Tag Archives: Facebook

10 social media sites, blogs and links you might have missed

Posted on by

I haven’t done a post on stuff I’ve saved lately, and I love when others share links, articles and sites with me, so here’s a few that I’ve accumulated.

I’ve been writing and talking a lot about Facebook and children and parents lately, and the site Togetherville is at least a step in some direction. I don’t know if it’s the answer but at least someone is doing something.

I came across Tlists when I showed up on one of it’s lists of “The most listed Tweeters on 921 lists about Social Media”. Find the best tweeters on any topic.

When I participated in this innovative Twitter project by Toby Bloomberg is an incredibly smart marketer out of Atlanta, I had no idea she would make it into an ebook, but it’s a great read and was a great idea! – Social Media Marketing GPS: A New Media Roadmap For Creating A Social Media Strategy

What are the top brands on Facebook? What might be a better question is, Are you surprised at who you see on this list? Fan Page List has all the data.

From one of our weekly Tweetchats hosted by JD Lasica on Facebook and Privacy, this link was shared: Facebook Backlash Sparks Transparency Tools which has a couple of really good tools in the article.

While we’re at, have a look at Openbook

I can’t say it any better than this: Where DIY meets WTF..

Turn an email address into a social profile with Flowtown

This has some potential now that Ning has constructed pay walls; Add a forum or social network to your blog with BlogFrog

This last post was so dead on and had me laughing and nodding my head all in the same breath. 8 websites you need to stop building

Got any I might have missed?

Children and Facebook-15 links to Help Parents Learn

Posted on by

This is where my head is at right now. I’m listening to the pushback from Facebook users and parents who are concerned about Privacy. I’m compiling an exhaustive list of blog posts and articles related to Facebook, children, and privacy and how it impacts all of us.

Stay tuned for the wiki. In the meantime, here are 15 links to posts that address the issues that dominate not only my thoughts and hopes to see something done about Facebook’s complete disdain for its users; but also what keeps parents up at night… Some of the links here are to not only open parents eyes to what they are forced to deal with right now, but also in “how” to deal with it. I hope it helps.

Facebook: Children evade social websites’ age limits

Social media create new bullying issues for schools; Collier forum set for Monday

Too young for social networking?

Facebook, states set bullying, predator safeguards

How can parents access their children Facebook account

What is Facebook Doing to Protect Children from Sexual Predators?

Facebook ‘fails to protect children’

How To Monitor Children On Facebook

Should you be Facebook friends with your children?

Facebook urged to add ‘panic button’ for children

Facebook May Share User Data With External Sites Automatically

The Big Game, Zuckerberg and Overplaying your Hand

NYU Students Start Privacy-Minded Social Media Site

Social Media Parenting: Raising the Digital Generation

Why Facebook Can’t Be Trusted

On Trust and Children in Social Networks

Posted on by

So I’m at my 12 year old daughter’s softball game last Friday night and as the game is concluding I reach for my cellphone and I see a text from my wife it reads:

Your daughter is on Facebook”?

I text back

She better not be”.

As I’m waiting for her to emerge from the dugout, I decide to call my wife who is in Ohio for the weekend for my nephew’s first communion. The first words out of her mouth are that her sister Terry tried to “Friend” my daughter on Facebook. I was shocked and stunned. But there were some legit reasons why. Here’s 4 of them.

1) Not 2 weeks prior to this happening, I was on television and in front of a live audience, as well as members of the school board, explaining why I did not see the point in children (freshman to sophomores on down) using Facebook, let alone a social network at all. They’re too young.

2) I had explained to those that attended, how important it was to monitor your childrens online activities.

3) I had outlined how important it was, to explain the implications of privacy and what can happen when you are “out” there to your children.

4) My daughter saw the event on television

Apparently I suck at drinking my own koolaid. I did not do a good enough job of monitoring my child’s online activities. I took for granted that my straight A’s student, great athlete, daughter would never violate the trust that I thought we had. She had asked previously if she could get a Facebook account and I said no and I explained why.

