Posts Tagged ‘social media’
Facebook’s BranchOut App Turns Up the Heat on LinkedIn
Much like McDonald’s old McDLT sandwich packaging tried to “keep the hot side hot and the cool side cool” by separating the fresh-off-the grill hamburger patty from the fresh-from-the fridge tomato and lettuce, social media users frequently try to keep their public identity and activities public and their private identity and activities private by using multiple social media platforms.
This desire to curate or control how our different publics see us is one of the reasons that career-oriented social media sites such as LinkedIn have flourished even as Facebook pursues its ambition to be the world’s one-stop social media destination.
Facebook’s response to upstart competitors usually takes one of two forms: it buys the company or it creates very similar functionality and then kills the competitor because of its huge existing user base that other sites or services cannot overcome.
We saw Facebook in buyout mode recently when it announced it was purchasing the photo retouching and sharing company Instagram. Now we may be seeing Facebook in “kill the competitor” mode with its launch of BranchOut, the professional networking app that draws data from existing Facebook profiles to connect people in similar industries.
This presents a danger for LinkedIn. Even though it had the “first-mover advantage” in growing the professional social media niche, the Facebook juggernaut has the ability to dwarf LinkedIn’s network, given time. This Mashable article by Sarah Kessler states that while BranchOut currently has only 25 million registered users, as compared to LinkedIn’s 150 million users, BranchOut has access to the full 845 million Facebook accounts around the world.
I would imagine that LinkedIn’s leadership team is working to avoid the fate of the McDLT, which was eventually discontinued along with its innovative packaging. Only time will tell if Facebook’s “all things to all people” recipe for success will win in the end.
Follow me on Twitter at @charlesprimm.
Find Your Next Job Through Social Media
Changing jobs or finding new work after a period of unemployment is never easy, even in the best economic times.
And as we all know, the last few years have not been the best. I have seen many bright, hardworking, talented people in my industry struggle to find work following layoffs or shutdowns.
I know it’s a hackneyed cliché, but just as no good gig lasts forever, neither does a bad one. And unemployment is among the worst gigs there is.
The good news is that social media, the great change agent of our day, is now having an impact on getting a job. There’s a great infographic on Mashable about how social media sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook are booming as a way to connect candidates with job openings.
I can see the difference myself, in the kinds of ads and job suggestions displayed on my LinkedIn profile. The site seems to be doing a good, careful job of mining my resume and connecting it to open jobs I might be interested in, some based on my work background and some apparently based on compatible careers that match my education.
I like how the job suggestions are acting as a kind of surrogate career coach, encouraging me to consider possibilities I may have never considered.
For all those looking for work, or for different work, it’s clear that social media networking is an investment of time and energy well worth making.
Follow me on Twitter at @charlesprimm.
Google Goggles? I’m Waiting for the Contact Lenses
I try to keep an eye on the latest consumer technology news, since it’s probably more likely to have an impact on my life than the more esoteric sciences I come into contact with at my day job at a large research university.
So it’s been a lot of fun following the “Google goggles” story. The development team at Google Labs recently posted a blog and video on “Project Glass,” their conceptual project to bring the visualized, social media-enabled, mobile Web to everyone via a pair of special glasses.
There’s the professional, dispassionate, level to the story, where tech experts hash out how likely this is, when it might arrive, how good it will be, and the many implications for personal privacy and the dangers of distracted multi-tasking.
But on the other hand, I can’t stop imagining how cool it might be to walk around campus, connecting to a synthesis of the physical world and the location-based Internet, enabling my stream of consciousness in a way I never dreamed of.
My reveries usually end when I recall how much I dislike seeing people walking around with a Bluetooth headset in their ear all day, and I think with a shudder, “don’t go there.” I think I’ll feel better once Google manages to get their goggles down to contact-lens size.
Follow me on Twitter at @charlesprimm.
“Pink Slime” Gets PR Assist
An effective crisis communication response plan has always been part of successful public relations. It seems obvious to state this, but for many years, good crisis communications was like a well-kept secret, slowly trickling out to the wider industry over time and, seemingly, only in response to historic PR disasters like Exxon’s response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the decision to launch the Challenger space shuttle, as well as in recognition of crisis communication success stories like the Tylenol cyanide poisoning response.
So it’s tough to watch the Beef Products Inc., a Texas-based company, in the PR fight of its life in the wake of the recent “pink slime” controversy. This PR Daily story by Gil Rudawsky summarizes how social media powered the efforts of parents to get the beef products banned from schools and removed from grocery store meat departments.
The company, which uses industrial processes to retrieve tiny scraps of trimmed beef that otherwise would be discarded, launched the beefisbeef.com website to explain why the meat is perfectly safe and nutritious, and to argue why the term “pink slime” is wrong, misleading, and libelous.
They even include an effective infographic that explains why the use of ammonia in the process, one of the problems cited in the “pink slime” protests, is actually common throughout the food processing industry.
I use the word “tough” to describe this campaign because, on a technical level, while the company seems to be doing everything about as well as it can be done to address the critics and try to set the record straight, I suspect that the power of the phrase “pink slime” may be too much for them to succeed in the long run.
The Center for Media and Democracy’s famous PR industry expose, “Toxic Sludge is Good For You,” ascribed wondrous powers of persuasion to the practice of public relations. But nothing, not even PR, is totally invincible. In the end, the public does get to decide what they like and what they don’t like. And, if they don’t like “lean beef trimmings” or “pink slime,” they will vote with their dollars and reject the product.
