Social Media - your approach?

[Liar's Poker]

Hey all,

Topic: Personal social media strategy

I found myself at work a month ago arguing that we didn't have a social media strategy and that our communication methods both internally and externally were stale. Our clients, competitors and staff are all using it and here we are restricting its use during work hours. From this, a social media strategy is being developed by our marketing team to bring us in line with market expectations.

It wasn't until I sat down on the plane on my way to Europe to finish my studies that I considered my personal social media commitment, which has been up until now, non-existent.

Apart from ASF, which I'm not sure I'd class as social media since we all hide behind our cool names and mysterious avatars; I have no facebook, linkedIn, twitter or other blogging profiles. Now this lack of take-up was mostly due to how time-poor I am, working full-time and studying a Masters part-time. When ever my friends managed to shy away from updating their facebook status on their phone and say 'I don't know how you fit it all in', my response was always along the lines of 'I don't have facebook'.

After contemplating my friends activeness on facebook, being called last minute asking where I was because I didn't get the facebook invite and having to rely on my housemates updating me on where we were going out - I started to ponder whether my argument at work, should also apply to my own personal life.

As the topic suggests, what is your 'personal social media strategy'?

For example, how many social media outlets do you use? Do you use them in conjunction with each other? do you impose limitations on these, both transparency and time commitment? How do you manage them?.... etc.

I need a social media presence. Like most linkages - friends, colleagues, acquaintances and family all require regular maintenance. With traditional means partly being replaced by social media, I am still faced with the problem of structuring it so it doesn't become chaotic to manage. I still like the idea of going to my parents for dinner, catching up with friends for coffee and drinking with the boys - doing all this at once over the internet could have consequences. I haven't signed up to any social media as yet and will wait to read responses from yourselves regarding your opinions. Nonetheless, after a bit of research, some contemplation I present my thoughts as follows:

Facebook - Family and friends only. This will be my informal social media outlet.

Submit and join with a high level of restrictions. Facebook will be used to keep in contact with close friends, rather than adding everyone I meet under the sun or girls I kissed in 3rd grade. Features such as 'the wall' where people can add their comments to my page will be turned off so I maintain complete control of my own identity. When I meet a new group of people that are more than likely a 'once off' for a period of time (like now - where I'm with a group from all over the world studying for a month in Europe) a separate group will be created to manage this, so my close friends ability to keep in close contact with me are not discounted by an influx of random once off additions.

LinkedIn - Work colleagues or acquaintances only. This will be my formal social media outlet.

Again, join with a few restrictions. I've always been fond of LinkedIn, but have cringed at its recruitment like feel. Although, to ensure my overall social media strategy works, I need to have something that will compliment facebook. I will use this to build on my personal brand and contacts I have met through my education and work practices. I'll use this to build my professional contact data base.

Twitter - Nil.

I like the idea of twitter more than I actually like it. I'm not interesting enough to warrant providing the world with updates of what I'm doing, but have considered it for receiving concise updates from others. At this stage, I don't believe having twitter will add any significant benefit. It will be interesting to read if anyone (that isn't a celeb) has managed to find value from twitter on a personal level.

Blogs (wordpress, blogspot, etc) - Nil.

Similar to the above, I don't believe blogging will add any value to what I'm trying to achieve. At this stage, forums like ASF provide an outlet to discuss interests with like minded people. Even after finishing uni, I will still be too time poor to maintain an interesting blog worth reading. So a blog outlet will be a no go. Will leave it open for the future...

Email - maintain.

I'll use my personal email account to maintain the proposed outlets. I believe emails have lost their value as a method of communication due to the shear amount we all receive and the likelihood of poor content (advertisements, junk, etc).

Summary

By utilizing a combination of Facebook and LinkedIn, I believe I'll be able to separate both formal and informal contact groups, so each linkage does not contaminate the other.

I look forward to hearing what others do.

Apologies if it reads as though I'm blowing social media out of proportion. I'm fortunate enough to live with two good friends and have seen the time it can consume - something I do not want to fall into the trap of.

A face to face coffee or beer will always be my preferential means of communication.

