Posts
The Difference Between Social Media, Mass E-mail and Direct Mail...
Right now, in some ways, I'd have to say - VERY LITTLE! Perusing my different updates on my smartphone - there are about 500 different icons you need to know about if you are going to take advantage of the ability to have your phone remind you when you have social media contacts - I noticed I have a another request for me to acknowledge that someone is related to me. I won't point out the particular social app, but it does use a lot of information off of Facebook. The name of my potential relative? Facebook User.
I recently received an e-mail threatening me with removal from the subscription list for a magazine I never subscribed to, about manufacturing facilities. It's a cycle I go through yearly, receiving about three warnings to re-subscribe, each duly ignored, they go away, leaving the subscription intact. They return to threaten me again the following year.
I also recently received something in the snail mail addressed to the parents of Vitor.
These are interesting, not because they prevented me from being Charlie Brown, waiting out by the mailbox with no mail, but because of the apparent disconnect they entail. First and foremost, I have no child named Vitor, nor have I ever had one. Secondly, someone with privacy protections turned on tried to connect with me, though I have no way of knowing who it was. I'll leave the mass e-mail to be the evidence it is.
One of the enticing facets of social media is the idea that a two-way, or more, ongoing conversation and interaction can take place between people. It adds in the benefits of being able to communicate almost as quickly as with a phone call, but also allows multi-media and enhanced communications of ideas, stands, ideals and platforms. It is designed as a way that individuals can stay in touch, each with a feeling of simultaneous freedom and connectedness.
Except...
Some of the same communications issues plague social media as do that dying behemoth - mass mailing. The intent of both is to maintain a connection with someone else, and in fact that connection business is a revenue generator for someone, somewhere. Yet, there is an ever present buzz about the effectiveness of contact campaigns, mailing lists and other, older asynchronous marketing connection devices... and not a good buzz. In fact, just this morning I read a new blog post by M. E. Kabay about his repeated attempts to get taken off of a mailing list, and his frustration is a very familiar one.
In the case of social media, there is such a rush to 'do' social media - I cringe with I hear people talking about 'doing' social media, because the effect is pretty much the same as when they 'do' ECM, de-duplication, or anything else technical - and to 'get out there' with a presence. There is a real and present problem with it, though. In the rush to do something, you cannot afford to do it improperly. It is far better to be a laggard than a bad leader. One way people are happy you made it, the other they curse the day you stepped into the spotlight.
In the case of the social media in question, the amount of coding to determine whether or not someone has privacy restrictions on their Facebook account may not be too wieldy - I don't pretend to be a programmer, so I'm not certain of what would be needed to do that - but it doesn't appear to have been done at all. It could have been one of my cousins, one of my siblings, even one of my children, but I'll never know, because I won't associate my online persona with someone I don't know. They not only sent me a request to say that User is related to me, they keep sending me reminders about it. When my phone syncs there's also the nice little 'you have something, and you can pick it up at the click of a button, assuming you know what our icon stands for' reminders, that tells me I have one family connection to confirm.
I don't intend this to be something perceived as an attack on one piece of the social media pie. I do intend it to be a warning about the velocity of our changes and implementations. For social media to be truly transformative in our e-vironment [I'll claim that one, if no one else has dibs] it needs the focus to be on the social aspect, not the tendency to get out and market things. In the case above, 'seeing' that the user's name wouldn't be shared, they could easily be given a message that tells them their privacy settings will keep their request from being processed. Instead of that, the coding was done so that it would be automatic, and then pushed out to the intended recipient. Coding to not bother people with the privacy restricted and thus meaningless information might have delayed roll-out.
I receive the updates that contain just the name Facebook User, and that they want to have me confirm I'm related. The direct mail wants me to purchase Junior Miss registration for a daughter (Vitor must be a girl?) I don't have. Both of them want to use a family connection - part of my social network, if you will - to further their interests. Neither of them has a clue who the identities involved are. The direct marketing company is using a polluted list, the social media application company isn't paying attention to their finished product.
Marketing and relationship-building are not bad, and they are what social media is poised to make a real possibility, but the one thing about social media that has to be retained if it is to rise up to the level its proponents want it to is its attachment to real connections. When we start to treat social media in the same way we treat direct mail, we have traded six bad apples for a half-dozen rotten ones. I enjoy social media, its creativity, the ability to stay in touch with more people, the ability to share interests and thoughts with people I have met - all of it - and I hope to try to keep its uniqueness and relevance intact as the struggle goes on to thoroughly mine its power.
