Handling Social Media – Part 2: The Understanding

Friday, August 13th, 2010

By Fernando, Lead Evolisten Engineer

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So, you think you can handle Social Media? Great! Now what?

Well, let’s start at the beginning. What specifically is Social Media? Bypassing the fancy definitions, we can say that it’s a bunch of people coming together to talk and stuff, but not in person. The communication takes place through some sort of technological thingy, usually the Internet. The obvious examples are the ones that everyone has heard about, like facebook, twitter and all the other usual suspects (they’re only the tip of the iceberg by the way).

So, you have decided to start with twitter. You create an account and jump in to see what’s going on in there. You’re going to listen to the people, read their tweets and make everything better! After a while, you will find the first problem: there is a heck of a lot going on twitter. Like really, A LOT! You can read tweets for hours, until your eyes hurt, and get nowhere. Just in there, there are thousands upon thousands of relevant tweets to check out, hidden among millions upon millions of other stuff you don’t care about. And this is just one site. What about other popular sites? What about the whole Internet? You’re going to need some help.

Maybe hiring a couple more guys would be enough? Not really. Hiring a dirty dozen? Not really. Hiring a few thousand people and providing them with training, management and equipment? Maybe that would work, but that sounds awfully expensive. This is not going well.

ppdigital from morguefile

And it gets worse. It’s just not a matter of finding the content and reading it, that’s only the beginning. The real work comes after that. What’s the sentiment of the content? What are they talking about specifically? What’s valuable and what’s spam?

And, what if you really want to do things right and go all researchy on it. What are the demographics of these people? What about sampling and weighting? What about other stuff you don’t even know about? This is a lot of work, and you’re definitely going to need some help. Help with expertise.

Luckily, there’s one positive thing going on for you: we’re in the future! It’s the year 2010, the 21^st century! And we may not have flying cars yet or robot butlers as they promised us, but one thing we do have: information processing power and people who know how to use it. If you’re reading this blog, then you know by now that you’re not the first one to think about taming the Social Media beast. People are out there already doing this, already solving all those problems, and coming up with cold hard numbers and data that you can use to improve things. I know it because I’m one of those people.

It’s a whole new ballgame out there. Things are changing fast. Can you adapt and thrive? It is your choice. The help you need is already out there.

Handling Social Media – Part 1: The Awakening.

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

By Fernando, Conversition’s Lead Evolisten Engineer

(Our tech team writes too!)

Have you ever complained about something? Or given your honest opinion? Or answered a question? Only to be completely ignored? Because, after all, you’re just one guy, and there’s not much you can do about it.

Here’s another scenario. Was someone listening to you but you weren’t really telling the truth because you were being nice and polite, because you really didn’t care about the subject, because they were expecting an answer, so you just said the first thing that popped into your mind?

No matter how you slice and dice it, it’s not an easy thing for the little guy to be heard.

But, what if you get to speak about something you care about, only when you feel like it, and you don’t have to worry about hurting anyone’s feelings, and you just let it all out. Wouldn’t that be nice? And then you do it again, and again, and again. You share your thoughts with the whole world, nonstop, 24/7, loudly and with brutal honesty. You’re angry, or ecstatic, or surprised, and you let everyone know about it. You will make them know. Well, then you’re probably a really strange person.

But, even if you are this strange person, there is still a bright side. Now, you can’t be easily dismissed. You must be dealt with. You can’t be ignored because ignoring you will not make you go away. And strange people can do  a lot damage when left unattended. You say whatever you want to say, whenever you want, to whomever you want, as loudly as you want. And it feels great.

Photo credit: mzacha from morguefile.com

Back in the real world, there aren’t many people like that, probably because it’s so exhausting. But a task that is too much for just one person can easily be done by a thousand people if they just all pull the same way.

Social Media, the ultimate strange person.

Social Media is honest and blunt and does not stop. It speaks with a thousand different voices, from a thousand different viewpoints, for a thousand different reasons, and it will speak about you. It will tell you exactly what it thinks of you. It will tell everyone exactly what it thinks of you. You may think this is either a good thing or a terrifying thing but, at the end of the day, the fact remains that this is indeed a very real thing. It is happening right now, it has been happening for a while, and it will happen more and more in the future. The little guy is out of the bottle, and he and his millions of friends are merrily typing away telling the world what they feel.

You can ignore social media at your own peril, or you can do something about it. What is going to be?