social media — Leave a comment
10
Apr 13

A Broken Tibia Teaches Us Nothing About Social Media

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Whenever an important event occurs in our world, somebody, somewhere, has to write a blog post that explains what said event can teach us about social media.

It’s inevitable.

Everything from “The Book of Mormon” to the Super Bowl has been exploited to earn a few extra clicks.

Let’s face it: There are social media lessons to be learned in anything, if we look hard enough.

But I’ve seen a picture of the gruesome injury suffered by Louisville basketball player Kevin Ware during the NCAA Tournament, and I can report, with confidence, that we can learn absolutely nothing about social media by what happened. (If we learned anything, it’s that we should look away when such situations present themselves.)

BusinessWired, however, a PR and marketing blog from Business Wire, wanted in on the action, so they baited their readers into clicking on a recent post that used the injury in a thinly veiled attempt to explain how a possible career-ending injury can teach public companies about how to use social media.

How about no?

At worst, it was in poor taste. At best, it was still in poor taste. Not because it took advantage of somebody getting hurt, but because it was lazy. And it didn’t make a lot of sense, either.

Tips ranging from establishing clear policies on company’s use of social media, to tracking social media sentiment, have nothing to do with the fake Twitter account that received a majority of well wisher’s tweets. There’s a brief mention of this near the bottom, but, by that point, most people have stopped reading.

I would expect a company like Business Wire to be more thoughtful in their approach. But then when I see them hawking their services in that same post, it all makes sense.

This wasn’t just in poor taste, it was positioned to drive sales, as well.

Gross.

Like I said: You can find social media lessons in most anything. And, most of the time, the comparisons are harmless. It’s when you try to hitch your wagon to a notorious event that  you put your reputation at risk.

The Business Wired post could have been written without any mention of Kevin Ware’s injury. It may have garnered less clicks, but it would’ve accomplished the same goal: selling a product.

By trying to be too clever, they just came off as insensitive.

that's what he read — Leave a comment
05
Apr 13

That’s What He Read – April 5, 2013

heread

Golf.

It’s all I can think about when the weather starts to turn. And, yes, the weather will eventually turn in Michigan. Maybe slowly, like a Walking Dead zombie, but it will turn.

So as I stare out the window and daydream about hitting the links, here are some articles I read this week.

Enjoy.

Instagram and Vine Shake Up News Industry (Mashable) – “With apps like Instagram, Vine and Funky, your news could soon look a lot more like you made it yourself.”

Workaholism and the myth of hard work (Psychology Today) – “At least 30 percent of employed adults don’t take all their vacation days, according to a 2005 Harris Interactive poll. Each year, Americans hand back 421 million days to their employers.”

The Internet ‘Narcissm Epidemic’ (The Atlantic) – “In virtual space many of the physical interactions that restrain behavior vanish. Delusions of grandeur, narcissism, viciousness, impulsivity, and infantile behavior for some individuals rise to the surface.”

The Touch-Screen Generation (The Atlantic) – “The toddler was starting to fuss in her high chair, so the mom did what many of us have done at that moment—stuck an iPad in front of her and played a short movie so everyone else could enjoy their lunch.”

Why is it so hard for us to imagine Buzzfeed can do serious journalism? (PaidContent) – “We like to think of newspapers like the New York Times or the Washington Post as monolithic bastions of “serious” journalism, but the reality is that newspapers have always been a blend of the ephemeral and the important. In most cases, it’s the entertainment column or the fashion feature on a drug-addled celebrity that pays the bills, and allows newspapers to send reporters to Afganistan or undercover to investigate a health scandal.”

What did you read this week?

social media — 2 comments
03
Apr 13

Are We Really That Forgiving When It Comes To Mistakes?

mistakes

Who would have thought that a teen heartthrob from the 90′s would be able to so eloquently explain why it’s harder today to be successful than it was when he was a star?

Certainly, not I.

But during a podcast he recorded with Grantland editor-in-chief, Bill Simmons, Luke Perry brought up a good point: In today’s day and age, where everything we do is out in the open, it’s damned near impossible to make the mistakes that were so important to an older generation.

As Perry put it, he, and the rest of the cast from 90210, didn’t have to deal with the paparazzi, let alone fans with cellphone cameras watching their every move. They were able to move around in relative obscurity. If they did something stupid, nobody captured it.

Seth Godin would approve of this. He argues that making mistakes is essential on the path of learning.

And if you’re paying attention to your Twitter feed, it seems everyone is writing blog posts about the benefits of failure.

The popular perception is that it’s okay to make mistakes, as long as you know how to react in the event of a screw-up.

But in today’s climate, where everything we create — Facebook posts, tweets, e-mail — is captured in perpetuity, are we really that forgiving?

Seems like there is always someone who wants to be the first to point out an error, which has become the digital equivalent of pointing and laughing, because that gains the user notoriety. The fake shock we exhibit when somebody tweets from the wrong account grabs us instant karma. And that karma can be parlayed into instant credibility; the belief that you, the pointer, know your social media.

