Social Media Bullshit Bingo – some suggestions

I’ve had a bit of feedback on my earlier post about Social Media Bullshit Bingo and a few people have asked me for suggestions of words they can use to play this game. So here is a list I have put together from my own experiences (plus a few from some Twitter buddies who I asked back a few weeks ago when this whole idea initially took shape).

Facebook
Twitter
Social Graph
Google+
Crowdsourcing
Transparency
Influence
Authenticity
and finally Amazeballs (thanks to http://twitter.com/bobblebardsley)

Note: This is not an exhaustive list, as I am sure you will have your own and terms will evolve as new products and services emerge or grow in prominence (for example, Google + would not have been on the list just 3 weeks ago).

However, if you think there are any blindingly obvious ones that I have missed and that other game players could benefit from them, then please feel free to add them in the comments section below

Integrating Facebook into my blog (correctly)

The keen-eyed amongst you (who read this blog via the original website, not one of the syndicated places or on an RSS reader) will see that I have an updated "Tell your Facebook friends" area on the right side of each page.

Previously for about a year this held a very similar function that let you "like" my content (but to be honest, most of you won't have noticed the difference). The main aim was that when you clicked on the thumb icon it would link to your Facebook account, with the secondary aim that this blog could eventually build up more than 25 followers... so I could claim a 'Facebook vanity URL'.

Why? Well, because this was the first time I had done something like this, integrating my public self with my private self in the popular social network that I share with my friends. It was more a "let's try it and see", rather than "let's try it and build followers".

However, there was one rather large problem. It didn't work.

Yup, for some reason when users clicked on the old link, it instantly told them they "liked" this blog, but that was it. It didn't register them as a follower within the Facebook page I had set up and it most definitely didn't display any blog postings into the page.

But that has now been corrected. I have not-only changed the code behind this button to correctly register any interest from my loyal or passing readers....but also any posting that I submit to this blog now automatically gets fed into the Facebook of those who expressed their interest (So if you do want to show your appreciation of the regular content I put here, please be aware that you will also get it piped into your Facebook account as well!).

The downside is that I have not retained the goodwill of those who previously liked this blog... so I now have to build up these numbers again from scratch.

The political social graph

I just love the Flash application from www.silobreaker.com, that shows key US Political figures and their key relationships. People with their own political social graph include:

Barack Obama
http://www.silobreaker.com/FlashNetwork.aspx?DrillDownItems=11_240886

George W Bush:
http://www.silobreaker.com/FlashNetwork.aspx?DrillDownItems=11_233177

Gordon Brown:
http://www.silobreaker.com/FlashNetwork.aspx?DrillDownItems=11_207301&q=Gordon+Brown

Not only does this show a relationship between people, it also shows the documents (news articles, postings, etc.) that link them! There's more to investigate on this website I feel....

Virgin Airlines and Facebook....

... the problem otherwise known as 'the case for segmenting your personal Social Graph'.

For those who aren't aware, Virgin Airlines recently sacked 13 of its staff for calling its passengers 'chavs' and apparently criticising the company's safety standards

“There is a time and a place for Facebook. But there is no justification for it to be used as a sounding board for staff of any company to criticise the very passengers who pay their salaries.”

"But hang on.... this is Virgin Atlantic Airlines" I hear people say. "They are the 'fly in the British Airways ointment', the company that has a Facebook page with quotes from Richard Branson, endorsements by James Bond and they actively encourage their customers to take silly photos of your free DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) socks as you travel the globe with them".

But, in my opinion there is a definite difference between a company presenting itself in a friendly way on a social networking site and the action of some employees venting their frustrations and opinions on the same platform.

Is this therefore not a principle case for segmenting the different contacts in an individual's Facebook account? Surely to have: work colleagues, school mates, customers and everyone else all seeing everything you say or do is not what anyone really wants? Wouldn't it be better to classify some aquaintances in one way (e.g. Business contacts) and others in another way (e.g. people I can say what I like to)?

Classification and segmentation of a personal social graph must obviously be the next step for all multi-purpose social networks (or over vertical/market-specific social networks that allow you to import your entire social graph). Perhaps following that segementation, companies will be likely to follow-suit and understand just who within their Corporate Social Graph they can have contact with and what that contact should be.

"We gotta have our own Social Network"..

