» 2010 » March

A couple of times this week I have had to stop to think of the terms we use in social media that do not make much sense.

“Friends” is the worst of the lot. I have a lot of friends in social media, and then I have a lot of “friends”. Isn’t it funny how we use terms to describe people, relationships, interactions, that make sense when talking to internet geeks but feel a little … wrong when described to real world friends and family?

Most of the time people would only describe a real friend as more than someone who they have accepted an online invitation from, right? In fact I have, um, friends who would suggest a real friend is someone who would buy you a beer, or at another extreme, help you move home without expecting payment.

Fans is another strange term. There are not many things I would say I am a true fan of, perhaps John Lennon, Battlestar Galactica … Most of the people I meet on Facebook would not really come into that category.

If you are not a “fan”, perhaps “follower”? Follower suggests religious or political ideology … again, hard to see how that applies to the kind of “sandwich of the day” type messages people post to Twitter.

When  it comes to blogging, do we have an “audience”, a “readership”, “subscribers” or a “community”?

Here is how I define these things, but I would be interested in how you would describe them:

• Social media people are contacts or connections – A contact if you have shared virtual business cards, connection if you have made a virtual friend.
• You have an audience if you broadcast, even if those people respond. This is like speaking from the podium then taking questions by asking people to raise hands.
• Community exists when people talk to each other at your venue. Taking on the above scenario, once your talk is over and you move down from the stage and out into the halls. People might be talking to you but they are also having conversations around you that do not include you, that is more community than audience.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments (and feel free to talk to each other, heh) …

I am at SXSW in Austin, Texas. It is a huge conference, festival, and party for music, film and internet dorks (ie. awesome).

This is my first time in Texas but I was drawn here like returning to the mothership because in previous years it has been a huge driver in adoption of social media tools. Twitter was famously given a massive boost by SXSW and it is anyone’s guess which service will get the treatment this year.

One thing is for sure, though. Location based social media apps are already in full flow. Although I initally resisted giving away where I am, and hated seeing the messages appear in Twitter, I have finally given in and installed Foursquare.

On the face of it, Foursquare is not very useful. It turns “checking in” your location via GPS coordinates into a game. You win points for doing this. Yeah, I am not very interesed in that side of things either.

Uncheck the “spam your friends in Twitter” settings and start really using it though and all of a sudden it does become useful.

For a start, a huge conference like this one is the ideal setting for location-based social media because it tells you where your friends are, and where the hot parties are taking place.

Secondly, I got a very good tip when at the airport for which security line was shortest! Yes, as well as checking in your location you can also share tips.

Third, I am just about to use it to find where I should have breakfast.

That third one ought to get you thinking about how you might use it in local-based business …

Now, I am not one to suggest that everyone wants or should want this. There are real privacy and personal safety concerns (it is a stalkers dream), but for these uses alone it is also worth thinking about and checking out.

Do you use a location based social media app? Or maybe you are avoiding them like the plague? Please share in the comments ..

Okay, so my title is a bit misleading. I don’t condone in anyway the stalking of people on Facebook. However, I’ve been guilty of it on an occasion or two. I think everyone has searched Facebook for an ex that dumped tehm years ago. You want to see if she’s as pretty now as she was your junior year in college. (Although you secretly hope she’s not.)

Twitter's Geolocation feature

The point is Facebook stalking is going on whether we like it or not. It appears that it’s going to get a lot easier on Facebook and Twitter as they both roll out new geolocation features. Twitter’s went live briefly yesterday and is expected to be announced at the SXSW conference on Friday.

Facebook updated their privacy policy last year to cover themselves when the location feature went into effect:

Location Information. When you share your location with others or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any other content you post (for example, it is subject to your privacy settings). If we offer a service that supports this type of location sharing we will present you with an opt-in choice of whether you want to participate.

Some of you may not want your location broadcast across Facebook. You might be somewhere you don’t want people to know about, like a farmer’s market or comic book convention. Be on the lookout for this feature because you know the minute it goes active Facebook will start broadcasting your location. They say it’s opt-in but I’m skeptical. Facebook has a long history of thinking you should opt-out of features rather than opt-in.

Is Social Media working for you, or are you working for your tools?

This is a question I asked my coaching clients the other day. Your answer is important because even if you are doing all the right things within a service, you might be setting yourself up for a fall over the longer term.

Two of my friends are very closely attached to their social media services. Their fame and notoriety were mainly built from their following generated using early dominance of one tool. Each grew up with a different service but the similarities in how they developed are greater than the differences.

Luckily for them they were smart enough to leverage this new fame and develop their communities outside of the services where they were started. Most people however do not.

Why is this an issue?

• Services go in and out of fashion – How many people talk about MySpace any longer? Who talks about FriendFeed now?
• Services close – Pownce was closed down in December, 2008. Many people had invested a lot of time and effort into growing their following only to see it nuked.
• Services change – Many people were caught off guard when Facebook essentially made your privacy a low priority.
• Services make mistakes – I can’t count the number of people who have woke up to discover their accounts locked out through no fault of their own.
• Services take over – We are watching Google Buzz carefully to see what impact it will have on the social media world … it is Google after all.

Rather than build up some social service with your content, you should instead be building your community using those services. Yes, contribute, add value, but do not make them home. Attract people back to your own website, blog, email newsletter.

Then no matter how social media tools shift and change, you always are building an asset that you own and control!