Most of us who live and work in the Modern era know that any online activity can be a huge time sponge. You get online, log into any profile you've created, or even just your email, and wham! an hour or two goes by in a flash. This happens without regard to what you are accomplishing, or what you need to be accomplishing elsewhere. You may just get sucked into following links – oh, look, there’s an interesting article, and another, and who’s that? Let’s look up that guy from high school… and he’s living in Germany? Let’s check out his personal website… and so on. It can happen to the best of us, and believe me, it’s happened to me – a lot. (That story about the guy from high school is true – who knew he lived in Germany now? Once you get that first nugget of information, you just have to follow up!)
But when you are online for work, and it’s gotta have results, that’s a different story. You cannot fritter away two hours on Facebook checking out photos and finding friends when you need to be promoting your new product launch. Okay, how do you avoid this?
First, get off Facebook. That’s no place for a new product, unless you are going to create a persona for that product, give it a personality and make its own Facebook page. I’m sure that’s been done, by the way… So what do you do?
What I am hoping to help you with in the next two weeks (and beyond) is to start to figure out which social medium is best for what type of activity, and what you can hope to accomplish by using any of them. I will not have all the answers, I am not an expert, but I have worked in publishing, online communities and marketing long enough to catch on to the way media works. And I know how confusing all these cute little names can be. We’ll try to sort out at some level the basic stuff – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogging, and maybe have time to look at some others, like SquiDoo and other funny made-up words. So stick with me and we can both go places!
Tom, good question. You are right, there are myriad piles of lingo for each industry/profession/discipline. While the term 'social media' likely has a dictionary definition, I will give you my synopsis: social media is a medium that will allow interaction between two or more individuals, most popularly across the Internet. The first social media platform that was popularized was MySpace, but it has now been eclipsed by others such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other sites. They all have pretty much the same vocabulary, with profiles (or Lens in the case of SquiDoo), friends, contacts, invites and the like, except Twitter, which is very different and I am still learning. And blogging is a social medium, too, because of just what we are doing... Namely, I write, you comment on what I write, I respond to your comment. So it's a give-and-take and hopefully we both learn something!
Posted by: Linda White | May 20, 2009 at 07:59 PM
Every profession has its own language. For those of us who do not speak the bloggers language or know what social media is; Somebody please publish a glossary.
Posted by: Tom | May 20, 2009 at 02:48 PM
Time sponge is correct, especially facebook, I know the director of my division uses Twitter to link back to our website, for exposure. Computers are wonderful for connecting and reconnecting with people. Great article!
Posted by: Kimberly | May 20, 2009 at 07:47 AM
I admit I feel a bit behind on this whole social medium stuff... part of it is the lack of time available to me in front of a computer. I've got Facebook and Linked In pages, myspace too (even though I'm not sure I should membership to that last one). Is there a way to streamline it all?
Posted by: K Lynn | May 19, 2009 at 09:05 PM
I definately need to learn more about how all this works, both becuase I have almost teenage children and also because my company does not yet have a social networking presence and we need to get on board. Can't wait to see what you have to share!
Posted by: Kari LeMay | May 19, 2009 at 08:18 PM
You read my mind. I want to be computer-literate,
but feel like a low-tech woman in a high-tech world. And I know I'm not stupid - just need a good "first grade teacher" to help me with the
fundamentals. Look forward to your insight.
Posted by: Evelyn Thomas | May 19, 2009 at 07:16 PM
Some of us can barely handle e-mail but learning more is always good - - both in what is helpful and useful and what will only complicate our lives even more! I look forward to more truly helpful info.
Posted by: Vernita | May 19, 2009 at 04:45 PM