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Social Media

The Top Ten Most Useless Top-Tens About Social Media

By | ChangeEngine, Social Media | 2 Comments

As someone who spends a good deal of time helping organizations great and small harness the power of social media, I often find myself stumbling across “top-ten lists” of social media tips from a never-ending parade of blog evangelists, web-thumpers, and manic e-preachers. It’s intriguing how closely these features tend to mirror the anxieties and misconceptions that I come across in my face-to-face conversations with real-life people seeking insight, which is no doubt one of the reasons they’re so popular.

The top-ten list itself is one of the dominant tropes of the infinitely-aggregating (and often aggravating) digital media age — link-bait for our flicker-quick attention spans, churned out as proven traffic drivers to cater to our jones for simple answers. A vast number are about sex of course, or at least love. In fact, the social media top-tens remind me most of the advice lists written in breathless tones by relationship “experts” that we all click-through eager for some secret insight, even though our rational minds know the premise is absurd…”Ten Ways to Know She’s Into You!”* or “Top Ten Things Your Man REALLY wants!”** Superficially revealing, deceptively empowering, and almost certainly completely useless if applied to your specific circumstances.

So, without pointing any particular fingers, here’s a run-down of the top ten kinds of top-tens for social media, and why you might want to use them for novelty purposes only…

*Because it makes perfect sense that the answer to a mystery that has eluded every poet, philosopher, and evolutionary biologist since the dawn of time can be imparted to you by a freelance “Passion Consultant” in a 500-word post on DudesHealth.com
**Chris Rock has helpfully boiled the list down to three.

Updated1) “Top Ten Reasons You Should Be On <Insert Social Media Site> RIGHT NOW!”

I’m often asked in panic-stricken tones “should I be on…?” And my answer invariably is, “well, that depends.”

Facebook, right? I need to be on Facebook!”

Well, maybe. The real question is who you want to reach and why. Your audience isn’t “Facebook.” There are a billion people on Facebook, and unless you have a cat with a Hitler ‘stache you’re not going to reach them all, nor would you want to.

Oh right, I should be on Twitter.”

Your audience isn’t anyone called “Twitter” either. These things were created to help us communicate with people. Sometimes the most powerful social media tool is e-mail, or that most dynamic of social inventions — a conversation.

2) “Top Ten Twitter Hash-Tags You NEED to Be Using, Like, YESTERDAY!” 

Speaking of Twitter, no magic tags. Event tags good for
events. Build relationships, find your voice. Remember,
you only have 140 charact... #WasteOfTime 

3) “Top Ten BEST Practices for Social Media!”

Nooo. Nope. There are no generalizable social media tips for content or strategy other than don’t post bomb threats, pornography, or pictures of your Weiner.

4) “Top Ten Ways to Go VIRAL!” 

The percentage of content on the internet that actually goes “viral” – as in ubiquitous enough for you to be sick of it (or at least vaguely aware of its virulent existence without even seeing it) – is so infinitesimally small, you might as well have a “top ten ways” to win the lottery or hit a half-court shot. If you insist on chasing the chimera of being the next Gangnam Style, by all means spend your waking hours trying to come up with a hilariously preposterous little dance move that sets the world on fire. But that’s probably time better spent creating quality content that resonates with your audience.

5) “Top Ten Ways to Make SURE … !”

There’s a great deal of fear associated with social media — of wasting one’s time, of bomb or Weiner-wielding lunatics, but mostly of criticism. Most of these “Make Sure”‘s are of the “something doesn’t happen” variety. But there is no certainty in social media, whether of results or consequences, be they negative or positive. There are ways to watch and listen, to learn, to harness these tools for your own ends. But if there’s one thing that’s true of social media it’s that it’s not an inanimate technology like a crankshaft or an engine; it’s a human system, and so susceptible to failure, horror, and great joy.

Pac-ManReverse2

6) “Ten Creative Ways to Use …!”

To be fair, these are actually the most useful of this breed. It never hurts to be open to new ideas or new ways to use familiar platforms. The key word here though is “creative,” as in being inspired to create something fresh and meaningful in a way that expresses your unique voice. Slavishly following some tip will lead to derivative drudgery, which brings us to…

7) “Top Ten Trends You NEED to Jump On Before It’s TOO LATE!”