Thanks all,

-Liar-

 

[bellenuit]

Since I am retired, I have no need for social media for work related thingies, but I do have both a facebook and twitter account.

I find facebook great for keeping in touch with family back in Ireland. Not for direct communication, for which I use email or skype mainly, but for seeing photos of weddings or other events I have been unable to attend. I don't put much on my own facebook page, except for some photos that might be of interest to most of my friends and links to videos or web pages that I also think are of general interest.

I have almost all my younger relatives on ignore (not directly getting their day to day banter) as otherwise I would be overwhelmed with junk. This includes some married nieces in their thirties who feel they must communicate to the world every thing their young children have done or said that day. About once a month I go to each of their "walls" to see if there is anything of importance I may have missed. Most friends my age group tend to keep their postings few and relevant.

I find Twitter great to follow people I may be interested in. I am not interested in the day to day chatter of "celebs", who tweet whenever they are going to a restaurant or football match, but I follow some scientists, philosophers, intellectuals etc. who tweet links to interesting topics they have read or to discussions they have taken part in. For Twitter I just follow others, rather than tweet myself.

 

[Julia]

I have zero interest in Facebook, Twitter or any of that stuff. I can't believe people make tweets that say "going out to bring in the washing now", "time to collect the kids from school".!! Who on earth cares?

If I'm interested in keeping in touch with someone then I'm happy to do it via phone and email. I'm not keen on the 'public display' aspect of these media and I wouldn't trust any privacy 'protections'.

I hope I haven't offended the people who have invited me to be a friend on this forum by refusing. It's nothing personal. Just don't see the point.
I hear teenagers boasting that they have 500 friends on Facebook. Really? Doesn't fit my definition of a friend.

I suppose I'm being old fashioned because I also detest having to do the supermarket shopping amidst people having intensely personal loud conversations on their mobile phones. Somehow, believe it or not, we all managed to conduct our lives in a reasonably satisfactory way before being driven to such a maniacal extent by technology.

 

[bellenuit]

II can't believe people make tweets that say "going out to bring in the washing now", "time to collect the kids from school".!!

One person I followed for a while was Stephen Fry. I love hearing him talk and have read many fine articles by him. However, I dropped him from my follow list as I was overwhelmed with junk tweets of his, not as mundane as "bringing in the washing", but not much better. I was surprised with the type of stuff he tweeted.

 

[disarray]

i use social media to stalk people. the more info people put out there the easier it is for me (and marketers, hackers, scammers etc.) to harvest your details and build a profile on you for targetted advertising or social engineering or hacking or extortion or something.

information may want to be free but it is still a currency, and idiots everywhere are giving it away for free

 

[trainspotter]

I have a facebook account which I check about once a month and that is it other than ASF.

 

[bellenuit]

i use social media to stalk people. the more info people put out there the easier it is for me (and marketers, hackers, scammers etc.) to harvest your details and build a profile on you for targetted advertising or social engineering or hacking or extortion or something.

For Facebook in particular, I occasionally see how much information can be gathered on my less computer literate friends from their Facebook pages due to lax privacy settings, so that I can alert them to how vulnerable they are.

Some of the default Facebook settings (at least in the past) were set to provide almost no privacy, with everything being available to the wider public. Even today, many users are unaware that allowing "Friends of Friends" to see their stuff is highly dangerous, as they may have no idea who the friends of their friends are.

 

[pixel]

I have zero interest in Facebook, Twitter or any of that stuff. I can't believe people make tweets that say "going out to bring in the washing now", "time to collect the kids from school".!! Who on earth cares?

If I'm interested in keeping in touch with someone then I'm happy to do it via phone and email. I'm not keen on the 'public display' aspect of these media and I wouldn't trust any privacy 'protections'.

I hope I haven't offended the people who have invited me to be a friend on this forum by refusing. It's nothing personal. Just don't see the point.
I hear teenagers boasting that they have 500 friends on Facebook. Really? Doesn't fit my definition of a friend.

I suppose I'm being old fashioned because I also detest having to do the supermarket shopping amidst people having intensely personal loud conversations on their mobile phones. Somehow, believe it or not, we all managed to conduct our lives in a reasonably satisfactory way before being driven to such a maniacal extent by technology.

