Category

Social Media

Oct 16
Love0

Today Show Fuels Fears with Facebook Story

By Social Media

Generally speaking, I like the Today Show. I grew up with morning news programs and when I get a chance to watch them, I enjoy getting a news update with a sprinkling of magazine-style programming.

I was, however, deeply disappointed in the Today Show for the following piece about Facebook safety. Watch the clip below.

What this story does is fuel fear. It’s intentionally alarming people with a report of a perceived safety risk that is just not valid.

In the story, the victim was robbed by a neighbor who, the report alleges, knew she was leaving because of her Facebook status, and the fact that she was friends with her creepy neighbor on Facebook.

Now, I don’t know about you, but my neighbors know when I’m leaving because they see me put a suitcase in my car and drive away. We’re neighbors for goodness sakes. That being said, it was likely a neighbor who stole my kayak earlier this year. That theft itself had nothing to do with social media and everything to do with me having a thief for a neighbor.

The alarm over Facebook places, FourSquare and other status updates letting people know you’re not at your house is really overblown. It is, I’m told, the same kind of concern people had back when the answering machine was invented. People were fearful that if their answering machine said they were out and to please leave a message, they would be a target for thieves.

We’re all targets for thieves!

Let’s face it, if someone wants to commit a crime and they’ve picked you as their victim, short of locking yourself up at home, being paranoid and guarded with every single interaction, you’re likely going to get hit. Is this how you want to live your life? Nope. Neither do I.

Now, since the woman in the Today Show piece had her creepy neighbor as a friend and was posting her travel plans on Facebook, one thing she could have done is be more mindful about who she friends on Facebook, and what level of information those friends get to see. See my post about lists and how to create them in five easy steps. If she had a list called People I Don’t Really Know or Trust then she could have added creepy neighbor to that list and elected not to share her travel plans with people on that list. It’s not a bad idea, but truly, not worth getting all freaked out over.

What do you think? Was the Today Show playing on people’s fears over engaging online?

Oct 15
Love0

How to Create Lists, Save Some Privacy in Facebook, in Five Easy Steps

By Social Media

I just finished speaking to a group of nonprofit leaders at a workshop. There was a point in the discussion when one of the participants became very hung up in how one makes lists and decides who sees what in your Facebook profile. I’m endeavoring to address that here, in five easy steps.

1. Log on to Facebook and look for the word “Account” in the upper lefthand corner.

Account

2. Click on Account and choose Edit Friends from the drop down menu to get to the following screen:

Jennifers

Just LOOK at all those lovely Jennifers!

4. Now that I’ve created my list of Jennifers, I can decide if each Jennifer should belong to other lists as well, for example, this Jennifer is also a friend and someone who is part of my network in St. Louis, so she should belong to both of these lists as well.

privacy

See? Privacy in Five Steps. Easy.

Oct 12
Love0

The Content Creators will Rule the World

By Social Media, Uncategorized

Not long ago I read Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart a weird but worthwhile futuristic book that made me laugh and grimace all at once.

In it, the content creators are “so Media” which is a compliment as they are the most popular, successful people in the culture of the future. What are they doing to become so sought after? Streaming content constantly; the trashier, the more outrageous, the better. The rest of the population is so addicted to absorbing information that it’s practically all they do, constantly staring at their “äppäräts” — the next-generation smartphone in Shteyngart’s world. (If there was a prize for BEST USE OF AN UMLAUT IN LITERATURE this would be it.)

Is this where we’re headed?

In a way, I think yes.

As a society we’re constantly increasing the amount of time, the methods and the places we’re absorbing content. Take a look at this information from Nielsen:

Nielsen2

Nielsen

We’re spending MILLIONS of hours a month absorbing content from blogs and social networks. We know, statistically, that a website with a blog gets 55% more traffic. There is an exponentially, rapidly increasing value in having employees who create content on behalf of your company.

Are your employees ready for this? Have you built this responsibility into employees’ responsibilities, schedules and performance ratings?

If there’s not a plan for developing this content within your company, are you able to outsource it? How?