... don't we?

The Economist has recently produced a great article on the current state (and potential future) of social networks:
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10880936

It initially comments on the revenue and partnerships these new environments (e.g. Facebook) have:

So it is entirely conceivable that social networking, like web-mail, will never
make oodles of money

However it brings us back to reality (removes some of the hype) and argues that with email still the ubiquitous communication medium and with open standards for portability of your social graph:

Social networking may end up being everywhere, and yet nowhere

I personally think that in the future there will be a tangible social space but that these areas will be focused far less around building freinds/contacts in each environment and more around the features & functionality that each environement provides (made possible by Open Social?).

The big issue (and one I have not full got my head around yet) is potentially having to decide which of my friends/business contacts/associates fits into each particular environment (and having to tell some that "well I like you, I just don't want to know you in that online space").

What is potentially going to be even harder... is finding the path amongst the blurred lines between individual and the company communication. An organisation, potentially made up of many individuals, will have its own social graph. However, if it decides to have two different conversations in two different functional area/places..... how will it maintain the consistency of approach and still retain the human and transaparent qualities required in modern extended corporate communications?

Corporate Social Graph - Michael Myers Q&A Part2

Q: What do you see is the biggest difference between the Personal Social Graph and the Corporate Social Graph?

A: The biggest difference is that a brand identity needs to be kept intact. Although I will say that I believe there are things to be learned from individual social graphs with respect to identity. My LinkedIn account is very different from my Facebook account which is very different from my web site. Each serves a different purpose and is used to connect with different types of people in different ways. Sounds a bit schizophrenic but people behave differently in a variety of social situations, just as companies do. We have to remember that businesses are comprised of people. They just need to be conscious of what other team members are doing within other brand channels/mediums. The goal is the interactivity; communicate and share information and the real trick is how to get customers to expand the corporate social graph.

Part 1 of this interview is also available

Corporate Social Graph - Michael Myers Q&A Part1

I've recently mentioned that Mike Myers has also discovered the term 'the Corporate Social Graph'. Following an interesting email discussion with him, I asked him to do an interview for this blog on the 'CSG'. I know we'd both value your input on this topic, so please contact me if you have any opinons on this posting (hayden at idealinterface dot co dot uk).

Q: What are the challenges a company a company could face in initially creating its Corporate Social Graph?

A: The biggest challenges I see are:

1. Ability to create and maintain a consistent brand message across multiple branding channels (YouTube, flickr, Facebook, mobile). I’m of the opinion that the best brands are the most simple and this is a real challenge to build brand equity with the inherent differences between the mediums that live within those brand channels (blogs, photos, videos, etc.)

2. Knowledge of the medium. Each medium has a set of rules that require a Subject Matter Expert. That SME is hard to find, harder to keep needs to be passionate about the medium and the rules for that brand channel will change over time. Many of the mediums have just come into existence and we are trying to figure what can and more importantly, should be done with them. Next week Toyota will launch a $4 million dollar campaign on YouTube. This is a safer bet given the traffic and the “lack of interactivity”.

Comments are the extent to which one can interact with Toyota through YouTube. We will see if Toyota responds to comments left.

3. Allowing for real interactivity as if someone was talking to a person and not a company. People want to hear a human voice and giving someone the authority to create that voice is risky and requires a tremendous amount of trust. If the guidelines are too strict, the response can sound canned and no one will listen.

Note: further questions and answers to follow soon

The Corporate Social Graph - some personal qualities?

Having taken a second look at the 'Social Map by Sean O'Driscoll', I believe he's provided some interesting indices for measuring the personal social graph:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremiah_owyang/2293811927/

In his diagram he uses the following qualities:

• Reach
• Density
• Speed
• Structural cohesion
• Proximity
• Personas

However, I wonder whether the properties he gives are also the same ones you would use for the Corporate Social Graph?

Note:
Following a conversation with Michael Myers, COO at Fresh Current, he has answered some questions on his opinion about the Corporate Social Graph. I will be posting his replies here as soon as possible.

Social Graph API

There has been a lot of activity recently devoted to opening up the social networks (E.g. Open Social) and linking them together so a person can find their friends or family in multiple places.
This is related to the terminology called the 'Social Graph', a representation of an individual's network.

Here's some nice chap at Google explaining how the stuff comes together: