Importance of Facebook

I had a birthday party last Saturday. I won't say which one.

I did something that I did not think I would ever do. The entire invitation was through Facebook – the people I invited as well as the details. However, there are a few people that I know that are not on Facebook. Shocking yes. When I ran into them, I realized that hadn't invited them to the party. I felt awful and worked on rectifying the situation in the way I knew how – I had to friend them.

I ran into this article today on Andrew Sullivan's blog basically saying that if you aren't on Facebook, there's a good chance you don't exist today. In my mind, that was certainly the case. I'm not sure if it's a sad state of the times or just the reality of living in today's socially networked world.

Marketing as a political campaign

I just finished watching the CEO of Vail Resorts talk about the impact social media marketing has had on the marketing cycle.

The talk – available for a limited time here at AdAge - highlighted that they have changed their marketing mix and reduced the number and frequency of magazines and other more expensive media. He articulated something quite different as to the reasons why. It's not simply that social media has more impact, which can be argued, but rather the lead time for traditional media is too long.

Committing to running a print ad is more than just running it in a publication. Space needs to be purchased, strategies agreed upon, and creative brainstormed and produced. This cycle can happen quickly but most of the time takes months.

By rotating the marketing spend to social media, Vail Resorts can change the marketing message at the drop of a hat. Do they need to juice up occupancy for a week? Run a special using search engine marketing or links to one's Facebook friends. Create an event out of coincidences.

He likened his marketing strategies akin to a political campaign. What's the message of the week? How do we support this message? What are the forces we need to fight?

Who would have thought that politics and business would be aligned so closely now?

End of Introversion and Extroversion

One of my many blog subscriptions is PR 2.0 where the author, Brian Solis, breathlessly calls the increasing 'socialization' of our society one reason for the end of the polar opposites of extroversion and introversion. And I quote:

I do believe that we are becoming an increasingly social society. It could very well be the era of introversion to extroversion. With this evolution and transformation, we’re concurrently subject to a greater set of distractions. And as such, we are sidetracked by choice and free will. But, as this is the dawn of the great attention economy, and new tools such as PeopleBrowsr, Seesmic, CoTweet, Facebook, and TweetDeck become our attention dashboards, those of us active in the real-time Web must experience an evaporation of attention span and our ability to digest and respond to everything that moves us.

The problem here is the definition of extroversion and introversion. The two relate to energy, not degree of socialization. Someone who is extroverted craves the energy of people. They need to be surrounded by people or else they feel 'off' in some way. An introverted person is the opposite; they need alone time to recharge their batteries. That doesn't mean they don't enjoy socializing; it's just that too much of that one thing makes them tired.

I'm an introvert. Although I have taught myself to be good in social situations, after a day of socializing I want quiet more than anything else. I don't see anything in 'social' media that rewrites that definition. I bet that most people who are extroverted never tire of telling the world everything. My most extroverted friends update their Facebook status constantly. Introverts are more likely to engage with social media more sporadically or in a more planned fashion.

Of course this is conjecture but it would be an interesting study to analyze the difference between the two personality traits and their engagement in social media.

Is the social networking bar really that low?

Dunkin Donuts released an iPhone app today. It makes it easier for 'runners' – otherwise known as interns – to capture orders for Dunkin Donuts.

Their press release calls it a 'social networking application.' Really? So does that mean every order taker is social networking?

Is the bar for social networking so low that any application that impacts more than one person is considered a social networking application?? Where is the exchange of information and ideas? "OMG you like jelly donuts too??" doesn't feel like its playing in the same park as Facebook. I could be wrong.

I'm all for being topical and relevant but this is a stretch to me. But I'm sure those iPhone wielding interns – I mean Runners – will appreciate fewer tantrums over an incorrect ratio of coffee and milk.

Hat tip [PC World]

Is the web communist?

Communist poster of the Statue of Liberty
Originally uploaded by shaneosullivan

Well the article actually asked if the Internet is socialist.

