Protecting Children from Social Media

Posted on April 19, 2010 by marc meyer

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.

The free ride in social media is coming to an end

Posted on April 16, 2010 by marc meyer

As Twitter continues to edge towards more of a business model that will offer something close to a premium level offering, something else caught my eye this week and it was this…

Ning announced that it was doing away with its free product and forcing its existing free networks to either make the change to premium accounts or migrate their networks elsewhere. They also announced that the company has cut almost 70 people —accounting for over 40% of its staff.

In case you don’t know what Ning is: It’s a service that allows people to join and create social networks. Ning currently has more than 1.9 million Ning Networks created and 40 million registered users.

About 6 months ago, I mentioned on a panel that the free ride of social media had to end at some point. People need to make money with this social media stuff and hopefully it is not a model based on traffic/advertisers.

This is only the beginning.

This weeks #Social Media Topic: Managing the Effectiveness of Your Social Programs #SM55

Posted on April 13, 2010 by marc meyer

Effective social media programs? Yeah right, how would you ever prove it? That’s the struggle of corporate social media marketers. There are tons of systems that help you listen and monitor, there are a lot of publishing tools that let you update multiple accounts and personas in the same dashboard, hundreds of social platforms and a few reporting tools. The problem is they are all just that, all disparate systems that are not connected and certainly not integrated.

So back to the question, How do you manage the effectiveness of your campaign? If you are like most social marketers today, there is little support for the social manager who is typically part of the marketing or communications team. Left to their own devices, they usually use the free tools and simply infer the results that they can patch together.

There is a new suite of tools coming onto the market that proclaim Social Media Management Systems (SMMS) that begin to couple two or three components together. Here’s the problem, even the specific SMMS solutions don’t provide a real look. The current SMMS solutions are tools. They were created as tools to measure other tools. What’s missing are the actual use cases, the tools that marketers need to track, analyze and report campaigns. In general, here’s a list of what’s missing:

Central Database – to pull the results together and create a single platform to analyze and report from
Proper Reporting – that integrates the different systems and provides true enterprise analytics and reports
Advanced Sentiment Analysis – not just positive and negative either.
CRM Integration
Traditional Marketing Comparison

Take a look at that last point. To truly understand the effectiveness of your social programs, you have to have something to compare them against. Think about it, a platform that could listen, suggest influencers (based on advanced sentiment), provide a place to respond from, track internal links and their paths/subpaths, manage digital ad spend, then monitor traditional ad spends, effectiveness and finally compare and recommend an optimized marketing mix based on real-time results and all at an enterprise scale. The panacea of managing the effectiveness of your social media programs. (From my experience, I have only seen this solution from one provider, Accenture Interactive (Disclaimer: Jason Breed works for AI)).

The reality is that only the top brands require the type of solution mentioned above. Every marketer has unique needs and unique results that will all have different values for each marketer’s brand. There is one marketer that has the experience to help us work through what’s most appropriate for all needs. That marketer is Tac Anderson. Tac has experienced the brand side at HP and the agency side from his current position at Waggener Edstrom. He will lead the discussion around the following topic:

Topic: Managing the Effectiveness of Your Social Programs

Q1: What type of planning should go into your social media campaigns? What is your process?
Q2: What metrics should you always be looking at?
Q3: What should always be on your scorecard to measure effectiveness? Are there any constants?

We invite you to join the conversation on Tuesday 4/13 at 12 noon EST by following #sm55 from any Twitter client or from our LIVE site.

via hashtagsocialmedia.com

Posted via web from marcmeyer’s posterous

The cult of social media celebrityism

Posted on April 12, 2010 by marc meyer

I’m starting to become acutely aware of the extreme amounts of entertainment vehicles, media outlets, media devices, content consumption and content creation that are being produced at massive levels all around me. Social media can do that. It can expose you to a lot.

But I’m also coming to a conclusion too.

From a media/content standpoint, what we consume and how we consume it for some of us, is in direct proportion to what we create and why we create it. Social media seems to be central to this theme that we need to be and can be validated through this “instant recognition”. We see it and we want it too.

Call it “social media celebrityism” if you will. In other words, we the content producers, want to be noticed, we want the attention that we see the “others” getting.

Why do you write? Why do you create vlogs? Why do you tweet? Why do you share your content? Are our motives altruistic? What is the bottom line reason? I don’t know your motives but I would guess that most of you don’t create content out of a vacuum.

What this really means is that all of us content producers have one goal in mind whether we care to admit it or not. We want to be noticed. We won’t shun it if it comes our way. In fact, on the contrary. We’ll embrace it in a heartbeat. I don’t turn down many opportunities, do you?

It’s like we all want, at the least, the 15 minutes that has been afforded us. Most of us would take more if we could too. We laughed when Warhol first said it, but the more I continue to sit back and watch how our wired world is evolving, I see a public that obsesses over being famous and in turn obsesses over the famous.