People are using video/audio/auto-/wiki/real-time/Vine/ …people are using this… people are doing that. Media trends in the digital world have the half-life of a mayfly. It doesn’t necessarily matter what other people are doing (again, most of these trends probably involve cats.) It matters what you’re doing.

8) “Top Ten Predictions – The Next BIG THING in Social Media!”

Always good for a chortle. If the people who make such predictions really knew what the next big thing in social media was they’d be poppin’ champagne in a solid-gold jacuzzi molded into the fuselage of a diamond-encrusted private jet, not sharing that information with you via a top-ten blog post for the standard digital media industry fee of no money at all.

9) “Top Ten Ways to INCREASE Your Site Traffic Using Social Media!”

… Slow down, think about who you want to reach and why. Most tips for increasing site traffic won’t work, won’t be sustainable and some of them might even get you on Google’s naughty list. Though, of course, a top-ten list is a pretty sure-fire way to drive traffic 😛

10) “Top Ten Social Media BLOGS You Should Be Reading!”

The blog you’re reading is almost always one of these. They all tend to consist of advice that’s either too broad, wrong for you, or too technical (i.e. written for other breathless professionals!!!). You’re better off reading blogs, websites, and content by people in your field, or finding outlets that share your passions and values. Oh, and of course, you should be reading ChangeEngine 😎

RunAway

IMAGE CREDIT. Hasdai Westbrook.

BOPA’S New Blog

By | Art & Social Change, Social Media | No Comments

BOPA blog screencap

Check it out – BOPA (that’s the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts for those not in the know) has started a brand new blog, Baltimore Arts. It’s a one-stop-shop for artists (and those who love them) to find info on art opportunities throughout the city. Calls for artists, new show announcements, arts classes and job opportunities – this blog’s racked up quite a few posts of interest for artists of all stripes since its November launch.  Keep your eyes peeled and your RSS subscriptions updated, because this is going to be one handy resource!

 

 

 

Seeing Clearly

By | Design, Social Media | No Comments

This past Sunday evening I caught a glimpse of 60 Minutes on CBS between switching out loads of laundry and general domesticating. It was a short, expose segment on Luxottica, the Italian eyeglass-wear company that pretty much has a monopoly on the eyewear market in the U.S. Luxottica not only owns Pearle Vision, LensCrafters and other boutique eyewear shops, it also owns Sears and Target Optical, and Sunglass Hut. According to the report, they manufacture glasses for numerous brands, slapping a money-making Prada or Chanel logo on the side. And did I mention they also own Ray-Ban and Oakley brands? By owning the top eyewear retail outlets and producing the majority of the glasses themselves, Luxottica can set prices as high as they wish. I personally don’t wear glasses (yet), but it shouldn’t cost $300+ to see things clearly.

Enter Warby Parker. Funny name for a company that was started by four guys who gave a damn at Wharton Business School. Warby Parker (WP) is an alternative to the mall-store set, offering frames and prescription lenses for a reasonable $95. Total. That’s it. WP creates their own designs and sells them directly to the customer through their website and storefronts.

So where does design and social value come in?

  • First, the design thinking behind this venture plays a large part in WP’s success. They saw the need to change the way people typically purchase eyeglasses and an opportunity to offer pairs at a reasonable cost. Can’t make it to one of their twelve showrooms? No problem. WP will ship you (for free) five pairs of glasses to try out for five days and a postage-paid box to return them in. It’s UX gone 3D.
  • The combination of stylish product design and good website design sets the company apart from the competition. By the look and feel of their site, it’s probably accurate to say most of their customers are young and hip, but that doesn’t mean grandpa wouldn’t look sharp in snappy tortoiseshell frames.
  • Check out their 2011 annual report. A well-designed interactive infograph approach to their end of year report gained them major popularity points. “We thought some people would find it interesting, but it was retweeted 2,000 times and led to our three highest consecutive day of sales–even more so then when we were in CBS Sunday Morning or the New York Times,” co-founder Neil Blumenthal told Fast Company in this article.
  • And then, of course, is their blatant mission to do good. For every pair of glasses sold, WP provides a pair to someone in need. WP also partners with non-profits to train people in developing countries how to start their own glasses-selling business. Their solid commitment to sustainability as a business has garnered them a certified B Corp designation by B Lab.