Deadspin has made a habit of pointing out errors made by ESPN’s graphics staff. I realize they just have a deep-seated hatred for the Worldwide Leader, but is anyone hurt by the absence of a team’s logo?

It’s easy to assume that pointing out mistakes has little consequence. I mean, we move on from everything so quickly that errors quickly become an afterthought.

And remember: The guy responsible for the Chrysler account tweet was fired because of one mistake.

One.

We, as a digital community, need to be forthright in our advice.

Either really mean it when you say that it’s okay to make mistakes, or don’t say it at all. We can’t have both.

Now I leave it up to you: Are we really forgiving of mistakes, as we claim to be? Or are we all talk?

Image courtesy of opensourceway.

social media — 2 comments
22
Mar 13

Your Food Is Getting Cold

foodie

So I’m out to lunch with colleagues a few weeks ago at a seafood restaurant in Detroit that overlooks the still-frozen Detroit River.

As we sit down, I notice three people two tables over who are about to get their food. Since I’m so hungry I’m practically salivating, I decide to torture myself and watch the waitress place their food in front of them.

One of the gentleman sitting at the table is engrossed in conversation with the woman sitting to his right, smiling and nodding politely as the food is placed in front of him, waiting to be devoured.

But before he takes his first bite, and without breaking eye contact with the woman, he pulls out his phone and holds it over his lunch, doing this as nonchalantly as if he was placing his napkin across his lap.

The woman continues to speak as the man steals a glance at the picture of his dish to ensure it’s in the proper focus before he snaps the picture with his camera app.

The contrast of colorful seafood on a white plate, emblazoned with the restaurant’s logo, will make — pardon the pun — an appetizing image on his favorite social network, which one can only assume is the final resting place of this image.

And when it goes live (probably with a hashtag like #nomnom) it will become another blip in the never-ending food photo gallery that clogs our social networks.

I mean, I get this. Food is delicious and we want others to see what we are eating. And it makes more sense when we go somewhere with unique food to capture it in a picture. But, yet, it’s still weird that this is a thing. Isn’t it?

I always imagine what my grandpa would say, were he still alive. He died in 1995 – long before the advent of smartphones. Hell, the Internet. So if I were to tell him, “Grandpa, people have cameras on their phone and they take pictures of their food with their cameras on their phones,” he’d probably take a swig of his Piels, then a drag of his cigarette, and tell me that was the stupidest thing he’s ever heard.

And you know what? It is kind of the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

People taking pictures of their meals before they start eating and putting it in a public forum for others to drool over. That’s weird, right? (It’s even weirder when the food looks unappetizing, but that’s for another time.)

But maybe that’s the point of social media: The weirder the better.

There’s nothing worse than somebody coming down from above and bestowing the “rules” of social media upon the masses. The whole point, in my opinion, is to have fun. Experiment. Do something out of the ordinary.

Humans have loved food since the beginning of time, and we’ve talked about it since we could make words.

Perhaps this is just the natural progression of human evolution: food on screens.

It would bring a whole new idea to the idea of a seafood diet.

We see the food, but we can’t eat it.

storytelling — 2 comments
18
Mar 13

Share Pictures On The Internet At Your Own Risk

As storytellers, we know that images are a powerful way to tell our story.

In today’s world of limited attention spans, pictures are worth a thousand words because nobody wants to read that much text, so we use an image to convey our point.

But as more and more images make their way to our screens via Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, we have to be more and more wary that the images are truthful, something I’ve written about before.

It’s too easy to take an image at face value and share it with your friends. But once you do — regardless of how large or small you are — your credibility is at risk.

nbcnews image

The image above was shared by the NBC News Instagram feed the day after Pope Francis was introduced to the throng outside that was waiting for his first appearance. With no caption to speak of, it’s pretty easy to understand the picture they were trying to paint.

While NBC never said both images were taken from the same spot in Rome, it’s certainly implied that the point was to show technology’s swift advancement in society, using the introduction of a Pope as its focal point.

But when the Washington Post pulled back the curtain, we learned the image from 2005 was taken during Pope John Paul II’s funeral procession, while the 2013 shot was taken two days ago. Two very different events, and two very different situations.

To be fair, NBC’s account didn’t say they were taken at the same time, eight years apart. But their caption didn’t say they weren’t taken at the same time, either.

When I stumbled across the image, I shared it on Facebook. It was too powerful an image not to. But when I learned that what I shared wasn’t entirely truthful, I shared the Washington Post story, as well. I felt that I owed it to the people who commented on the image to get the whole story.

This situation is eerily similar to the image of the guards standing guard at the Tomb of the Unknown soldier during Hurricane Sandy, except it wasn’t during that storm. However, that little bit of info didn’t stop people from continuing to share the image. Undaunted by the facts, the image still made its way around the ‘Net.

Understandably, nothing bad, per se, came from sharing the image above, nor did anything “bad” come from the picture of the soldiers, unless you want to count society’s tolerance for inaccuracy as a casualty.

If you use Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, you owe it to yourself, and the tens (or hundreds or thousands or millions) of people who follow you, to share images that are accurate and real.

The real world (and the people who inhabit it) is already fuzzy. We don’t need the digital version to complicate matters more.

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