Here’s the cautionary tale.

  • First off, I felt completely betrayed by my daughter,
  • Facebook has no idea of the challenges that parents face.
  • Even “good” kids will do what their ‘friends” tell them to do and what their parents tell them not to.
  • My daughter knew she wasn’t supposed to be on, but her friends told her to set up an account.
  • As smart as my daughter thinks she is, and yes she is,  she still set the account up wrong, but luckily she had not put “that much” info out there.
  • There were dozens of other “friends” waiting for her to “friend” them back. Dozens.
  • Those other “friends”, were no older than 13, but the majority were younger than 13. That means that they worked around the so-called age limit to join Facebook.
  • Children have no clue what privacy settings are and how to set them up on Facebook.

So what’s my point? I supposedly was monitoring my daughter’s online activities. I live, eat, breath and sleep this social media stuff, and yet she did it while my wife and I were down the street trying to hit tennis balls.

The parents of the others that I saw on there? Chances are, they do not live, eat and breathe social media. I bet if I were to at least look at the privacy settings of those accounts, 90% of them would be wide open. That’s a problem. One of many.

As social networks and mobile phones continue to evolve, and as the age of innocence continues to evaporate, and entry into owning a phone continues to be lowered-issues about content, behavior, ignorance, and privacy on social networks are going to continue to escalate and magnify. Take it from me, or maybe not…

We didn’t mean that transparent…

Posted on by

Transparency and openness are so 2008 and you’re so 2000 late.. OK so I’m paraphrasing Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas a bit there.. But I have a simple point to make with a larger concern. look at these latest headlines.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Believe In Privacy

What Do New Facebook Features Mean for Your Privacy?

See What Facebook Publicly Publishes About You

NJ Principal Asks Parents To Ban Social Networking

Facebook’s High Pressure Tactics: Opt-in or Else

Facebook’s Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline

So where’s our head at? When some of us first got into social media we touted, and admittedly I still do, the transparent and authentic nature of it all. How social media connected us or would connect us, in ways that we never dreamed of. It was our sales pitch if you will.

Sadly those days are over. Transparency and openness are the old defaults.

A funny thing has happened along the way. Some of us are not as cool with that as we thought we would be.

We care about our privacy. We just didn’t realize how much social networks didn’t.

We didn’t start to care about how much was “out there” until we started to see it abused and blasted all over search engines and showing up in our mail boxes.

The pushback has started. Privacy is the new default, and it’s time for Facebook to quit making it so damn difficult for people to understand how to control what others can and cannot see.

Protecting Children from Social Media

Posted on by

How can you protect your children from social media?

One might say, “Do we really need to”? and another would say “We have to”.. and still another will say, “We’re all overreacting”.. and you know what? All three opinions are in a certain way, correct.

Do some of the following questions and comments sound familiar?

“I’m on top of it, I know what this social networking thing is all about”, “My child doesn’t really use it”, “Does it really matter? It hasn’t been a problem yet”, “My kids are good, they’re responsible and know what they are doing, nothing has happened, nothing ever will”.  “Facebook seems harmless”, and besides, all they do is text”.

Your children, and for the sake of this post I will keep it to those children that are under 18, are exposed to so many different forms of media and channels of communication, that one has to wonder…

How do you shield them from the dark side and at the same time allow them to explore, absorb and learn without acting or being perceived as the enemy?

Right?

Before we dig into the what to do, let’s review something real quick that may help you to understand the landscape a little bit.

Though the above graphic refers to adults, children are not too far off from this model.  This graphic by Forrester Research, refers to the types of people that hang out in communities and what they do in those communities. Your children hang out in communities, both online and offline, and all of those communities have their own sets of things to do, their own sub cultures and their own cliques; and within those groups there is as well, unwritten rules and what not.