Right now, in some ways, I'd have to say - VERY LITTLE! Perusing my different updates on my smartphone - there are about 500 different icons you need to know about if you are going to take advantage of the ability to have your phone remind you when you have social media contacts - I noticed I have a another request for me to acknowledge that someone is related to me. I won't point out the particular social app, but it does use a lot of information off of Facebook. The name of my potential relative? Facebook User.
I recently received an e-mail threatening me with removal from the subscription list for a magazine I never subscribed to, about manufacturing facilities. It's a cycle I go through yearly, receiving about three warnings to re-subscribe, each duly ignored, they go away, leaving the subscription intact. They return to threaten me again the following year.
I also recently received something in the snail mail addressed to the parents of Vitor.
These are interesting, not because they prevented me from being Charlie Brown, waiting out by the mailbox with no mail, but because of the apparent disconnect they entail. First and foremost, I have no child named Vitor, nor have I ever had one. Secondly, someone with privacy protections turned on tried to connect with me, though I have no way of knowing who it was. I'll leave the mass e-mail to be the evidence it is.
One of the enticing facets of social media is the idea that a two-way, or more, ongoing conversation and interaction can take place between people. It adds in the benefits of being able to communicate almost as quickly as with a phone call, but also allows multi-media and enhanced communications of ideas, stands, ideals and platforms. It is designed as a way that individuals can stay in touch, each with a feeling of simultaneous freedom and connectedness.
Except...
Some of the same communications issues plague social media as do that dying behemoth - mass mailing. The intent of both is to maintain a connection with someone else, and in fact that connection business is a revenue generator for someone, somewhere. Yet, there is an ever present buzz about the effectiveness of contact campaigns, mailing lists and other, older asynchronous marketing connection devices... and not a good buzz. In fact, just this morning I read a new blog post by M. E. Kabay about his repeated attempts to get taken off of a mailing list, and his frustration is a very familiar one.
In the case of social media, there is such a rush to 'do' social media - I cringe with I hear people talking about 'doing' social media, because the effect is pretty much the same as when they 'do' ECM, de-duplication, or anything else technical - and to 'get out there' with a presence. There is a real and present problem with it, though. In the rush to do something, you cannot afford to do it improperly. It is far better to be a laggard than a bad leader. One way people are happy you made it, the other they curse the day you stepped into the spotlight.
In the case of the social media in question, the amount of coding to determine whether or not someone has privacy restrictions on their Facebook account may not be too wieldy - I don't pretend to be a programmer, so I'm not certain of what would be needed to do that - but it doesn't appear to have been done at all. It could have been one of my cousins, one of my siblings, even one of my children, but I'll never know, because I won't associate my online persona with someone I don't know. They not only sent me a request to say that User is related to me, they keep sending me reminders about it. When my phone syncs there's also the nice little 'you have something, and you can pick it up at the click of a button, assuming you know what our icon stands for' reminders, that tells me I have one family connection to confirm.
I don't intend this to be something perceived as an attack on one piece of the social media pie. I do intend it to be a warning about the velocity of our changes and implementations. For social media to be truly transformative in our e-vironment [I'll claim that one, if no one else has dibs] it needs the focus to be on the social aspect, not the tendency to get out and market things. In the case above, 'seeing' that the user's name wouldn't be shared, they could easily be given a message that tells them their privacy settings will keep their request from being processed. Instead of that, the coding was done so that it would be automatic, and then pushed out to the intended recipient. Coding to not bother people with the privacy restricted and thus meaningless information might have delayed roll-out.
I receive the updates that contain just the name Facebook User, and that they want to have me confirm I'm related. The direct mail wants me to purchase Junior Miss registration for a daughter (Vitor must be a girl?) I don't have. Both of them want to use a family connection - part of my social network, if you will - to further their interests. Neither of them has a clue who the identities involved are. The direct marketing company is using a polluted list, the social media application company isn't paying attention to their finished product.
Marketing and relationship-building are not bad, and they are what social media is poised to make a real possibility, but the one thing about social media that has to be retained if it is to rise up to the level its proponents want it to is its attachment to real connections. When we start to treat social media in the same way we treat direct mail, we have traded six bad apples for a half-dozen rotten ones. I enjoy social media, its creativity, the ability to stay in touch with more people, the ability to share interests and thoughts with people I have met - all of it - and I hope to try to keep its uniqueness and relevance intact as the struggle goes on to thoroughly mine its power.
