How Come, Social Media?

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Sometimes while pondering the meaning of life my mind strays to other matters, namely the state of affairs with social media. It’s in most of our faces every day and keeps many of us captive whether we like it or not. The streams of information whiz by chock full of pics of grumpy cat, words that most of us don’t say in public, news about the latest controversy or a friend in need who’s having a bad day. 

However, for many of us that get paid for our social media prowess, our minds go a little deeper into what’s happening out there in cyberspace. Social media continues to frazzle and frustrate us as we forge through the muck. 

So here's just a few frustrations:  

Dear Facebook: How come we can edit the text on posts that have photos in them or posts that are text only yet we can’t edit our words when it’s a video? Folks, you are aware of the capabilities to edit, no? Suppose we could say two out of three ain’t bad. 

Why does Klout only have a Klout score of 85? Mashable’s score is 89; Techcrunch has a score of 95 and CNN 99. One would think Klout’s Klout would be higher! After all, they know all the workings of their algorithm. Ah, perhaps they are holding back so that they don’t look TOO good!

Customer Service is an attribute associated with Klout’s K’s, yet they never respond to emails or tweets. Who are those people that give them K’s for this? Would love to know if the folks that gave Klout K’s for this have actually had communication with them and broken through the great wall of silence.

Why doesn’t Kred take activity on Google+ into account for calculating your score? Certainly hoping they'll roll in a user’s activity on Google+ soon. And where is Pinterest in regards to both Klout and Kred? Oh, and Klout: Kudos to you for having Instagram included; Kred there’s another one for you to consider.

Facebook, why did you change the friend request methodology so that a message can’t be sent with the request? Okay, this is an oldie but goodie that truly annoys me. Seriously, I would like to know who all these people are that send friend requests to me all the time. Could you at least message me too and explain our alleged connection? And to make matters worse, if I hit ignore Facebook is going to penalize you from friending others. There’s got to be a better way to handle introductions, Facebook!

Why do Facebook users continue to use personal profiles as their business page? There is NO advantage to this; no stats, no opportunity to advertise, and you’ll run out of the ability to add “friends” eventually. For more on this see my past blog about being friends with a movie theater. 

Hello, Google+! Didn’t forget about you. Is there really an advantage to having a page? You don’t provide easy to access stats like Facebook does. It would be nice to have some demographics and regional breakdowns to see who is finding the page. Data on participation would be nice too. And the possibility of advertising if one wanted to do so. I suppose you’ll catch up eventually. 

Neil Young had pondering on his mind when he came out with this song with rockabilly styling back in 1978 (see below). And if you're wonderin' where to learn more about social media and marketing at large don't forget to visit us at our website, or stop by on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.       

The Circle Game

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Originally, it was a song, written by Joni Mitchell in the 1960’s. A cover version by the folksinger Tom Rush amassed much attention to the tune. Rumored to be either about Joni’s painful decision to give up a child born out of wedlock at age twenty or a response song to Neil Young’s “Sugar Mountain”. Or perhaps both. At any rate, it appears to be a song that leads us through being a child and reaching young adulthood.  And maybe getting stuck in a cycle of sorts. Or maybe a circle.

We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

My, has the definition changed! And yes, Joni, indeed your words are true; some of us do look behind but realize we can’t relive it.

But Google+ circles have changed that, at least in the virtual world of social networking. As we all navigate this strange new world that some of us have chosen to enter courtesy of Google, circles guide our time spent there.  The circles change as we “grow older” with Google+; we learn from our past as novices as we blossom into seasoned participants. And how many circles did YOU start out with? I started with THREE, one of which consisted of people I know quite well (your definition of “quite well” may differ from mine, so I won’t bore you with those details).

That circle is still with me. It is small, but now boasts close to 100 people. As time marches on and I’m meeting new folks on Google+, a few of them have inspired me to rethink The Circle Game again and again. I’m now up to ten, with various degrees of segmentation. Recently, I started one for “Market Research”.

A gent found me on Google+ after I threw a question out about Twitter. Turns out he makes a living from one of the industries that puts food on my table too. He led me to a list of market researchers on a site called Google Plus counter (www.gpc.com). He had created the list on this site, and upon my asking, added me as well. What a find! I’m now in the process of adding some of those folks to my circle. Already knew of a few of them via Twitter and LinkedIn, however, here’s another contact opportunity to have with them for an intelligent conversation!  And go round and round and round in The Circle Game.

And who knows what’s next? Will Google+ decide to make some changes regarding the way circles work? So far I’m pleased, but who’s to say they couldn’t add in more flexibility? There’s always a better mousetrap to be built. Google+, please let me color code my circles so that it’s easy to spot the most important ones or the ones that are more casual vs. more work related. After all, carousels have lots of colors to them.

Now, I’m not making any complaints! Circles are fantastic compared to those cumbersome things that Facebook calls lists!

Joni wrote “We're captive on the carousel of time” however, as we go round and round, no matter how great already, it should become even greater to do so.