100% with you, Julia

For a while, I succumbed to "family pressure" - they're living all over the planet, so it seemed a reasonable idea to set up a facebook account so I could see what kids and grandkids were up to.
But then came the invitations to be a friend of people I didn't even know: "Please play one game with me - I need just one more game of mahjong to become a Jedi" or whatever it was. Why should I care???
Very quickly, it took up an hour daily to sift through the junk, discard friend invites, even blatant advertising. So I just cancelled my account, letting those few that really matter to me know why I did it.
Now I've set up a family section on my personal website; that's where I can upload photos and let family and friends know how to logon and see our garden or holiday snaps.
They know our names, address, phone and email; no need to share those details with the world.

 

[Smurf1976]

A real world example of how dangerous Facebook can be...

The last time I met them face to face was in 1994. And we never really knew each other that well.

Now I know how many children she has and what their names are. I know her name too (since she is now married). I know where she works. I know where she lives. I could even find the car rego if I wanted to. And I know her husband's name too.

I have no ill intent, I'm just pointing out that I have been presented with this information without even trying. She's got no idea what I've been up to for the past 17 yeras and yet I've got access to all that. Seems dangerous to me.

 

[Liar's Poker]

Very interesting discussion so far.

It really does reconfirm many of my concerns with social media to begin with. I might spend a bit more time going through what restriction I can impose on any that I set up.

Not setting any up is still an option.

-Liar-

 

[Julia]

i use social media to stalk people. the more info people put out there the easier it is for me (and marketers, hackers, scammers etc.) to harvest your details and build a profile on you for targetted advertising or social engineering or hacking or extortion or something.

information may want to be free but it is still a currency, and idiots everywhere are giving it away for free

A real world example of how dangerous Facebook can be...

The last time I met them face to face was in 1994. And we never really knew each other that well.

Now I know how many children she has and what their names are. I know her name too (since she is now married). I know where she works. I know where she lives. I could even find the car rego if I wanted to. And I know her husband's name too.

I have no ill intent, I'm just pointing out that I have been presented with this information without even trying. She's got no idea what I've been up to for the past 17 yeras and yet I've got access to all that. Seems dangerous to me.

The above two posts illustrate my other reason for not getting involved. I didn't post this earlier for fear of being thought unreasonably paranoid about my personal security.

I simply cannot see why anyone, other than perhaps politicians and so called celebrities who have money and interest in people knowing about them, would want to make public any details about themselves or their lives.
There is quite enough danger already from identity theft.

And the other aspect that thoroughly gets me is how so many people actually have time to put up these meaningless comments to anyone who cares to read them?
And conversely that those reading that drivel have nothing better to do!

 

[Knobby22]

:iagree:

 

[Tink]

Yep, agree with all above too. Zero interest in Facebook etc, phones and emails are enough.

 

[Julia]

A comment from "The Punch":

We worry if we’ve got too much or too little; we notch up our conquests and proudly slip that number into conversation; and we spend more and more time trawling the net looking for it.

We’re looking for friends. Or followers. In the past year, there’s been an 82 per cent jump in the amount of time Australians spend on social networking sites and nearly 10 million of us log more than eight hours a month on Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

Problem is, all this skimming of Wall posts and retweeting is only making us feel more isolated.

According to Relationships Australia, the more we juggled Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and email accounts, the more disconnected we feel and nearly 30 per cent of the hyper-connected 25 to 34 year-olds say they’re lonely.

But, given flicking each other badly punctuated, hastily written emails or excruciatingly self-conscious, faux- ironic Tweets now stands for friendship, is it any wonder we feel increasingly isolated?

We’ve come to rely on basking in the reflected glory of how many “Likes” we get or how many followers we’ve racked up to feel loved the more disconnected we become in our real lives from genuine relationships (platonic or otherwise).

Social media sites have schooled us in the habit of collecting friends like tokens and it’s tough to deny that all the hours we spend on Facebook and Twitter aren’t predominately exercises in narcissism and self-aggrandisement. After all, having an online presence is really about talking - not about listening.

