Relationship Status: It’s Complicated
“Have you heard? John and Mary broke up.”
“How do you know?”
“She just updated her Facebook”
Believe it or not, this is how many people today find out about break ups and new relationships. With just a few clicks, you can make it ‘official.’
As Facebook continues to grow in both size and influence, more and more people are making their relationships public. While by no means is it a requirement to state who you are dating or if the relationship is ‘complicated,’ Facebook users feel the need to share it with others. (more…)
AOL Instant Messenger: On The Outside Looking In
When AOL Instant Messenger, better known as AIM, first hit the online world in 1997, it took off like wildfire. While AIM wasn’t the first instant messaging application, it was by far one of the most popular and widely used. Whether you used it to stay in touch with friends or as a way to meet new people, AIM not only impacted our culture at the time, but it also laid the groundwork for future social media powerhouses, Facebook and Twitter.
With features like file transfer, emoticons, and the always amusing/irritating ‘warn’ button, AIM attracted groups by the masses. Still, that was then, and this is now. The reality is that AIM can no longer compete with the Facebook and Twitter’s of the world. The once teacher, has now become the student. AOL’s inability to monetize off AIM consistently has continuously been put to question and it seems like its now or never for AOL’s once popular application. (more…)
Why You Can’t ‘Dislike’ Facebook
When Facebook first started, Mark Zuckerberg intended it to be used as an online simulation of real-life relationships. To his credit, Facebook has become just that. From relationships to catching up with friends, Facebook has taken networking to new levels. Still, Facebook has a ways to go if it intends on being a true online representation of real-life.
The biggest complaint of which is the ability to dislike content on Facebook. Although Facebook allows you to ‘like’ content from your friends, they don’t have an option to ‘dislike’ something. The question then becomes what do you do if you find something so offensive that ‘hide content’ just doesn’t work for you?
Facebook Isn’t MySpace
No matter what the public says, in the end, Facebook will have the final say on how they want their social network to function. With that said, one of the most important things that Facebook considers when they introduce new features, such as their new Facebook privacy policy, is not only how it will affect users, but also their brand. (more…)
How Do You Measure ROI In Social Media?
In the first 24 hours upon its’ release, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” smashed U.S. sales records by selling 6.9 million copies in the United States alone. It took J.K. Rowling over a year to write, but took only an hour to make millions. With any task or campaign one engages in, the ROI on the project is at the top of the list. Whether it be selling a book or a new TV commercial for your product, the ROI is how success is judged. With the explosion of social media marketing, companies often find themselves going through the motions of creating Twitter accounts and Facebook fan pages, but without any true understanding of “why.” This is due in part to the difficulty in measuring ROI for social media.
The Conflict of Push Marketing and Social Media
The biggest reason why it is difficult to measure the ROI of social media campaigns stems from the premise of social media itself. When sites like Twitter and Facebook were started, the immediate goal wasn’t to monetize it, but rather to create a platform that allowed users to interact, share, and network with one another in a seamless and simplistic manner. As these platforms gained popularity, it also began to attract marketers and companies that were exploring new ways to ‘push’ their product out there.
Here in lies the problem. The concept of ‘push’ marketing is one that is used by most if not all companies, and involves creating a product and actively reaching out to consumers in hopes that they will buy it. Traditionally, this involved an assortment of strategies including cold-calling, advertisements, and extensive marketing campaigns all of which were geared toward and increase in sales. Here, a successful campaign involves an ROI where money was made. Plain and simple. (more…)
The Social Media Superhero
Answer the following questions with a simple Yes or No:
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The only way you can fly is in an airplane.
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You know where and what everyone is doing thanks to Facebook.
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Your leather belt is the closest you’ll ever be to having a utility belt.
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The Fail Whale cowers in your presence.
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The only way you will look like Wolverine is if you don’t shave.
How Will You Engage Your Community?
An important part of a companies brand is how they engage their community. Your community can help you climb to new heights, but can also bring you back down to earth. With consumers becoming less receptive to brands that market themselves through traditional forms of marketing such as television and print, companies have begun to embrace social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook as powerful tools for engagement. As the number of companies using social media continue to rise, companies must be prepared to answer the question “how will you engage your community?”