Social media has made us vain. Social media has made us want more. Social media has lowered the bar and social media has lowered the barrier of entry into this world.

Social media has made us conscious of the attention we can get and it makes us want it all the more. Most won’t admit that, but most won’t turn away from the recognition if it is somehow bestowed upon them by accident either.

There’s nothing wrong with it. but my concern is that as we become more desensitized to and inundated with UGC, either our desire for better quality will increase-which would be OK, or our expectations for more outrageous, salacious content will need to be met, or we will feel the pressure of sacrificing quality over sensationalism. Sadly, that may have already happened…

Being digitally shallow and outrageous will take on new meaning thanks to social media and search. Our 15 minutes of fame will be compressed and zipped to 7 1/2 minutes…

This isn’t happening to everyone but I dare someone to say that they have never written something that didn’t possess a certain amount of link bait. Who’s to blame? Me, you, our readers, new media, old media, technology..We’re all to blame and yet there’s not a thing we can really do about it. It is the world in which we live in now.

10 social sites you might have missed

Posted on April 9, 2010 by marc meyer

I haven’t supplied you with a post that directs you to some cool social sites lately, for that I apologize. So here we go.

1) Check out Tagxedo. It’s Wordle, but on steroids. Though you will have to download Microsoft’s Silverlight to really see it in all of its glory.

2) Start selling in 60 seconds with Tinypay. You want to see micropayments in a down n’ dirty fashion? This is it!

3) I love this deck, The Tipping Points of Social Media

4) If your not a fan of Social Media Today, you should be. Pay attention to this post by Coree Silvera titled 36 Twitter Resources: Advanced Twitter Search for Business, It’s loaded with advanced Twitter search tips you probably don’t know about..

5) Check out the funky named Goomzee. Goomzee helps increase sales through innovative solutions, specifically designed to connect buyers and sellers. It’s essentially a mobile advertising and lead generation tool for real estate sales and marketing professionals.

6) You knew something like this was going to be created didn’t you? Teneros has created a product called Social Sentry which provides corporations the ability to monitor the social networking communications of their employees. Delivered as a SaaS offering, Social Sentry enables businesses to monitor employee activity on all major social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

7) Tungle is cool. Get your personal profile and custom URL to display your availability, and let others schedule meetings with you (without having to sign up). Choose your availability, who you share your page with and when meetings get booked.

8. Though we all read a lot every day, Mitch Joel compiled a nice list of 20 books that you should read. The Digital Marketing Essential Reader

9) This is hilarious. The PPC Blooper pay per click humor blog, with the appropriate URL of…Yourppcsucks

10) Sign up for this and keep your eye out for Nebul.us

Lastly I want to give a quick shout out to the folks over at Junta42 they just released their eighth installment of the Junta42 Top Content Marketing blogs list. I was honored to place #7 on that list! Thanks guys!

10 little things SMB’s might be missing when launching social media

Posted on April 5, 2010 by marc meyer

I use SMB’s as an example here, but when reading Todd Defren’s latest blog post, apparently it is something that permeates organizations both large and small. What is it?

What are companies (SMB’s) usually missing when jumping into the social media waters?

They’re missing the point.
They’re misunderstanding the commitment
They think you can outsource it
They think it’s a switch
They don’t try as hard as they could
They don’t measure it or…
They measure the wrong things
They lack knowledge
They’re expectations are unrealistic
They don’t give it enough time

That’s it.

But you know what the great thing is about all of the above bullet points? They all can be fixed.

How?

Education. Education will help them get the point, but they need to know where to get that education. You can help them.
Understanding the hard work involved will address a lot of the unknowns. We can all relate to what happens with hard work. But there needs to be an emphasis and a complete understanding of how labor intensive social media can be.
You can outsource it, but it’s easier to understand when you don’t, the more you understand, perhaps the more capable you are of knowing what you can and cannot do internally.
It is a switch but when you treat social media as such, others can tell, they see your lack of commitment-they see the half ass effort.
If you don’t try, then what should you expect? I’ve always said, if you give 100%, then no-one can ever say that you didn’t try. You can take it out of the equation. But make sure you’re working smart.
You measure your efforts when you sell, when you advertise, when you hire, when you buy etc. etc. so this is no different. You just need the right tools to measure the right things.
Look up the definition of social media ROI and that will tell you what you should measure with social media.
Social media changes daily; the tools, the sites and the cool things, they change daily. Stay current. Pick 10 sites and dump them into a reader and read it every day.
Create reachable goals. Teams and coaches create goals-you should be no different.
Set up your expectations tied into your goals and give it all a legitimate time frame. But know it is a long term deal.

Now go get it done!

