Social Media ... Where is it Going?
The creation of social media always makes me think of George Orwell's book 1984.  That book really hit me hard in high school and because of it I live my life in a rural community and enjoy my privacy when at home.  Am I starting to hide in corners? Perhaps I am as I don't want to put my GPS tracking system into action on my iPhone.  I don't want people knowing which store I purchased my last pair of jeans at and although I am a marketing guru in my own mind I don't want to be a part of the mall's GPS marketing inventions.  I just am not sure who really is watching me.  I am a good looking old lady after all.

Dimple Thakker CEO of Impresario of SYNERGY MARKETING is quoted as saying "Make sure you skip the promotional tone in your ad copy to build trust in with followers. This quote brings me to my work place of the library and how I ask our patrons what their favourite read of the weekend or if they have seen any good movies or TV shows.  This engages them in conversation and might also lead me to what we need to purchase to keep them coming throw our doors.  I am not invading their privacy but asking them questions that they choose to answer.  Sometimes I have to stop other employees from adding too much information that is overwhelming and pull them back to the basics of what social media's function is in our library.

I loved Melissa Brodsky the co-founder of Smart Savy Social's idea that a new network that concentrates on the advertiser's brand and not the Facebook brand.  She has a great point here and I often wonder if Facebook will be something we will laugh at in the future.

For the future I am intrigued by Google glasses and how Google acquired Neven Vision and is using it in the Picasa product to keep personal photos organized but do I want someone in a bar to find out if I am in a relationship or not because they lifted up their iPhone and scanned me like a barcode?  I am scared!!!  Posting pictures on airtags does impress me but I think as all this new technology really freaks me out I might live in a cabin way up north with a cane and a fireplace and perhaps a cat.

Web 3.0 I will confess seems like the most amazing new way of organizing our data but I was lost after the video I watched put down the Dewey Decimal system.  It is amazing how much data we already have on the internet and where it all comes from but my goal in life is to keep up to date as much as possible without being tracked by Aliens from another planet.  I hope I am successful and I hope that as our world changes every day that we still stop and smell the flowers and enjoy what we have now and not rely totally on the new way of life.  I will only wear my Google glasses when I can't find my rose coloured ones.

Positive Slactivism could be better

Malcolm Gladwell makes a very impressive argument regarding activism in today's society.  I try to stay away from too much activism as it tends to be very negative.  I would like to make a point about positive activism I experienced at the beginning of March.  I drove into my home town and found blue ribbons rapped around trees I have known since I was a little girl.  They were placed along the street I grew up on and they were beside the very church I was married in. I asked my father as I drove him for his day surgery if he knew anything about them and he said, "No Victoria but they look nice, don't they?"

I didn't go on twitter and check a hashtag to find out what these blue ribbons meant but I did find myself looking in stores to see why there was ribbons in little boxes that resembled the boxes we see out before Remembrance Day.  As I threw my reading glasses on I saw that the boxes were marked 'Random act of Kindness Week.'  I wanted to join in like I have never joined something before. I immediately put a toonie in the box and put a ribbon on my coat.  When my mother passed away in October 2011 I put the words 'Pay it Forward' in her obituary.

This activism was only happening in my home town of Belleville.  I wore a blue ribbon everywhere back in my native land but everyone was asking me where I got it.  While in Belleville I gave people coffees, told managers that there employees were doing a splendid job and even gave my brother a 'step up' in life which was a very big thing for me to do at the time.  Long story short I ended up in the hospital due to many factors but while in there the love kept flowing from me and I know I helped others as they helped me.  I did not have a phone or internet access and during my stay I had many people join my mission.

The hashtag #iranelection rings very close to me as I met a man in hospital that refused to open his eyes as the pain was too great for him. I reminded him everyday that he was safe in Canada and he would laugh and say, "Thank you Vicki!"  He taught me some words in Farsi and when he left the hospital I cried like a baby because he was the kindest soul I had ever met.  Talk about a random act of kindness!

You don't need the internet or text messaging to make a point.  Put your hand on a person's shoulder and show them you believe in the same cause and before you know it others will do the same.

I am not sure if the blue ribbons are a wink from God and my Mom but those blue ribbons have changed my life and I hope this story helps change yours just enough to realize we are spending too much time being active in something we don't have the least bit of real interest in.  Try being active in a positive cause like the fellows at the Woolworth's counter and you will make a change.  Better yet teach your children to be positively active as well!

Up to the Minute Information Highway

Up to the Minute Information Highway

Social media has changed the way we receive information that we, the interested party, wants to listen, view, and read.  Would John Tobin have received as many votes if he didn’t send all those video messages out to potential voters?  I thinkJustin Trudeau is following the same path. Justin is reaching out to all potential his voters with every type of social media he can get his hands on.  His backers are not stupid, he is a very good looking man like his father was and will receive women’s votes due his looks alone.

The multiple platforms have helped me personally, as I tend to zone out if I have to listen or watch any more than a few minutes unrest in Iran or Iraq.  I have always felt guilty about not knowing the world news but since Twitter I can follow news without having to have the extended version. 

A very good friend of mine is a news hound.  She is so informed she barely gets any sleep.  She is in the category of comments, critiques and conversations as she has conversations with so many news makers they are now re-tweeting her traffic reports.