This past week I was able to listen and interact with some of the great minds in social media at the Social Media Marketing Strategies Conference. Some of the big names included keynote speakers MC Hammer and Ian Schafer, as well as Rohit Bhargava [Digital Strategy & Marketing, Ogilvy], Michael Bissell [President, Conquent ], Jun Loayza [President, SocialMediaMarketing.com], Brian Solis [Principal, PR2.0 & FutureWorks], and Shiv Singh [VP & Global Social Media Lead, Razorfish]. From the event I was able to learn about the direction of social media and more importantly, the growing role it will play in a companies success. (more…)
Life Without Lag: The Social Media Effect
Google maps says it takes 10 minutes to get from point A to point B. Unfortunately, 10 minutes ends up being more like 13 minutes. Although it’s just 3 minutes off, that’s 3 minutes lost. As the day continues, the minutes add up. How many minutes have you wasted? Whether it’s the time wasted in traffic or the time spent waiting in lines, it makes one wonder what life without lag would be like.
While no one would say they enjoy waiting in long lines or sitting in traffic, it has become a part of life. Just how brushing your teeth and tying your shoelaces have become second nature, so has living with ‘lag.’ We complain about it, but with no solution. The delays that we experience every day in our lives also occur because of uncontrollable events. From the snow storm that delays a flight home on the holidays to the rain that makes traffic seem twice as slow, we have accepted delay and lag as part of our lives. (more…)
Your Career And Social Voyeurism
When you apply for a job, one of the first things that employers will do is take a look at your resume. Traditionally, this along with a face to face interviews were the steps to getting a job. With the ability to now get information within seconds, traditional steps to getting a job are being substituted by other methods. What it says on paper is no longer enough information for employers. With information becoming easier to gather, employers want to get as much information as they can on possible candidates. Using sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, employers can now find out when you first started a job, who you know, as well as other information you may not want them to know like where you went last night or that ‘one crazy night’ during college.
Mind If I Stalk You?
Launched in early 2004, Facebook is now the 3rd most visited website according to Compete.com and has not only helped users reconnect with old friends and make new ones, but sparked a new culture that can be described as “social voyeurism.” Another word that I have heard used to describe it is “social network stalking.” While many argue that it is unfair for employers to use your Facebook account as basis for being qualified for a job, what people need to realize is that whatever you put online becomes part of the world wide web. Privacy is a myth. No matter how much privacy you put on your Facebook account, there are ways for employers to get that information. From companies having current employees already in your network to ‘dummy’ accounts that friend potential candidates, for one to believe their Facebook accounts are private is wrong.
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How NBA Stars Are Using Twitter To Brand Themselves
Ever wanted to know what Shaquille O’neal does before a game or where Baron Davis likes to go on his off days? Thanks to Twitter, now you can. For the last 4 months, I have been watching the accounts of players like Shaquille O’neal and Baron Davis and have been paying careful attention to the number of followers that they have. The amount of influence that athletes like Baron and Shaq have accumulated in just the past few months is impressive
In the last 3 months, Shaquille O’neal, better known as The_Real_Shaq on Twitter, has gone from 50,000 followers to nearly 1 million. At first glance, you may think that it is the “Shaq Brand” that has drawn in the large number of followers, but that is not entirely true. Companies like Dell and Woot.com have all tried to do what Shaq has done with Twitter, but they can’t because of what Shaq and other NBA stars have been doing.
Yes, Shaquille O’neal is a world famous athlete, but he is also a brand in himself. Like the Nike swoop that has become an iconic figure in sports, Shaquille’s personality is the same. NBA stars are branding themselves not as just athletes, but as ‘real people.’ If you look at what NBA players are tweeting about, they aren’t talking about how many points they scored or if a referee got a play wrong, they are tweeting about what regular people like you and I would tweet about. From Shaq’s thoughts on the recent Manny Ramirez drug suspension to Derek Fisher’s NCAA Bracket results, when you are following an NBA star you feel like you are following a real person.
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Understanding Your Personal Brand
One of the most common questions asked in interviews is: “Tell me about yourself.” While many may believe that this question is meant to tell your interviewer general information about yourself, the interviewee’s response can be a make or break in the interviewers mind.
In evaluating a candidates response, among the criteria that interviewers evaluate are a candidates composure, their readiness, and above all their understanding of themselves. To someone who has never met you, when they ask you to tell them about yourself they are not asking you what classes you are studying or what your favorite color is, but rather they want to walk away knowing what kind of person you are. If you tell your interviewer that you are studying history, they want to know why you are studying it. Is it because you are passionate about it or because you didn’t know what else to study? Remember that it is not only your initial response to a question, but it is also how you follow up your response.
As mentioned, it is important to an interviewer how well you understand yourself and if you can express it to others. While it may seem like an easy question to answer then why do so many people have trouble answering it? Everyone can say general information about themselves but it takes more. This is where your personal brand comes into play.