The Social Media Self Assessment Checklist-22 questions

Posted on March 29, 2010 by marc meyer

For the last few weeks I’ve started to compile a social media abilities list. Namely the skills and strengths that you would need in any high level position within an organization to carry out the social media duties and responsibilities required to be successful. Consider this the reverse RFP for social media consultants and companies. I know there are more questions that could be added, so feel free to add to it. If you can answer in the affirmative to the majority of these questions, then you are well on your way and uniquely positioned to help a lot of organizations.

1. Do you understand how social media fits into the overall marketing plans and goals of any organization regardless of industry?

2. Could you build a sound business strategy for a client around social media?

3. Will you be accountable for the quality of all social media plans/strategies/services delivered to clients as well as their overall client satisfaction?

4. Could you establish social media programs that actually drive revenue?

5. Can you drive social media work for clients? Including strategy development, tactical expertise and execution, and measurement of all their social programs?

6. Can you develop a methodology that includes resources, team structure, core processes, and best practices that can be scalable across the board with media and marketing teams?

7. Could you identify and define social media opportunities for clients as they align with their overall digital marketing goals and strategies?

8. Could you collaborate across all departments and disciplines to identify and implement social training needs?

9. Could you identify and act on opportunities to attract, market, and recruit top social media talent?

10. Can you manage the recruitment, hiring, retention, and professional development of a social media team? Do you know what to look for?

11. Can you determine the correct roles, responsibilities, and expertise needed on your team to scale and grow a social media practice?

12. Do you know how to monitor trends in any industry and collaborate with upper management to ensure preparation for potential changes within a market segment? and then position the company or division for success as an industry leader?

13. Could you work with global practice leads and other social media managers to develop, document, and share social media strategies and successes?

14. Can you facilitate collaboration, knowledge sharing, and encourage participation for social media across teams and offices?

15. Can you act or be the central resource for information related to social media? Would you want to be?

16. Could you be a credible spokesperson of social media at industry events?

17. Could you increase and raise the awareness of your organization’s credentials on social media both internally and externally?

18. Could you advise client teams and other internal executives on the execution of social media programs and new business opportunities?

19. Can you determine the right solutions for technology and measurement of social media? Including evaluation of current resources as well as social media vendors and develop partnerships with those vendors?

20. Can you collaborate closely across all departments and teams within an organization to provide complete solutions for clients?

21. Can you contribute to new business development by representing social media strategies and services? Could you sell social media to a client?

22. Do you have the ability to build relationships with senior executives within key client accounts? Is schmoozing part of your DNA?

As I said before, this list is by no means the end all be all, and is definitely a work in progress. It at least gives those within an organization looking for talent some talking points, or talent on the outside looking in, a starting point in which to evaluate themselves in regards to the social media big picture.

Why Twitter Still Matters

Posted on March 23, 2010 by marc meyer

Recently I read somewhere that the demise of Twitter is imminent and all anyone wants to talk about anymore is Foursquare and Gowalla, 2 shiny new LBS based companies that are reeling in new users by the bushel.

Sure I’ll talk about and use Gowalla and Foursquare, but that doesn’t mean that Twitter is no longer relevant though. In fact what this simply means is that those 2 aforementioned companies have merely carved out a niche for themselves in a space that Twitter doesn’t necessarily play in, though they have added an LBS type feature as of late.

But let me cut to the chase. let me tell you why Twitter still matters. It occurred yesterday and I’ll break it down for you. Watch this quick clip and we’ll talk about it after the jump.

First of all, this is NOT the first time this has happened where Moore has stepped up and “helped” someone via Twitter, but it’s magnified because it was Demi Moore and Nia Vardalos (another actress), but it could have been anyone who stepped up.

The point is, a life was saved because someone sensed that someone needed help and they took action, and they used Twitter to do it.

In today’s society a lot of us have become spectators to everything; and we prefer to keep it that way. Rubber necking our way through life and content not to get involved. Couple this with a general sense of apathy and what we have become is… a nation of desensitized onlookers.

So why does Twitter still matter? because without it, this person might have ended their life if not for 2 people that cared to listen, got involved, and called the authorities. Oh and by the way, they just so happened to be celebrities. Twitter still matters because of it’s reach, it’d depth, it’s breadth and the potential of hitting it’s designated audience.

So what other ways is Twitter making an impact on people’s lives?

Oklahoma City uses Twitter to notify people of impending Tornadoes

The Red Cross uses its Twitter page for disaster and preparedness updates

The American Cancer Society tweets about cancer research, specific types of cancer news, and information.

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society provides information about blood cancer, research and events that readers can get involved in.

Share Our Strength is a national organization that works hard to make sure no kid in America grows up hungry.

Without Twitter, these causes continue to struggle for visibility. But now, because of social networks, in this case Twitter, they’re able to have an impact and make a difference on the lives of thousands of people. I know this is just a handful of examples, but I wanted to point out to those that think that Twitter might not be relevant anymore, you may want to think again.