But more importantly, aside from the breakdown of percentages in that graphic above-look at the number of ways that people can consume and create content. It’s just the tip of the iceberg in ways that a child can communicate with their peers and others. We are, and they are, consumers of media and creators of it.  We are, and even more importantly they are, in the digital age.

They can:

  • Text with their phone
  • Online Chat via AIM
  • Create video on YouTube
  • Comment on YouTube
  • Create a blog on WordPress
  • Comment on any blog anywhere
  • Create a song
  • Create a network via Ning
  • Upload music and comment on the music
  • Upload an audio podcast
  • Tweet on Twitter
  • Create hundreds of profiles on hundreds on networks
  • Update their status on Facebook
  • Share images on Flickr
  • Share music
  • Share audio
  • Share content
  • They can use a desktop computer
  • They can use a laptop, ipad or itouch
  • They can use a smartphone
  • They can use a mobile device
  • They can use someone Else’s device or phone
  • They can use someone Else’s account
  • They can rate someone
  • They can vote for someone
  • They can create a poll or survey
  • They can use a Webcam
  • They can build a website from scratch

All of these forms of communication are just that, forms of communicating-with context and without. And… the majority of these activities have incredible SEO ( search engine optimization) ramifications. Simply put, when this content is created and uploaded or shared, if it was not done in the ever dissolving walled in garden of Facebook- then it is essentially waiting to be found by someone. Good context and bad.

I repeat, Good context and bad. Simply put, If I create or write something about Thomas Jones being a jerk-There is a high likelihood that it will be found in search. The problem? Thomas Jones might be a great guy, but you don’t know that. You just read that TJ is a jerk and so you decide to tell someone else…and so it begins. It goes viral in a social network and people get hurt.

Your digital footprint has never been more impactful than it is now, here in 2010.

So how, as a parent, do we deal with the firehose that is electronic communication, that is social media? How can we at least protect, shield and monitor our children from this new media evolution but still allow them to enjoy all that is has to offer in a positive way?

The first determination is the degree of involvement if any. If there is none, and they say there is none, don’t assume that. If it’s not happening in your house, don’t assume that it is not occurring next door, or in the school library or on the playground.

Assuming participation in social networks is going to happen and or is happening, then you need to take an active vital role in education, in creating policies, and creating ground rules for participation.

Believe it or not, even at the small business level as well as the corporate level, two things that we implore companies and businesses to do from the outset is to:  1) Start listening and monitoring to what is being said about you, your company and your industry and 2) set up and create policies, rules and guidelines for participation in social media. If they didn’t do #1, they won’t know what is going on and, #2, just like children, adults will take advantage of the  zero social media policy and the situation and zero work would get done. So the same applies to children.

So I mentioned education. Do you know who needs the most education? You the parent. That’s right. You need to educate yourself on what the social networking landscape looks like and the texting landscape looks like.

u ned 2 kno what asl is as much as idk, wtf and omg…

The more you know, the more you will be able to understand. What do you know and how much do you know will be critical; but more importantly, how much of what you think you know and is it accurate, might be crucial.

Once you have a firm footing it’s time to create policies, rules and guidelines for usage. It starts simply with no computers in the bedrooms. Having the computer in a medium traffic area can be a game changer. Next as part of your rules, policies and guidelines, you will want to know, have or have done the following:

20 point checklist for letting your child engage in social networking

  • Know all social sites that your child is a part of it
  • Have access to all content pages that your child has created
  • Know all user names, passwords and profiles that your child has created
  • Know all email accounts with user names and passwords that your child has created
  • Create rules of engagement on social sites that are built on being “accountable” to you for their actions-A 3 strikes rule is not a bad idea.
  • Create your own accounts in these networks
  • Explain that though you will have all this information, you will only access it, should there be a need to.
  • Establish Trust.
  • Understand that that trust may be breached
  • Review the privacy settings in your child’s social networks and map it to their profiles and then review their profiles
  • See who is following of “friending” your child and vice-versa
  • No adult, unless it’s a family member should be in any network that your child is part of.
  • Explain the dark side of social networks to your child, there’s nothing wrong with being scared straight.
  • Periodically evaluate the content they are sharing and consuming.
  • Know what they are searching for
  • Don’t forget or ignore texting and email. Establish usage guidelines for those as well. Never assume they are harmless or easy to manage.
  • If you feel the need to establish time constraints for computer and phone usage, do it.
  • You’re not trying to be a friend here- we’re trying to be parents.
  • If you have to shut it down-don’t feel guilty. Do it without remorse.
  • The computer is not a babysitter. Talk to them.

In closing here are some things that you need to know that I told a group last week and it’s something that I have seen first hand. For the most part  young children could take or leave using social networks and in my honest opinion-the usage of them, from a learning and sharing and creating standpoint in high school can have great value. But the usage of social networks for those below the age of high school freshman and possibly sophomores, I see no need.

For parents, knowing what your child is doing on a day to day basis is normal, but adding the dynamic of social media and social networks to the mix is definitely a challenge. especially without a road map.

Understanding social media, becoming educated about it and learning how to use it and monitor it are things that companies of all sizes are currently wrestling with. Take heart parents, you’re not alone.  It does get better though once we all are on the same page. Just remember that you need to be controlling the technology, not the other way around and certainly not by your children; and though we call  it a fire-hose, that fire-hose can be turned off.

5 simple ways SMB’s can readily adopt social media and get rolling in one day

Posted on by

I recently spoke at a little breakfast meeting of a 100 people or so and I knew that the economy was  still being unkind to small business owners. I knew they were still trying to wrestle with the alternative options that social media might provide. But coupled with wrestling whether to make the leap or not,  was the notion that commitment to social media is labor intensive. They already wear a lot of hats and now they have to somehow integrate social media?

So I thought it might be prudent to provide 5 simple suggestions on what an SMB can do right now to become part of that conversation. Yes, there will always be a learning curve, but we have to start somewhere and then build from that.

1)  Get a Twitter account. Beyond just having a Twitter account that’s not doing much, learn how to use it to your advantage. Why? because you want to be able to monitor and listen to conversations about you, your product, your company, your industry, your customers and your competition.  You can listen for opportunity and you can use Twitter as an ad hoc arm of customer service and reputation management.

How do you do all that- You use a 3rd party application like Tweetdeck which allows you set up individual columns for each of the above mentioned. The good news? In theory if you don’t want to have conversations, that will not prevent you from mining valuable data. The other good news? You don’t have to sit there and wait for it to unfold. You can peel back the tweets to your hearts content! This might take less than an hour to set up. Even less if you already an account.

2) Create a Facebook page. I know, you’re probably thinking, “you’ve got to be kidding me”? Well you know what? I bet you already have a Facebook page anyway right? So what makes this any different? What…? That it’s for work?  Given that businesses can now create vanity URL’s on Facebook you have a great opportunity to grow your business using basic Facebook  features for as little as an hour a day. Most of you have a customer base and there is a good chance that some of them are loyal. Facebook allows for you to connect with your customers. At the least it allows you to promote offers, ask questions and engage your customers. Setup is minimal. About an hour.

3) Create a Linkedin profile. Again, you should have one of these anyway but there are some cool little features buried in Linkedin that can help you network with like minded professionals, look for new resources and partners, connect with current and past work colleagues and if need be, look for a new job. Pay particular attention though, to the Question/Answer section of Linkedin.  There is some gold in that thar section. Set up time 2 hours but once it’s done, you’re done.