We might incessantly fiddle with our phones, twitching to find out if someone has Tweeted anything funny in the last 30 seconds or if we’ve been “Friended” by that hot guy from accounting, but we’re spending less and less time actually talking to people - in the last two years, 67 per cent of Australians report they’re spending less than ever on their mobile phones.

The problem with all this loneliness isn’t just that you’re more likely to spend a lot of your life sitting at home swigging pinot gris out of the bottle and watching Law & Order reruns (nothing wrong with that -Ed.), but that it can have a significant impact on your body.

American academics have found that loneliness is as bad for your health as being an alcoholic or smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and twice as bad for you as being obese.

A survey of 3000 nurses found that having close friends can also improve your chances of beating cancer, according to British researchers.

 

[Liar's Poker]

A comment from "The Punch":

^^ Good insight.

 

[skc]

I find it quite interesting that the posts so far are quite negative towards facebook... particularly that this is a forum that is a form of social media itself.

I am not a big facebook user but I have been quite active recently - sharing baby photos with friends and families around the world - and as a new parent I do get great satisfaction when friends comment how cute the baby is...

Sure using facebook has risks... but so is online banking/broking, emails, credit cards, driving your car, swimming at the beach etc etc. As long as one is aware of the risks and manage them accordingly, I don't see why you need to shut it off completely.

Having said that I wouldn't allow my children (if she's older) to have a facebook account that's for sure. I just don't know that they are aware of all the risks or that they know how to manage them.

 

[Logique]

Yep, agree with all above too. Zero interest in Facebook etc, phones and emails are enough.

Plus 1 on that. I don't think it necessary that in 15 years time, people know that 'I'm on the train', or to see a picture of my cat, if I had one.

 

[Julia]

I'm prompted to revive this thread following the bizarre media attention paid to a Charlotte Dawson (whom I'd never heard of) over recent days where she says she was the victim of some particularly nasty abuse on Twitter or Facebook or one of those august institutions.

Apparently multiple taunts suggesting she off herself ended up with her posting something to the effect of "You win" plus a photograph of a handful of pills.
Now, what did she think would happen? That no one would take any notice of this? Of course not. The police and ambulances duly arrived and took her off to hospital. We do not know whether she actually took any pills, whether any pills she had were lethal, or what happened in hospital.

It seems fairly obvious that this was an extension of her attention seeking behaviour. Heavens, if most people were genuinely going to commit suicide, would they be advertising it on public media?
And if the abuse was so horrendous, why didn't she just close down her computer? No one forces us to engage with others on the internet.

And, lest my cynicism be interpreted as simply callous, I'm deeply concerned about people who are genuinely depressed, mentally ill, and hope they'll take advantage of what help is available to them.

I'm just more and more astonished at the utter absorption so many people seem to have in social media, especially Twitter. Why on earth do people imagine that the public at large want to know that they are just home from work and about to walk the dog? Or any other myriad minutiae of their lives?

I've asked this question of a few people who seem to endlessly have their eyes attached to facebook or twitter and have received the vague response that "oh, I only use it to share photos of the family" or some such.

What is the attraction of the apparently voyeuristic compulsion to share every boring detail of one's life, and likewise to absorb those same boring details about other people?
Not to mention the identity risks posed by making so much personal information available across cyberspace.

 

[ROE]

I have facebook but strictly only use it with family so I can keep them update if I travel out of town
I have zero interest posting I check in this restaurant or about to pop in the dunny.

I found facebook full of people posting **** to impress people they barely know

I dont use linkin, waste of time and most of the profiles are full of crap, everyone talk up their credential and experience...

I have twitter accounts not to use but to collect infomations on market...very good tools to pull information...

email and phones/sms are my main contacts....my kids take my cue and wont have facebook after I explain to them
they are mostly cons and very little pros using stuff like facebook...

 

[sptrawler]

I have one cousin on the other side of the world, my only relative outside of my immediate family. He is on facebook and keeps asking me to join, all my kids are on facebook.
I go to the account set up page and can't bring myself to fill in the boxes. I just freeze up thinking about putting my name and details on facebook, it makes my skin crawl.