingly, I found out about the particular show via social media. Why? Because the buzz of the show, the videos and of what the owners did started to play itself out on Facebook. When that happens, things can move quicker than an Arizona brushfire in July. So quickly that the brush fires moved over from Facebook to Yelp and Reddit as well.

The gist or the fuel? Apparently the owners decided to respond to the trolls that were commenting about how bad they came off on the show. This doesn’t absolve the restaurant owners but it does highlight the typical flash mob actions that occur on social networks. Give them anything and they will run with it. More importantly however, it highlighted something else.

Here comes my point and it’s about Yelp.

Yelp may not be the go-to source for restaurant reviews.

Why? Well, The ABC restaurant has 1131 reviews, some of which might be good, but most are not. 99.9% are snarky, mean, negative “reviews. ” The point? How many of those 1131 reviewers actually ate at the restaurant and how many just piled on for some good old flash mob social media bashing? 99.9%

What can Yelp do about that? Doesn’t that mean you can go and bash any restaurant, anywhere? Seems like it to me. Unless I’m missing something.

Help me to understand.

Two Hurdles and One Gap in Enterprise Social Media Engagement

Posted on October 12, 2012 by marc meyer

Recently, my work required that I evaluate some of the top global brands in a certain industry in regards to internal b2b social media usage. I’ve used upwards of 7-10 free and paid social media monitoring and measurement tools to do it. I’ve looked at social data for a month and I have discovered two hurdles and one gap. I’m going to boil it down for you and spare you the pain of elaboration and if you happen to see me on the street I will give you the lodown on my findings.

So here it is:

It doesn’t matter if you’re a c-level executive, a director, a manager or the owner of a small business. One of your primary and most valuable comodities is your time. Alotting time or taking time for engagement is not really high on the to-do list right now. Though recent data says that the more social your executives are the better performing your company might be.

That’s hurdle #1. Executives need to take the time to be better at being social.

Having resources to do all the things that these companies and individuals have read, heard and want to do in social and should be doing in social needs to be a priority but is easier said than done.

Hurdle #2. Organizations are resourced challenged.

And the biggest gap? The money is not there yet but social media budgets are continuing to loosen up quickly. They used to be non-existant. In some very large organizations that I have seen, social is not a priority at any level be it in internal or external, yet. The good news for all of these? You will see them all evolve in a positive manor over the next 3-5 years.