Wired did an article about this topic. Why? Because of the emphasis on collectivist solutions to challenges that should be capitalist. Case in point, Linux, which Bill Gates loathed with a venom replicated only by the US hatred of the Soviet Union. Open-this and that. Shared that and the other. All leads up to socialism.

Wired asked the question recently in an article called "The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society is Coming Online." Even Facebook and the like are simply social-activist sites and tools of the proletariate.

Or not... I think in spite of the underpinings that smell of socialism, the web is still a pretty capitalistic place. Any space that can harbor a large albeit fictitious economy callled 'Second Life' can't be further from the writings of Karl Marx.

One thing I find fascinating is the "socialist leanings" of the web was born out of deficiencies in the "capitalist" IT industry. People got sick and tired of Windows' security problems and those who knew Unix longed for the reliability and security of that operating system. It become open-source because it's expensive to hire a squadron of programmers to build and maintain an OS. It was a model that seemed to have worked for Unix; many hands make work light.

For as many calls I hear for the 'data and information to be free,' I see and experience many times more schemes to get more of my hard-earned cash. And those that offer something unique and interesting get it.

What Microsoft and others critiquing the internet – I'm looking at you Sony Pictures exec who said nothing good has come out of the internet – fail to understand is that open-source attacks the weak. If your product is weak, you will die.

It's about as capitalistic as you can get.

Social networking traffic up in NY

In keeping with the theme that social networking traffic is being added by our current downtown, I call your attention to an article in Crain's NY Business. 

The article 'Jobless and lovelorn rush to network' mentioned that the professional site LinkedIn reported an 11% increase in NY area traffic, no doubt coinciding with the bloodletting that is taking place in the city's core industries.

75% of adults 18-24 have a social networking profile

More social networking statistics here [Brian Solis]. I will discuss later. 

Twitter-ing

The net is 'aTwitter' with Twitter plane crash man, the guy who live blogged the Continental plane crash in Denver a few days ago. 

I'm a big reader of the UK Guardian, that broadsheet of lefty Brits. The comments to the news report on Twitter Plane Crash Man are amusing because it reveals a very stark cultural and perhaps generational divide. The comments reflected the perception that this guy was Twittering for glory sake and that he felt informing random strangers was more important than his friends and family. 

It didn't occur to anyone commenting that this guy was informing his friends and family through Twittering; Twitter allowed him to inform his circle all at once rather than scattered phone calls and texts here and there. I'm sure he contacted the most important few personally but for the next concentric circle, Twitter worked just fine. I'm sure it was a complete fluke that others noticed his feed and his 15-minutes started right there.

I have a friend who started Twittering to keep her hyper-attentive Mom informed of her whereabouts without being barraged with phone calls several times a day. Why do you Twitter, Facebook or what have you?

Social Networking Therapy

Early in this blog, I wondered if people would withdraw from social networking when bad things happen to them, such as a layoff. I thought they would, to an extent, or at least maintain a veneer that things were fine when they were not. 

Thankfully my supposition was wrong. BusinessWeek highlights the opposite. People are sharing their bad news en mas and using sites like Facebook as part of their support structure. 

In a way, I'm not surprised. Social networking is about life and life is not always sunshine and butterflies. Sometimes life sucks. It's when life sucks that one gains the most out of social networking. These sites remind us that there are people out there – be they close friends and family or strangers – who empathize, share our experience and who care about us, in good times and in bad.

Interesting quote from the article: Typically people are loath to publicize bad news. 'When someone is initially laid off, their inclination is to avoid being in social environments,' says Marlin Potash, a NY psychiatrists who counsels workers exiting senior positions, primarily from the financial and media industries. But that behavior can heighten anxiety or worsen depression. Potash recommends that some clients use social networking sites because they provide a kind of 'halfway house' between comfort and social immersion.

This does lead me to an observation that has been lingering in my brain for a while. This recession will probably be the most documented downturns to date. Think of all of the data – from mainstream reporting, to Twitter feeds, to blogs etc – that is being captured and is readily available. Social scientists will have – and probably are having – a field day. 

Hat tip [PSFK]