When people think of Pepsi, they think of the red, white and blue logo and the drinks they produce . When people think of the Yankees, people think about their commitment to winning as evident by their expensive spending sprees. Just like with the examples of Pepsi and the Yankees, candidates need to build their personal brand to the point that when people think of them in a career sense, candidates can be associated with certain qualities or as a brand.
One of the best ways to start building your personal brand is to start with a blog. While some may think that a blog is supposed to be private and to be shared with only your very close friends, being comfortable with expressing your thoughts and views is what can make your blog a powerful tool in branding yourself. With a blog you will be able to network with others and let others know who you are and what you do. By finding your ‘niche’ through your blog you can use it as reference to employers and interviewers as proof of your knowledge of whatever career path it may be.
So when is the best time to start?
As soon as possible. Personal branding is not a one day project. It takes time to build the foundation of your personal brand. After successfully building up your personal brand or foundation, you can move on to networking with other professionals and peers through the various social networks available. For the college student getting ready to start recruiting for a job, you may have already started building your personal brand without even knowing it. Websites like Twitter and Facebook are great ways to network with others and build solid relationships. By networking with others you are not only giving yourself the chance to get your name out there but also you are able to get great advice and insight from other professionals.
After building up one’s personal brand, an individual should no longer be unsure of how to answer the question “tell me about yourself.” So what are you waiting for? Get out there and make a name for yourself!
Mission: Live at 24 Hour Fitness
In the next month, I will be attempting to spend 24 hours at a 24 hour fitness. I will eat, sleep, and exercise at 24 hour fitness. It may seem a little crazy (maybe more than a little), but it was an idea that I came up with when talking with my friend. As a college student I paid $700 a month including furnishings and utilities for housing. I got my own room, my own bathroom, and shared a living space with 3 crazy other people. Compared to what other college students were paying at other colleges, I consider myself lucky. For example, my girlfriend paid $800 and shared a room. This didn’t include utilities or furnishings.
So the question that my friend and I talked about was how to live cheap. Now the word cheap may be associated with ‘poor quality,’ but to a college student it means ‘bargain’ and ‘good deal.’ The idea that I came up with was why not live at 24 Hour Fitness.
For $20 a month, you have 24 hour access to their facilities. Assuming that their are 30 days in a month that means you are paying an average of $.66 a month! That is a deal. I know what you are thinking by now, “Who in their right mind would do this?” The answer to that would be a college student. The perception that anything can happen in college is pretty accurate and an idea like this is right up a college students alley. Now, what I am proposing is not to actually live, study, and sleep at 24 hour fitness permanently, but to stay their for 24 hours for fun and jokes.
For 24 hours, my friend and I will be going to a yet to be determined 24 Hour Fitness Center and attempting to ‘live’ their for 24 hours straight. We will each be bringing a small gym backpack. In it will be a small container of rice (in case we starve), $10.00, gloves (for when we pump iron), and duct tape (I’ve heard you can use it for anything). Aside from the items listed, we will also be bringing a basketball, toothbrush and toothpaste, a sweater, and 1 paper cup each.
Also, I plan on video recording the whole 24 hours (or at least most of it) so I will be bringing additional disks to record as well as batteries.
The next question that you may be wondering is, “What will you eat? Where will you sleep? How will you shower..” The answer is simple. For every daily activity that we would normally do, we can do it at 24 Hour Fitness also.
Here are a couple questions that some of my friends already asked me:
1. Where will you sleep? –Yoga mats in the exercise rooms (gonna pretend we’re meditating…for a long time)
2. Shower? –Lucky for us, 24 Hour Fitness has showers for members to use. I will not be recording this for obvious reasons.
3. Food? –Simple. All the PowerBar’s we can eat for $10. Water is free (if not, we might die of dehydration.)
4. Boredom? –No way to solve this. It is bound to happen. Hopefully later than sooner.
5. Getting kicked out of 24 Hour Fitness? — As far as I know their is no rule against staying at the gym as long as you are a member and you aren’t breaking any of their rules.
6. Are you gonna bring your cellphone? — Nope. If I need to contact someone I’m gonna do it the old fashioned way: pay phone.
Hopefully at the end of this ‘adventure’ I will be able to look back on it and have a few laughs. Otherwise, I expect to never set foot in a gym for many months after it and have a greater appreciation for my bed.
Stay tuned for 24 hours at 24 Hour Fitness review.
LA Goes Wireless, So Should Companies
Los Angeles has always been known for being a hot spot for social trends and cultural change, and recently I noticed something that I hadn’t really taken the time to notice before. Driving down Melrose and La Brea, I noticed just how few payphones their were. In fact, I was unable to see one for almost 3 blocks.
