Social Media Is An Oxymoron

Posted on May 29, 2009 by Barry Welford

An oxymoron means that two words forming part of a phrase represent opposites or are contradictory. George Carlin popularized Military Intelligence and Jumbo Shrimp as examples of oxymorons. Other somewhat famous ones are Authentic Reproduction, Cautiously Optimistic, Civil Disobedience, Deafening Silence, Detailed Summary, Friendly Fire, Honest Crook, Humane Slaughter, Metal Wood, Tough Love, White Lie and the list could go on and on.

Social Media is another such oxymoron. Media most often is assumed to be mass media such as TV or radio. Social on the other hand implies relationships between individuals. The masses versus individuals – there is the contradiction

The social media scale

You are perhaps unaware of the social media scale since we are introducing it here. The scale is defined by that oxymoronic name really. In a way the two words represent the two extremes of the scale.

At the Media end of the scale, we have the minimally social ones, which merely allow you to vote on items that are classified by the medium. Examples of this are reddit.com and digg.com.

At the other end of the scale, we have social media that are online spaces where you can ‘meet’ and interact with others. Facebook and LinkedIn are examples of this. Others will be found to fall between these two extremes. StumbleUpon for example is closer to reddit but does provide for messages between friends.

Where Is Twitter On the Social Media Scale?

The interesting anomaly in all this is Twitter. Twitter itself was very much at the social end of the scale in its genesis. The objective was to let your close followers know your current status. Many still use it that way.

However some participants have abandoned that approach. They seek to get the maximum number of followers by following as many other people as they can. Since some people have arranged that automatically they will follow anyone who follows them, this approach can almost allow you to create your own mass medium.

If you want to check out some data on people using Twitter in this way, check out the TwitterScore website. More specifically check out the Top Users. There are some very famous names there and also some top agencies such as CNN and the BBC. Scrolling down you will see some people who clearly have worked hard to create an audience for themselves. At # 200 at the moment, for example, you have Jonathan Nafarrete, who is “Just some guy. Photographer and social media consultant” and who has 63,553 followers.

The fact that Twitter is both social and a mass media is perhaps why many people are having a difficulty knowing how best to be involved.

Update

For a confirmation that Twitter is hard to classify on the social media scale, you may wish to read: New Twitter Research: Men Follow Men and Nobody Tweets. For suggestions on how to work with social media of whatever type, try ‘With A Little Help From My Friends‘.

Technorati Tags: Digg, Facebook, LinkedIn, oxymoron, Reddit, social media, StumbleUpon, Twitter

Grassroots Leadership

Posted on March 22, 2009 by Barry Welford

Barack Obama relied on grassroots leadership to support him in his path to the White House. Not surprisingly he is now re-enlisting volunteers to build support for his bold approach for renewing America’s economy.

Democrats mounted a nationwide effort Saturday to try to harness the grassroots support that helped propel President Obama’s campaign and use it to push for his administration’s initiatives. Volunteers met in 1,200 to 1,300 locations across the country, organizers said — from a library in Arlington, Virginia, to a park in Brooklyn, New York, and to homes and restaurants in California.

In some, participants discussed the president’s agenda. In others, they set out to homes, subway stations and farmers’ markets, asking people to sign forms in which they pledge support for “President Obama’s bold approach for renewing America’s economy” and commit to asking friends, family and neighbors to do the same.

This is the first large-scale effort by the Democratic Party’s new “Organizing for America” initiative to use the network of volunteers to help build and push the administration’s agenda, although in February the group did host house parties where the proposed stimulus bill was discussed. The objective is that organizers can continue growing the vast database of supporters’ e-mail and text addresses, which will include the Obama presidential campaign’s list of supporters.

The success of this type of initiative will greatly depend on the energy and determination of grassroots leaders like Sergio Salmeron, who energize their friends and team-mates to spread the word.

Sergio Salmeron, who started a Washington-area club after the election for supporters of the president’s policies. His effort Saturday afternoon brought together about 16 people, discussing everything from health care reform and whether the president is being inclusive, to foreign policy and whether the administration is on the right track, to the economy. “Obama will need your help to win this fight,” Signer said. Then about half of that group set out to seek signatures at subway stops.

Grassroots leadership works well when hierarchies are downplayed and there is strong mutual respect. Activities like Barack Obama’s appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno this week are clearly signs that the president is reaching out to his fellow citizens.

Grassroots leaders were always powerful forces in their own local settings. What the Internet supports with the increasing popularity of social media is an enormous leverage of the power of their examples.

Democracy is a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them. Now those same citizens at the grassroots can also make their own impact on how things get done by involving their friends and colleagues.