Let me expand this point.   The other night she sent me a text with a link to CKWS’s Facebook page.  I knew it was important coming from her late on a Monday night.  I clicked on the link and found out that someone had installed a camera in the showers at a residence at Queen’s University.  I immediately ran to my daughter who is in her first year at this University and told her about it.  I went back to the Facebook page with her by my side and I asked if they knew which residence this incident took place.  Within five minutes we had the answer.  It was Victoria Hall, just as my daughter predicted.  We kept watching and waiting for more news and then another message came through from my news hound friend and that link told me the floor the incident happened on. Even though I was relieved it didn’t involve my beautiful girl I wanted to reach out to the parents of the girls who were violated.

To summarize my thoughts on social media and how it affects our news today I can’t think of a better way to use social media.  I became a part of that news story and I may have been able to sleep that night but did the other parents who were following this news story sleep a wink? I bet not!

I believe social media has brought journalism to the forefront of our lives, where it should be.  My son follows a feed that gives the real story of what is happening in the U.S. he taught me a great deal about the recent election and results.  He always told me I needed to be more informed and now I am thanks to social media

Social Media Diet

My social media diet began on Saturday February 9th until Monday February 11th.  Friday Februrary 8th we were hit with a big storm for our area and I felt very shut in and alone as I live in a remote area. I kept quoting "Here's Johnny" from the movie The Shining. :)   My husband was away.  When I woke up Saturday I automatically wanted to go on Twitter and find out what happened in the GTA during the snow fall.  I held back and did 20 minutes of yoga.  I usually like to slide onto Facebook and put up some Zen type postings but instead read and then watched Dexter. I think I chose a great time for this exercise because I am not on social media sites that often during weekends but I did find knowing I couldn't touch it made me a bit jumpy.  Instead of checking statuses I called some really good friends and we enjoyed conversations without typing.

Friends and family knew I was off the World Wide Web so I met one friend for dinner and she stayed overnight.  We laughed the night away as we shared stories of our current lives. Somehow this social media diet has been a part of a life change to me.  That may sound odd but I opened my eyes to the reason I have so many friends.  I won't get into details but I did ask my husband to stay closer to his work place for a week.  Perhaps we needed a diet from each other.

I thought I was going to cheat once because I wasn't sure if I could play scrabble on my phone so instead of doing that I wrote the acknowledgements for my junior fiction novel I will be publishing soon. I realized I spend too much time on Facebook instead of doing other more important offline things such as writing.  I  have begun to start my day with yoga instead of Facebook and Twitter.

In the end, this exercise made re-examine my future and that may sound like a load of spreadable manure but it is the truth.

Great video about hockey and Social Media

Rick Mercer and Social Media ... LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKo1P3wx2bU

Social Media - Fad or Fiction?

January 22, 2012

Like anything new and exciting Web 2.0 and Social Media caused people around the globe to become a part of a entity much bigger than they ever could have imagined.  I remember back in 1996 I met up with a group that was talking about their software engineering husbands and the Internet.  I so wish I gained more knowledge that day.  I would be a millionaire now.

The demographics of Social Media are changing but we still have to remember that 50% of our population is under 30 and they are the largest users of Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, Reddit, LinkedIn and many other social media applications that are growing daily.  Generation Y and Z consider email passe because they share their ideas within so many other sources. My son of 21 years of age only uses his email to save assignments and articles until they are needed to write a paper.  I started with Netscape and Web 1.0 and I created horrible websites and tried to funnel traffic to them and it was tedious and sometimes just not worth the hours of inputting.  "Buzz" marketing has always worked best for me.  This is why I have 612 friends on my Facebook page and friends of mine within the same demographic have 31 friends.  The creation of Social Media and idea sharing was very exciting to me.  If I want to get my product or point across I post something on my wall or tweet it and hope that others receive my vision and join with me in my daily mission in life. I have found this works very well.  It is like an endless conversation.

I enjoyed how Reddit caused such a stir bringing  Mr. Splashy Pants to life and it shows if you spend time and effort in a Social Media forum you can definitely get results.  Using humour and finding what grabs peoples attention creates a perfect platform.  This is why Social Media has become so lucrative as a marketing tool for businesses.  Think of how many freebies and coupons and funny commercials are printed, cut out and watched every day. Consumers are being interactive with companies and companies are interacting with individuals and  the potential customer may not be aware that they are a part of a demographic analysis. This article is an example how social media is changing how we shop. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-08-05/future-retail-tech/56880626/1

My personal opinion about Social Media compared to the Industrial Revolution is just like industry, Social Media is not leaving us. The ability to share your ideas and learn instantaneously from the enormous user shared content out there is amazing but always keep in mind what you are sharing may not be yours when you load that video, share that picture or the comment that could get you fired.  Just like the Industrial Revolution http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Efq-aNBkvc everyone tends to join  the band wagon trying to make their millions or share their stories but remember how nice it was to leave work and not have your boss text you the agenda for the meeting next week.  Remember when you said something to a friend and it became hearsay when the rumour was spread. In today's society we are able to take pictures of our conversations and post them  for millions to view.  Children were used to make money at the beginning of the revolution and that is why Unions were formed.  What will we do to stop so much information being thrown at us that we have forgotten to live today to the fullest, away from our computers and mobile devices?

Social Media at it's best

I added a status to my Facebook when I began this course. It read, "Not sure if I am social enough for the Social Media course I have registered in".  Many people commented with silly remarks because I live a very social life!