Not only was it just in this vicinity that I was unable to find a payphone, but in other surrounding areas as well. This lack of payphones leads me to believe that LA has gone wireless. Today, cellphones have replaced the need to carry around quarters except to pay for the parking meter. Cellphones are no longer for the rich and powerful as they once were back in the early 90’s, but are now common ‘toys’ for teens and necessary tools for students and professionals.
LA’s new direction in regards to communication is something that businesses should be aware of as well. Consumers can now get the weather, find out what’s for dinner, look up directions, and update there Facebook all from there cellphone. Businesses should take advantage of this and find new ways to target consumers. While payphones do exist in remote locations, such as near the bathrooms at shopping malls, LA for the most part has made the transition from landlines to wireless.
With the addition of Wi-Fi, 3G networks and reasonable wireless service plans, a cellphone has become standard for most. When email became preferable to ’snail mail,’ companies jumped onboard, trying to tag every page with there advertisements. Now that cellphones have become the new ‘communication’ tools, companies should recognize this and latch on to it. Whether it is through text advertisements, which many companies have already been utilizing, or through cellphone apps, ‘wireless advertisements’ will be the new way to advertise and the new way to communicate with this new generation.
The Hour The [Social] World Stood Still
For some, in a matter of moments, the words plastered across the screen as shown above meant the world was at a stand still. For the hundreds and thousands of Facebook ‘followers’ and ’stalkers,’ site maintenance of the Facebook site means trying to find something else to do while tirelessly refreshing the Facebook page in hopes that Facebook is able to finish fixing there site after only 2 minutes.
Today after speaking to a some friends, I realized just how attached some people are to Facebook. Facebook has become not only a social phenomenon, but also a cultural one.
For college students, Facebook has become a class in itself. Spending countless hours looking at friends photos and there updates has become a daily activity. Finding out something about that girl in your Chemistry class that you’ve been dying to talk to has never been easier. When asking my friends what they are doing, “facebooking” is a common response.
It is easy to see why when Facebook closes its site for maintenance, users all around the world feel lost for the few hours it is down. When you look at what Facebook has done, they have assimilated themselves into peoples lives by making life easier.
How is life easier?
No, Facebook cannot do your dishes or clean your room, but Facebook can help you stay connected with friends, co-workers, and help you network. Facebook can notify you of events, sell or buy items from the “Facebook marketplace” and even help you remember your friend’s birthday.
The social world is dominated by sites just like Facebook. The melding of these social ‘tools’ into people’s everyday lives has not only made using these sites daily tasks but in some extreme cases, necessary.
Dear Blog, Please Get Me A Job
As I was flipping through various news articles on the web, I came across an interesting article written by Adam Nichols of the New York Post. The article, entitled “Better Sign of Times“, was about a banker who was recently put out of a job due to the economic situation. For many of us, ’standard protocol’ when looking for job involves:
1. Looking for job openings
2. Submitting our resume
3. Waiting for an employer to ask us to interview with them
Joshua Persky, the un-employed banker from the article, thought of a different way to look for a job. Using his creativity, Joshua Persky used a sandwich board sign saying he was looking for a job and wore it around Park Avenue. Not only did Persky attract plenty of attention from New Yorker’s, but Persky also attracted many job offers. So popular was Persky’s approach to finding a job that he created a blog where he documented his experiences.
Eventually, Persky got a full time offer from Manhattan firm Weiser LLP. When looking back at his experience Persky states in the article that
“Obviously, I had vigorous interviews, but I think it was [the blog] which sealed the deal,”
A blog.
Not his resume, not his interview, and not his sandwich board, but his blog. That is what sealed the deal.
As college students and young professionals prepare to apply for jobs, one advice that I would like to give is this. Company’s that are looking for someone to fill the position that they have an opening for get hundreds and hundreds of applications. Just like when you apply to get into a college, you have to write a personal essay, in essence, a personal blog can serve just the same purpose. A personal blog gives the interviewer a chance to look at many different aspects of you that a resume would never be able to show. From your writing style and use of logic, to what you are interested in and motivated at; your blog is an extension of yourself and everyone should have one.
It is not hard to find two applicants that have great GPA and great community involvement and drive, but what is the key determinant in deciding who gets the position is who is able to leave that lasting impression. In the case of the sandwich board banker, Persky was able to differentiate himself from the rest of the field by not only having a creative way of ‘applying’ for a job, but by having a personal blog that tells ‘his story’ and builds his personal brand.
Whether you write about fashion, music, what your favorite cartoon is, or even what you think the government should do with the economy, always remember that a personal blog is a tool that tells people who you are, where you’ve been and most importantly, where you want to go.
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Article: Better Sign of Times, Adam Nichols