4) Now link your Twitter account to Facebook and link you Twitter updates to LinkedIn so that all of your twitter updates, if you do them, will flow across all of your networks. If you ever feel so compelled to contribute, converse, share or become part of the conversation, you’ll only have to do it once and everyone in those 3 networks that are part of “your network” will see it. This might seem a but complicated, but it’s not, you just need to check out those links. Time it takes? An hour

5) Now go to your website and put these 3 links or icons to these social sites on your website. Make sure that they are prominent so that people that may be looking for you and what you may offer can find them. The point is we want to make sure that we are providing as many ways as we can for customers and prospects to talk to us. They are your lifeblood and THEY are using social networks with or without you. Get in the game. It may take you an hour.

Now here’s the last thing. Even if you are not an “A” personality and you’re somewhat passive. You still have relationships with your close friends and relatives, right? What do those conversations and relationships consist of? Are they about what you had for breakfast? Perhaps, but there is so much more to them. And the reason they are your friend in the first place, is because you are interesting and you have something in common with that person. You both are exchanging and sharing value. Guess what? the same holds true in social networks. Value begets value. Even if your not a content machine like a Chris Brogan, you can still carve out a niche for you and your company.

Now go get ’em.

Share this Post

18 reasons a social media snake oil salesman might want out

Posted on by

Last week I wrote a post that got a tremendous amount of love from the folks over at social media today and rightly so, it was all the reasons why I love social media.

But what if you were sick of it? What if you were a snake oil salesman trying to cash in on the social media phenomenon and you were starting to realize that this social media stuff sucked? What might be your reasons for getting out and jumping into real estate short sales or something?

Your excuses, er reasons might look something like this:

1) You didn’t realize how much work it took

2) You realized that people aren’t into your “get 200 Twitter followers” for $19 a month program

3) Your social media certification classes didn’t really take off like you thought

4) Stealing other peoples content was hard work

5) Spamming hashtags wasn’t driving any business

6) No one is calling you or responding to your sign up landing page with exclusive offers and social media tips

7) People were not sharing your viral videos that you stole created

8. Strategy? What strategy?

9) The trusting client is pissed because the Twitter account you created for them with the 30 tweets, 30 followers, and the 5000 people you’re following, hasn’t really amounted to anything

10) There was too much to learn

11) You’re tired of RT’ing others on your 6 month old Twitter account

12) You never figured out what that Facebook vanity URL thing was

13) Case studies? On what?

14) Social media is dead anyways

15) You hate creating content and no one was coming to the blog

16) Social Media ROI isn’t important

17) It doesn’t work

18) When someone asked you about Gowalla and Foursquare you looked at them like this…

Share this Post

The relationship viewed as transactional

Posted on by

As January 2010 slowly slips away I’m struck by thwo things I’ve read today, actually 3. Lets back up a week to add some context to what I’m about to say. On January 8th  Mark Zuckerberg the founder and CEO of Facebook made the following comment:

If he were to create Facebook again today, user information would by default be public, not private…

Here is the full blown article as found on ReadWriteWeb: Facebook’s Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over

Following that admission, Shel Israel and I had an exchange on Twitter that started with this from Shell…

At which point I said:

@shelisrael Agree. I know I’m pigeonholing here but millenials have a different notion of what privacy is or should be..

To which Shell responded”

@Marc_Meyer I don’t know if you’ve asked Millenials how they feel about privacy. I think you should ask them b4 making a blanket statement.

and…

Would you see it the same, if FB also started posting street addresses? phone #s? SSN? How about photos of kids? Does he decide? 10:38 AM Jan

and…

It would depress me greatly to think an entire generation had lost a sense of privacy. That would be Orwellian.

My point in all of this? Mark Zuckerberg comes from a different place, he operates in a different space. Millenials treat privacy differently and so does he. I’m not making a blanket statement as much as I’m referring to Zuckerberg, who is a millenial, and who has created a completely different notion of what privacy is and should be. Relationships and privacy mean different things to Zuckerberg.

Now lets take danah boyd who says:

Publicity has value and, more importantly,  folks are very conscious about when something is private and want it to remain so. When the default is private, you have to think about making something public. When the default is public, you become very aware of privacy. And thus, I would suspect, people are more conscious of privacy now than ever. Because not everyone wants to share everything to everyone else all the time.”

