Category Archives: social media

Definition of Social Media

July 12, 2018social media, UncategorizedsocialmediaBill Genereux

This week in my #digme406 class, we are exploring definitions of Social Media. According to Kaplan & Haenlein (2009) Social Media is

“… a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content.”

In other words, it is a digital media form that simplifies online publishing for average users. Web 2.0 as opposed to the original World Wide Web (version 1.0) does not require particularly extensive technology skills. To publish commentary on a web page in Web 1.0, you needed to know HTML and you needed to obtain hosting, among other things. To publish commentary in a Web 2.0 environment, you need to be able to sign up for an account on a service that simplifies everything.

Myspace and Facebook were created around the same time in the early 2000’s. Facebook won out, largely due to its simplified and uniform interface. Both services were free, but Myspace was highly customizable and more akin to Web 1.0. Facebook was easy to use for everyone, so it won out and became the giant social media service it is today.

Other social media platforms have since come along , challenging Facebook directly, or carving out a special niche of their own. There has long been a trend in the technology world for big, successful organizations to gobble up and integrate smaller competitors. For example Facebook now owns Instagram and Microsoft owns Skype, along with a couple of hundred others.

For everything there is a season, and Social Media orgs are no different. Young people have moved away from Facebook and into greener pastures, although plenty still are using it. Time will tell which technologies will be around for the long haul and which will go the way of the dodo. But one thing is certain—it is hard to beat technologies that are simple and easy to use.

Reference
Kaplan, A.M. & Haenlein, M. (2009). Users of the world unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media. Business Horizons, 53(1). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003

Who to follow on Twitter

January 26, 2018social mediaBill Genereux

The above video is a basic overview about how to find the right people to follow on Twitter. You start with a Twitter search on a given topic that interests you. It can be a keyword related to your industry, a topic that interests you, anything at all really, but you start with a search. That will show you who shares your interests because those people are tweeting about what you have searched for.

When you find someone who looks promising, there are some things you can check to see if they are a good fit with what you are after. Are they verified (have a blue checkmark by their profile name)? If so, they have a larger following and Twitter has verified that they are who they say they are. This isn’t a must, and you can find excellent people to follow who don’t have the verified blue checkmark, but it is always a plus if it is present.

Another thing to look for is to examine what the person has been tweeting about. If you look through some of their recent tweets, you can get a good idea of what you will be getting if you follow them.

Once you have decided they are “follow worthy” and you’ve clicked the follow button, you aren’t necessarily finished. It is a good idea to click into their “following” list to see other folks that this person follows, is learning from and is influenced by. You can use this process over and over again.

It is really helpful to find someone who is a known expert in the area of interest, and if that person has a high follower to following ratio. If they have thousands of followers, and only a handful of people they follow, chances are good that you can find a lot of fascinating people that they themselves are following.

To me, it isn’t all that helpful to see an account with many thousands of followers when they are also following many thousands as well. It is especially a concern to see someone who follows far more people than they are followed by. While it is quite normal to start out by following more people than you are followed by, this shouldn’t always be the case once you’ve been on Twitter a while. Eventually, you should have a ratio that is roughly the same number of followers to following. If you are very picky about who you follow and you are sharing great stuff that many people want to see, you could wind up with a relatively small list that you follow, and many people following you.

It is customary for many people to return a follow with a follow, so some people game the system by following thousands and gaining thousands of followers as well. I would prefer to follow someone who has gained a large following simply by the quality of what they share on Twitter that provides great value to those who are following them.

Social Media Tips

January 12, 2018social media, Uncategorized, workingdigitallyBill Genereux

This is just a stream of consciousness thing I wrote a while back while reflecting on how to “do” social media. These are just my ideas. At some point I should polish this up, but I’m going to share it as it is now, so it doesn’t just reside in some file on my device that I’ll ultimately lose or forget about.

Onward to my hastily constructed Social Media Tips…

Don’t be a negative, be positive. Nobody wants to hear the negative.
Associate with great people. People who are better than you. People who are currently where you aspire to be. You will become like the people that you associate with. That’s the beauty of social media. You can associate with really great people. It’s never been possible to the extent that it is now with the internet. Why not find people you admire, people who know what you’d like to know, and connect with them online?
Post regularly. There’s nothing that will enhance your success online more than providing a regular stream of valuable content.
To get more readers, to grow your audience, follow the Golden Rule, “Do to others as you would have them do unto you.”
Small Town Rules. (It’s the title of a book written by my friend Becky McCray.) Being on social media is much like living in a small town. Those of us who grew up in small towns have an advantage because similar rules apply in that setting. When people join social media they put themselves into an environment where everybody knows your business, just like in a small town .
Refer your own work for reflection. You can look back six months, five years, 10 years from now and see where your thinking was and how much you’ve grown as a person.
Establish yourself as an expert. How do you become an expert? Malcolm Gladwell famously suggested in the book Outliers that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert. So how much are you practicing whatever it is you wish to become an expert in? 40 hrs * 52 weeks * 5 years is just over 10000 hrs.
Avoid arguments. Discussions are ok. Once you sense you are talking past one another and no one is listening to the other point of view, it is best to bow out. I’m not sure anyone has ever changed their mind simply by reading a stranger’s opinion on the Internet. Most people are seeking information that confirms opinions they already hold.
Work on your character. Before you do anything, particularly if it is online, ask yourself if you’d be comfortable with this action being blasted around the world on various media outlets. Because if it is outrageous enough, it will be.
Be authentic. Show us who you are. Show your face and use your real name. The online world has enough anonymous garbage. If you know what you are talking about and believe what you are saying, there’s no reason you shouldn’t back it up with the real person behind those sayings and beliefs.