President Barack Obama on Tonight Show Full Interview Video (binside.typepad.com)
Obama hangs out with Leno (thenewspundit.com)

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, grassroots, leadership, social media, White House

Reputation Management and Social Media

Posted on November 29, 2008 by Barry Welford

When Does Reputation Management Become Unethical? That is an interesting question posed by Jeff Quipp of Search Engine People.

There is obviously a great deal of power in being able to hide certain search results from the majority of searchers. With this power however, comes great responsibility. This responsibility becomes even more important if one considers that there are currently no guidelines to help guide us through the murky waters of morality.

It is certainly true that by careful SEO (Search Engine Optimization) one can push negative references down the Google search page, or with sufficient other online properties perhaps even off the top 10 page. however you cannot make them disappear. Now with the rise of social media, it is even harder to still all those dissident voices.

The words of Katie Delahaye Paine as recorded by Liana ‘Li’ Evans reflect current reality.

Trying to manage your reputation in a social media environment of today, is just plain silly (and futile), you just can’t.

Both PR Coverage and Social Media (it’s better when they are working together) have a big effect on how companies are perceived and in the end a big effect on what they are doing. The key though, is to measure both what is working and what is not working. Companies also need to understand that people are talking online, they are saying and doing things with brands, products & services, whether you are active in the conversation or not.

The first imperative of course is to try to make sure that the actions of your company are blameless, as far as you can achieve that. With such a policy you no longer need to hide but can become active in the conversations. You probably need a blog and may well decide to be active on Twitter.

One example among many is the CPA advertising network, ClickBooth. Early in the year, there were a number of negative comments from disgruntled affiliates that could be found through search. Now there is a ClickBooth blog and you can also follow ClickBooth through Twitter. The two approaches provide the best possible channels for dialoguing with any who may be dissatisfied. Now that is the way to do reputation management.

Technorati Tags: reputation management, search engine optimization, SEO, social media, Twitter

Barack Obama And Grassroots Leadership

Posted on November 10, 2008 by Barry Welford

The nomination of Barack Obama as President elect clearly signals a new era. Finally African-Americans can take their rightful place in the United States. It has taken much longer than one might have hoped, but in some ways has happened much earlier than many expected.

Much has been written on that and one of the best is in a New York Times blog by Judith Warner entitled Tears To Remember. This moment of triumph marks the end of such a long period of pain, of indignity and injustice for African-Americans.

A Business Week article by Bill George brings out another important aspect: Barack Obama: A Leader for the ‘We’ Generation.

Leaders can learn a lot from Obama about power that comes from the bottom up, not just from the top down. The sweeping victory of Barack Obama ushers in a new era of leadership that will affect every aspect of American institutions and that sounds a death knell for the top-down, power-oriented leadership prevalent in the 20th century.

A new style of "bottom-up, empowering" leadership focusing on collaboration will sweep the country. A new wave of 21st century authentic leaders will take oversee U.S. institutions of every type: business, education, health care, religion, and nonprofits. These new leaders recognize that an organization of empowered leaders at every level will outperform "command-and-control" organizations every time.

Some might regard those words as overblown rhetoric. However they are supported by an enabling technology: the Internet. For confirmation just check out the Obama Delegates website with its strong emphasis on the grassroots movement.

This is more than just Barak Obama using social media well as some have commented. Just check out MoveOn�s very clever election video. This was just one of many viral activities. Clearly Barack�s Youth Vote Was Energized by Social Media.

According to CIRCLE, a nonpartisan research center studying youth engagement and civic education, without the youth vote, Barack Obama might have had one heck of a time winning this year�s election. That�s just how energized and how active a part in the campaign the youth vote has became. The youth overall turned out in record numbers this year.

The Stats on McCain vs. Obama Online and the Buzz as reflected in Google Trends showed just how wide the gap was between the two campaigns. This had been apparent for some time as Bryan Eisenberg pointed out in August. He saw Obama as someone who was doing online marketing extremely well.

A New York Times article pointed out that this had been in the making for some time: How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks� Power

In February 2007, a friend called Marc Andreessen, a founder of Netscape and a board member of Facebook, and asked if he wanted to meet with a man with an idea that sounded preposterous on its face. Mr. Andreessen agreed to hear the guy out. A junior member of a large and powerful organization with a thin, but impressive, r�sum�, he was about to take on far more powerful forces in a battle for leadership.

He wondered if social networking, with its tremendous communication capabilities and aggressive database development, might help him beat the overwhelming odds facing him. And as it turned out, President-elect Barack Obama was right.

Now it is time for the transition from DotCom to DotGov. In particular Obama’s new website is change.gov. As might be expected it includes a blog. It seems quite clear that at least in the political field grassroots leadership is being adopted with vigor.

The Internet – Tidal Wave Or Grassroots Movement

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, grassroots leadership, social media

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The social media scale

Where Is Twitter On the Social Media Scale?

Update

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