Yes, but here is why I titled this post the relationship viewed as transactional.  As danah has so accurately stated, publicity has value. As a society we have always been attracted by and to celebrity, be it as tragedy, comedy or otherwise. Our society devours celebrities as three squares a day. Because of this,  and because of the social web, that potential for celebrity exists at every turn. But it comes at a cost in 2 forms. One form is what we hope to gain from that transaction and the other comes in the form of what we give up or are willing to part with. Look at it as a deal with the devil if you will.

We like our privacy but we love our 15 minutes of fame. In fact we love it so much that Josh Harris, of internet shooting star fame stated:

Andy Warhol said that, in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes,” Harris told me. “But I think he misunderstood what was happening. I think what people are demanding is 15 minutes of fame every day. And mark my words, they will get it. That’s where we’re heading, whether we like it or not.”

Relationships as transactions. We might not admit it, but what the social web has created is an unstated platform for every social interaction to have the potential to catapult one at best, into a cult of personality. In fact I would venture that though most might not admit, but part of their social strategy is to be “found” or to create a connection that results in…yep you guessed it, some type of transaction..Disingenuous? It depends on who you ask.

The upside/ 15 minutes of fame. The downside you may lose control of your privacy.

Share this Post

20 social media predictions for 2010 that might actually happen

Posted on by

I’ve been asked a number of times already to provide some predictions for 2010 in the social media space. What I find interesting is that oftentimes we haven’t followed through on the predictions from the last 3-5 years, so I thought, “let’s put a list together in which the predictions have a better than 50% chance of happening”. So here goes.

1) Facebook will change their privacy settings again. This would appear to be a lock.

2) A large public company will misstep in its usage of social media and the social media community will use it as an example along with Motrin and Dominos and nothing else.  Again, another lock.

3) Google will create a social app that creates a lot of buzz on Twitter and then it will slowly fade away. Think Side-Wiki and Google Wave.

4) Seth Godin will piss someone off with something he wrote or did that goes completely against the grain. There will be viral tweets about it, Seth will explain, tweak, and everyone moves on.

5) Someone will create a customer complaint video that will go viral-again. The company either reacts quickly and they’re applauded for their swift action or they don’t and they’re hung out to dry by a social media flash mob.

6) A large social media darling start-up will be acquired, and dozens more will fail and dozens more will be created.

7) Twitter will continue to evolve into a self-promotional vehicle. In the beginning it was all about the convo, then it morphed into echo, and now it’s all about the promo.

8. Another 5000 apps will be created for the i-phone. No Brainer here right?

9) Brands will continue to say that they are social, but it will be in name only.  Why? Because they still don’t know what they’re doing and are afraid to admit it.

10) 40 hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube every 30 seconds.

11) Chris Brogan will be attacked again on someone’s blog for essentially doing absolutely nothing-again

12) You will see the consolidation of some large agencies into the mega-digital agency.

13) UGC will more and more be the driving force in online advertising since it costs nothing. Somewhere a light bulb will go on.

14) The FTC will continue to focus on paid bloggers and recommendation engines. This is not over.

15)  On Twitter, authority will continue to be defined by influence which will be inversely proportional to popularity

16) A Twitter business model will emerge and it may just be the model we all love to hate-advertising.

17) The argument around the ROI of social media will not end-nor will the incessant amount of blog posts surrounding it either.

18) Large scale social media aggregation projects will continue to pop up, with the thinking that “that” is what the people really want, it’s not.

19) Social media case studies will start to appear that are less accidental in their success, and more purposeful in strategy, implementation and measurement.

20) Taking umbrage with those that call themselves social media experts will continue.

21) What do you think is possible in 2010?

Hopefully you’ll see that some of these were created purely for fun and others I truly believe have a realistic chance of occurring. Only the next 12 months will tell. Happy Holidays everyone.

Share this Post