New Media

When I’m not ruminating on conspiracies in central Asia, I can often be found at local tech events in Vancouver enjoying the company of fellow entrepreneurial-minded geeks. My roundup in Techvibes from DemoCamp last week, where tech start-up people got to tell other tech start-up people why they’re awesome. Highlight of the evening:

Honourable mention must go to Ed Levinson from Analusis, mostly because he was just so darn entertaining, in the tradition of manic street preachers. (Sadly, Ed didn’t actually get to pitch his idea. It went like this):

Sadly, Ed got pulled away at that point. He’d hit the 30-second mark. But I could tell that most of the people in the room wanted to hear more and I will be in touch with Ed to find out precisely what this entrepreneurial mentor was driving at.

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.

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.

If companies want to build their brands through social media, they’ve got to give up the kind of control that is the holy grail of traditional corporate communications.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the PR strategy of Olympics organizers, who are caught between old and new worlds of community engagement. New media is about free participation and building a community, and VANOC’s approach offers a lesson in recognizing the fine line between sabotaging community relations with excessive control and letting the bloggers run wild.

Read the rest of my BC Business column about how businesses can build a social media strategy on top of their traditional communications and marketing capabilities (and avoid the pitfalls of trying old tactics in a new medium), Let’s Get Social. Enjoy.

PS: What do you think of the cartoon image Antony Hare drew for me? I think it’s pretty cool.

PPS: Kris Krug was kind enough to update me the other day on the status of his alternative media centre for the Olympics, the True North Media House. Since they didn’t actually have a name for their group when I interviewed him, the place-holder name being tossed around at the time of the inverview was the Independent Media Centre, which I abbreviated in the article as IMC. I’m informed there is already an IMC that is not at all related to True North Media House, so where you read IMC in my column, please translate it as True North Media House, to avoid confusion.

KK also took exception to the following line in my column: “IMC spokesperson and web 2.0 entrepreneur Kris Krug says the people behind his group are overwhelmingly pro-Olympics and pro-business and are not remotely related to such groups as the new-media anarchists behind the Resistance 2010 campaign, with their No Olympics on Stolen Native Land motto”

While I was strictly correct in that the True North Media House is not the same organization as the Resistance 2010 campaign, Kris wants to make clear that anarchists and people of all stripes and affiliations are welcome under the big tent that is True North Media House. Glad we cleared that up.