— Update: April 2, 2012: The Consumerist reports that AFA Foods, another manufacturer of “lean beef trimmings,” has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, blaming the uproar over the “pink slime” news coverage.
Follow me on Twitter at @charlesprimm.
Social Media – Naughty or Nice?
It’s a given that social media’s usage and influence have grown wildly beyond what anyone expected just a few years ago.
According to a report by Navneet Kaushal of PageTrafficBuzz, as of January 2012, Facebook by itself was the destination for nine percent of all online visits in the US, and twenty percent of all online page views.
That’s not counting Twitter, Google+, and the many other social media destinations available online.
What’s interesting to me, though, is not that social media is huge, but that’s it’s huge enough to have sparked a discussion of what it means to be social.
Blogger Steve Sonn writes that a growing number of individuals are using social media in an antisocial way, by brazenly self-promoting their business and their personal brand in a one-way direction, rather than being “open, transparent, helpful and engaging.”
I like this concept, because it says something about the aspirational nature of why we communicate in the first place, and why we all seek out communities in which we can grow and thrive.
On the other hand, just as the music world has room for punk rock, there are those who want to bring the same “smash ’em up” sensibility to social media.
This Chronicle of Higher Education story by Jeffrey R. Young highlights just such a rule-breaker: Dean Terry, the director of the emerging-media program at the University of Texas at Dallas, who is committing what he calls “social-media blasphemy” with his new Facebook plug-in, “EnemyGraph.”
The service lets Facebook users identify their “enemies,” which then appear in their profiles. The report states that Terry originally wanted to use the word “dislike,” but that word was specifically banned by Facebook, in order to maintain a positive atmosphere for its users.
This “blasphemy” may be a tongue-in-cheek rejection of the idea that being nice, kind, and positive is the best way to approach social media. But I think it has the potential to create a lot of damage. Practical jokes may seem funny in theory, but in reality, they’re just mean.
So while I’m generally in favor of a little rule-breaking now and then, when it comes to social media, I prefer playing nice.
Follow me on Twitter at @charlesprimm.
Demanding Employee Social Media Logins May Create Big PR Problems
Companies who force their current and potential employees to divulge their private social media logins and passwords may be setting themselves up for big public relations problems.
Several news stories in recent days and weeks have explored the increasing numbers of employees and job seekers reporting that their bosses are demanding access to their Facebook user names and passwords, so they can check up on what they are doing online.
A story by MSNBC’s Bob Sullivan describes how applicants for jobs as corrections officers in Maryland were forced to log in to their Facebook accounts during the job interview, so that the employer could search the applicant’s photos for signs of gang affiliation.
The same story also described how the North Carolina state government asked applicants for clerical jobs to provide their Facebook usernames and passwords.
Now there seems to be some pushback against these kinds of demands. Mashable’s Sarah Kessler reports that Facebook may go so far as to initiate legal action against employers who demand their employees give up their login information to the social media site.
Meanwhile, politicians are getting involved as well. Politico’s Tony Romm reports that Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut is writing legislation to prohibit the practice of demanding access to the social media sites of their current or potential employees.
I think employers certainly have a right to expect professional behavior from their workers. It’s also a prudent move for companies to check out a job seeker’s public Facebook page or Twitter feed. But the kind of heavy-handed intrusiveness discussed here, however, betrays a fundamental mistrust of their employees. And it brings them a whole lot of negative publicity that could have been avoided.
Companies who feel compelled to spy on the people they hire may find their best workers heading for the door. Once they’re gone, of course, the former employees are then free to use social media to cause all manner of public relations problems for their old companies.
If I were advising companies on their social media and hiring policies, I would strongly recommend they stay away from forcing people to open up their private lives. It’s much easier to leave the door shut than to open it and then regret the negative publicity that may result.
Follow me on Twitter at @charlesprimm.
Facebook Timeline Can Help PR Tell the Never-Ending Story
One of the theories of communication that has had a big impact on me in graduate school is “narrative theory.” The theory, described in the SAGE Reference service, states that humans are natural story tellers. Using narratives to make sense of the world is so basic to human experience that people can really be described as Homo narrans, or “story-telling human.”
I write this because I think the new Facebook Timeline is a surprisingly powerful way for Facebook to insert itself into the ongoing narratives of its users’ lives.
Who doesn’t enjoy the occasional trip down memory lane? I certainly do, and I must say that combing through my personal information and Wall posts in preparation for the switch to the Timeline resulted in a series of “blasts from the past,” looking at old photos and remembering friendships that have strengthened over tine and those that faded away over the years.
This powerful impact is not limited to individual users. Facebook recently opened up the Timeline format to brands, which makes perfect sense. Narrative flow has always been a powerful tool for advertisers looking to change or strengthen brand loyalty.
The Timeline format also holds promise for public relations practitioners, according to Tonya Garcia of PRNewser. Her article, “Four Reasons PR Pros Will Love Facebook Timeline for Brands,” highlights how public relations can work alongside marketing to help tell and shape the story of their organization. As a company reaches milestones in its growth and development, for example, its Timeline can help strengthen its relationships with stakeholders in a compelling way, establishing contexts and promoting the organization through its unique story.
If we humans are really Homo narrans, then the Facebook Timeline is just the sensible next step in our ongoing evolution, telling a story that never has to end.
Follow me on Twitter at @charlesprimm.
Cautiously Optimistic 