New Media

If social media is all about conversations, engagement and community building, what to do when there is only broadcasting and not actual conversation? As social media enthusiasts (and I call myself one), do we look in the mirror often enough and ask of ourselves am I really engaging or just pushing my message out?. Is social media becoming an echo chamber again? – Hummingbird604

So, do I practice what I preach when it comes to social media? Not always. Maybe that’s a good thing.

I’m long overdue for a social media-themed post, so I’m glad I saw Hummingbird604’s query. I’ve been meaning to blog about this for a while.

Linking to his post is a social act, so at least I’ve got that going for me. But like many social media evangelists of late, automation through Web 2.0 tools has gone from supplemental aid to crutch to virtual substitute for engagement. I still try to engage when I can, but I’d guess that upwards of 70 per cent of my messages in social media are broadcasting.

But that’s OK.

What is broadcasting, anyway? It’s not “anti-social” behavior, just not directly “conversational”. Mostly, I’m talking about those automated 140-character messages, usually containing links, that get churned out automatically from blog RSS feeds to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, hopefully engaging the eyeballs of my combined audiences. I do want to share interesting content with my friends and followers, and logging into separate profiles to do so is not an option. I just don’t have the time.

Don’t get me wrong. I love it when people respond to these syndicated messages with their own tweets, comments and email messages — and I do strike up conversations when that happens (And before I forget, if you do find this post interesting, please leave a comment!).

But how often do my “broadcasts” result in these conversations? Probably less than half the time. and I usually don’t have the time to engage beyond a few back-and-forth tweets before a project deadline wrenches my attention away. I have to keep my “social” conversations pretty streamlined — the equivalent of meeting a friend in real life for a pint, enjoying some stimulating dialogue and then skipping out 15 minutes later, just as things are getting good.

And how often am I actively visiting other people’s social media profiles and blogs to leave a comment or spark a discussion? Certainly, not as often as I’d like. I can probably count on one hand the number of comments I’ve left on blogs in the past month.

Partly, it’s a reflection of a tough economy where marketers have to justify their efforts with shorter-term ROI. Social media engagement can pay off big for organizations, even in the short term. Abandoning social media campaigns entirely to bots with RSS feeds — or just abandoning them, period, is a recipe for failure if you’re really looking to engage an audience. But when we find ourselves wearing so many hats and facing increasing pressures at work to deliver more with less, the “social” part of social media, just like the “social” part of our our non-work existence, will inevitably take a hit.

Social networking and social media are here to stay. The real engagement that comes with it is also here to stay, too. But work is work and there’s a time and place — online or in the real world — for conversations. We do what we can.

What could possibly go wrong here?

In modern warfare, collateral damage is taken for granted. Even pinpoint strikes can result in unintended death and destruction. Now witness the age of cyberwarfare, where a single shot is truly heard round the world.

When hackers used a directed denial of service attack against the online presence of an obscure Eastern European blogger going by the handle, Cyxymu, they also neutralized 44 million Twitter users, along with millions of users of third-party services and other social networking sites (Global News). To put that in perspective, imagine a lone sniper on a battlefield firing his weapon and the entire population of Spain taking the bullet.

Of course, in this case, the effect was not lethal, or even all that disruptive (even though cyber attacks have continued sporadically throughout the week). Few companies use social networks extensively, and very few, mostly those in the still-minty fresh social media marketing industry, are significantly dependent on Twitter. I do spend a fair amount of time on social networks, so I could count myself among those disrupted, but the downtime was really more of an annoyance than a disaster.

That paradigm could change quickly. Larger enterprises may integrate networks like Twitter into their workflow, opening up a security vulnerability. That’s the case according to an IT World report that suggests the problem isn’t so much hackers disrupting social networks as using it to hack all of the users:

Hackers have managed to imbed malicious code in tweets, and enterprise users who are on the network can bring that code inside the firewall. The shortened URLs used in Twitter, for example, can be misleading and can take users to dangerous sites.

In the big picture, the threat from hacking isn’t limited to social networking sites. Every serious company today has a website. Most use the Internet to promote themselves, if not to conduct operations or sell their goods and services. The modern world economy, still in a fragile recovery state, needs the Internet to work reliably. That is what is at stake here. It mustn’t be held hostage by the whims of cyber-thugs who don’t care about the collateral damage that can affect us all.

No Twitter for Hitler

Tasty food for thought from Mathew Ingram on why our expectation of privacy has been eroded in the Web 2.0 world:

In the pre-Web era, your privacy was something that was largely under your control, and apart from having your picture appear in the newspaper or on a police blotter somewhere, the risks were fairly limited, and easily understood. Now, the definition of privacy is a lot harder to nail down – and, in fact, differs from person to person – and the risks are (theoretically at least) unlimited.

It’s not all bad. Worried that your future employer is going to check your Facebook photos for incriminating evidence of conduct unbecoming? In a few years, it won’t matter. When everyone has embarrassing photos on the Internet, then employers won’t bother checking, if they really want to hire someone to get the job done.

What is your expectation of privacy in a wired world?

Questioning our basic assumptions about social media for social change: Are campaigns like these making a difference? There are some jaded people out there (see Joe Solomon’s post). I’m sorry to see social media evangelists like Raul falling into this camp, but I can sympathize with the problems they bring up. Heck, I’m a bit jaded myself.

Contributors to this discussion have already hit on my own thoughts.

1. Social Media (Twitter, blogs, Facebook, etc) is not a panacea. It is an enabler, but you still have to do the work of engaging influencers, the media, government, corporations, whatever, if you want to get something done. For many social media evangelists, time/budget are still hurdles to getting the work done effectively. Must re-focus.

2. Like Raul says, you get what you give. I’ve definitely been less active on the scene in helping others with their causes than I could have been, so response to my own social media efforts of late has been lackluster. This conversation is a much-needed kick in the ass.

3. Focus on the real world goals that are measurable (awareness = number of media hits, fundraising = dollar amounts) and on the effects (ie. the actual social change that comes about as a result of these efforts).

I recognize these challenges, but it’s time to get back on the horn. Phew.