A huge driving force for our entire founding team has been this concept of really being a force for good in the world,” says co-founder David Gilboa in this Fast Company article.

Turns out, design + entrepreneurship + doing good = a profitable success. Who’da thunk? (A book on this topic currently on my Nook wishlist is “Start Something That Matters” by Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS shoes.) I’d like to see more businesses that embrace this model come to life in the very near future. Backing sporadic philanthropic efforts here and there doesn’t have the same impact on consumers as it once did, and can come across as a mere PR stunt. Consumers now have access to company information that might not have been so transparent before. One doesn’t need glasses to make the right choices.

If Public Art Can’t Reduce Crime, What Good Is It to Society?

By | Art & Social Change, Of Love and Concrete, Social Media | No Comments

Recently the Social Enterprise Alliance hosted a summit on metrics and impact. The day-long event featured speakers contemplating how to measure change. More specifically the event asked how we determine if an organization is creating the change that it purports to be making.

The event got me thinking about art organizations. Many creative organizations are designated as 501(c)3 non-profit entities. The status is given to a business based on it working for the benefit of the public not an individual. (Check out IRS language for specifics) I know that art is good for society but how does a non-profit arts organization demonstrate that the work that it is doing is good for society? What are metrics that we can use to demonstrate our impact?

Fortunately, the Baltimore Love Project, a city-wide street art project, has gone through many trials. One of my “fondest” memories made during the project was sitting in a prolific Baltimore foundation’s offices. It was one of my first pitches to a significant investor. He had the means to pay for the entire project. Trial by fire was an understatement. Despite our passion, we were not prepared to articulate a change that was of interest to him. He pretty much asked us how many kids would graduate from high school and go to college as a result of our work. We not only didn’t know the answer, we had no response. We learned that day that we need something tangible for people to see the value of our work. We needed metrics. We walked away with no money but an important lesson.

Since that conversation we have figured out what we are doing besides painting beautiful images on the sides of buildings. We have come to define our social value in three ways. First we are aesthetically changing the face of 20 communities. Second, we are putting Baltimore on the map as a destination to visit. Third, we are changing the philosophy of individuals.

The first change is obvious but important to note. We are physically changing the way our city looks. It is simple to measure. We can point to the mural on a wall or show photographs of the work. What is harder, and just as important, is to show that the change is positive. We have achieved that with thousands of people through social media and elsewhere espousing love for the murals. The second change is also important. We want people inside and out to see that Baltimore is more than HBO’s The Wire. Our metric for this comes in the form of content created. How many stories are being told about the Love project and where? We have a list of over 45 platforms that have shared our work. On top of that, we also have a catalog of responses from folks that are impressed with the city simply because something like the love project is happening here.

The final change is probably the most powerful. Art is meaningful because it can change philosophy. To measure this we are tracking two things in particular. The first is our presence at events in the community. We have explored philosophy on over 75 occasions in the past two years with over 3,000 people directly and 125,000 indirectly. The events range from large scale street festivals, to intimate three-hour conversations with a college class. You may be thinking that talking is not necessarily a sign of a changed mind. We agree. We are also tracking action that has happened as a result of the project. We have dozens of examples of individuals DOING SOMETHING as a result of the work. It is as simple as individuals empowered to tour Baltimore with murals as their beacons, or as intense as a couple reconsidering how they fight.

Over time we have learned how to describe our value. Our metrics are likely not complete nor perfect but have become very important to us. They help us understand the value of our project but more importantly they help others understand why a future where every wall is a canvas and every street corner is a gallery is a future worth pursuing.

School Facilities: Nicety or Necessity?

By | Education, Social Media | No Comments

This week, I cracked open my teacher-journal from the 2011-2012 academic year.  My last entry reflected a reality quite the opposite of my present:

On the way to my classroom, you can smell a decaying animal through the vents of the radiator in the hallway. When I’m being reflectively dramatic, I meet the stench of the animal and believe it to be a flagrant metaphor for what working in this school, for this administration, has done to my spirit.  In my most practical moments, I just wish I could get someone to remove the f!@# dead animal from the vent five steps away from my classroom door.

Because misery loves company, I sent the blurb to my friend Jess Gartner shortly after writing it. She later responded with a photograph of her own classroom, captioned with “it’s a sign”:

As a teacher, I witnessed a courageous student beat up a bold “gansta” mouse in class with his sneaker, I ran to the empty space where my window used to be and looked down below to make sure no one was hurt when it randomly crashed, three stories, to the pavement outside, and I’ve watched leagues of roaches crawl out of gaping holes in walls that pounds of spackle could not fill.

Yes, teachers are the single most important factor in influencing a child’s academic achievement.  But I fear that this understanding has led us to view good school facilities as a nicety rather than a necessity.

Is it possible that we can focus on removing ineffective teachers and improving facilities at the same time?  Last week, I attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new building that houses Newark Collegiate Academy, a charter school in New Jersey.  The ceremony not only emphasized that we can focus on providing excellent service and facilities simultaneously, it suggests that we must. 

As I watched Mayor Cory Booker deliver an impassioned address about prioritizing our kids and heard teachers speak of a noticeable difference in the school’s climate, I started to imagine some of my kids and colleagues from last year.

 I wonder what Brielle would think of this drama studio and how Jabari would have looked playing basketball in this gym.  I wonder how the librarian would feel being able to use the space solely for learning purposes and not for various meetings since there would be conference rooms for that. And if that classroom— the one on the third floor with huge windows that display the skyline— was mine, I might just move in there.

Most importantly, sitting in that audience, I finally understood that a school’s facility will either sell or completely undermine its promise of excellence to excellent teachers, students and families; we can no longer afford the latter.

The Hidden Link

By | Design, Social Media | One Comment

(Photo by tcp909.)

Let’s talk about something near and dear to my heart. Hot dogs. Yep, you know you love ‘em. Whether it be a homemade weiner with kraut from Binkert’s or a dirty water dog sporting mustard and neon-green relish, hot dogs rank pretty high on my favorites list. So it really struck me when I heard Candy Chang talk about one of her many design for change projects, a Street Vendor Guide  for New York City’s ubiquitous food cart vendors. She spoke last Thursday as part of the Mixed Media Lecture series hosted by the Center for Art Education and the MICA Graphic Design department.

Chang describes herself as an artist who wants to make cities more emotional. She is a TED Senior Fellow, a Tulane Urban Innovation Fellow, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and was named a “Live Your Best Life” Local Hero by Oprah Magazine. By combining public art with civic engagement and personal well-being, she has been recognized for exploring new strategies for the design of our cities in order to live our best lives. More of her biography can be found here.

We choose what consumes our hearts. The world becomes more rewarding when you look beyond what you’re searching for. —Candy Chang

Chang worked with Rosten Woo and John Mangin of the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) and Sean Basinski of The Street Vendor Project to make the Street Vendor Guide an accessible and understandable presentation of important regulations. They found that many vendors were receiving fines of up to $1,000 for small violations that could easily be avoided. Taking a look at the old regulation documents, however, one could easily see how the information was getting lost in translation, often quite literally. Chang designed a new vendor guide that depicts the safety rules and street regulations in easy-to-understand illustrations accompanied by text in Bengali, Arabic, Chinese, English and Spanish. It also includes policy reform recommendations and personal vendor stories. Guides were distributed for free to thousands of street vendors and are available as a download from the CUP’s Making Policy Public site.

This is just one example of how Chang’s work has shifted a microcosm. Her other work is equally inspiring, crossing the intersections of public art and urban planning, design and communication. One of her more recent projects is Neighborland, an online tool about real places that stemmed from her I Wish This Was public art installations. It promotes community discussion about ways to improve common spaces and connects like-minded citizens with an emphasis on pooling resources. The website encourages residents to speak up about what they want to see change in their city. Prominent street signage encouraged people to also text their ideas to the site, allowing conversations and grass-roots efforts to oscillate between the screen and real world. This unique project is an example of how the gap between the online world and reality can be bridged. I think future efforts to further explore the possibilities of this connection between technology and community will become cutting edge innovations in social change.