‘Social notworking’: Give me a break
A healthcare consultant asked me last week what I did for a living while at a networking session on Atlanta’s Northside.
I handed him my card, and he immediately went into recounting the many ways social media adversely affect worker productivity. Others quickly agreed. The consultant told stories about a doctor leaving the operating room to use Twitter, office workers wasting time and other horror stories. I politely didn’t ask how he knew the doctor was on Twitter and not texting buddies to set up a tee time. (Not that texting is justified, either.)
I heard similar concerns the next morning from more business people at another gathering. Ironically, when I got home, the first online article I spotted focused on statistics from ScanSafe showing that 76% of companies are choosing to block social networking in the workplace, more than for online shopping, weapons sites or porn.
It gets worse. I then stumbled upon a report by Boston-based Nucleus Research, a company involved in IT research. In late July, Nucleus released “Facebook: Measuring the Cost to Business of Social Notworking.” (A salute to whoever at Nucleus wrote that clever headline.) The Nucleus report concludes:
“Companies that let employees access Facebook during work hours can expect to see total office productivity decline by an average of 1.5%.”
Looking further into the report I found such details as these:
“Those who access Facebook at work do so for an average of 15 minutes daily, with the range as low as one minute and as high as 120 minutes.”
Or, gasp!
“One in every 33 created their entire Facebook profile during work hours.”
So how does this social media advocate respond to these alarming developments? With common sense perspective.
Let’s travel back in time, shall we, to the invention of the World Wide Web. Eventually, computers with browsers invaded the workplace. Why? Because the business world was going online and using online tools was good for business. Same with e-mail. Most companies learned after years of restrictive company communications policies that there was a middle ground for what types of sites were appropriate for the workplace. Most companies now know that users want to be online first thing at work, around lunch and right before they go home.
Now here we are, moving beyond the early adopters of social media into the mainstream. Facebook, of course, is experiencing phenomenal growth among those 35 and up (and 55 and up). Just as companies once wrestled with Web browsers and e-mail, many now don’t know what to make of Facebook.
What the naysayers — and many in the business world — are missing is the shift in online behavior. People now spend more time on social networking sites than they do on e-mail. More and more, friends are suggesting to friends what sports stories to read, music to listen to, or products to buy. Social networking sites are rapidly becoming the portal through which consumers find what they want. Facebook apparently wants to aggregate all that content from all your social media. (See Aug. 16 post.) So the time spent on social sites is supplanting much of that time that used to be spent surfing online or e-mailing.
So it’s not that workers are wasting more time through social media. Wasting time in the office is an established American tradition. So the “15 minutes a day” on Facebook is hardly going to reduce the Gross National Product. That is 15 minutes interacting with friends online, instead of 15 minutes or more scouring stocks, sports scores, recipes or whetever workers used to look for. Or it’s 15 minutes not chatting in the break room or office cafeteria. It’s possible that 15 minutes on Facebook may be a time savings for many Web-savvy workers.
And, evidently, that 15 minutes probably is a good thing for your business resume.´ As The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently reported in a widely circulated feature, more and more companies are now requiring social media skills for many positions.
Granted, there are people spending too much time on social media, just as others 10 years ago spent too much time surfing the Web, or using AIM. I’m old enough to remember people who spent the entire morning pouring over every word in a newspaper sports section, or checking their stocks. Those who are non-productive in the workplace are obvious, whether they are addicted to Twitter or online puzzles. Why should companies spoil it for everyone else?
Now I need to finish this post, so I can get back to work. My Facebook business page awaits.
Social media naysayers and their ‘pointless babble’
I always get a good laugh reading comments from those looking for The Beginning of the End of Social Media.
Of course, there was a fresh groundswell of “told-you-sos” Monday after the BBC reported on a short-term study which found that 40% of the tweets on Twitter were “pointless babble.” Pear Analytics, the U.S. market research firm conducting the study, found only 8.7% of the tweets had “value.” Amazingly, only 4% of the studied tweets were spam. I would have thought that number would be MUCH higher.
Unlike the naysayers, though, I find encouragement in the study. Why? Look at the print, electronic and digital media we consume. Cable news? What percentage of the broadcasts falls into the “pointless babble” category as networks try to fill air time in a 24-7 medium? How much is of real “value”? Newspapers? It pains me to report as a displaced 34-year veteran of that industry that much of what appears in any newspaper is just filler around the ads — if it can sell them. (One publisher I know once referred to the A section of a paper as the “fly-over” pages. Papers wrap world stories that nobody reads around the ads.) Talk radio? Don’t make me laugh. And so on.
What do I get from Twitter with its alleged 8.7% value? I learn about breaking news before it’s posted on news Web sites or hits radio/television/newspapers. I find companies offering help and services to their customers. I follow people who alert me to great content I can’t find with my vast array of RSS feeds, content aggregators and the like. I find an Englishman who is fond of Chuck Norris jokes or a Norwegian travel agent who takes exquisite pictures and tweets great jokes. I find John Hodgman . . . and Monty Python’s John Cleese (even when he’s in the hospital).
I’ll take the rubes who create the “pointless babble” and the spammers in exchange for that value. For me, that value far exceeds 8.7%.
And that’s just Twitter. Don’t even get me started on what value I get from Facebook. Entrepreneurs, professionals and small businesses, take note.
Facebook gets serious on social
Ever since Facebook bought FriendFeed for $47.5 million, the tech press has been alive with speculation about what Mark Zuckerberg et al have up their sleeves. While much attention has focused on Facebook getting into the real-time search game, a Washington Post article Sunday comes the closest I’ve seen to offering the most plausable explanation.
Facebook wants to “own” social media, Chadwick Matlin writes. Matlin, in a well-reasoned piece, envisions how FriendFeed will combo with Facebook Connect in the company’s strategy. Some 15,000 sites already support Facebook Connect, which enables users to log into those sites with their Facebook IDs. If a Facebook user comments or adds content to that site, it’s fed back into their Facebook page. The sites love the attention, and Facebook gets more content (page views). Here’s where Matlin nails it:
”So here’s a theory: FriendFeed is going to become the companion to Facebook Connect; Facebook Connect pipes Facebook out to other sites, while FriendFeed’s technology pipes other sites in. . . .
“And unlike much of the tech press, I don’t believe this acquisition is about real-time search or a competition with Twitter.
“Instead, I think this is about social aggregation. Facebook bought FriendFeed so it could become the Huffington Post of your social life.”
Huffington Post, of course, aggregates news stories from all over the Web in addition to hosting its own contributors. It creates quick summaries to external content on bridge pages before the user can click to see the entire article. Huffington Post succeeds because it finds the content its users want and also monetizes it with its filtering system.
Because Facebook is a “walled garden,” meaning users’ pages are not open for the world to see (and Google to wade through), a user’s feed of friends’ news is limited to what those friends have posted to Facebook. Now add what FriendFeed aggregates from your friends’ other social accounts — Twitter, YouTube, Digg, blogs and many other places — and you’ve got an astounding amount of content that Facebook can serve up to readers. Not just social news, but friends’ recommended links posted elsewhere to content around the Web. Just as Huffington Post sells ads around its bridge pages to external content, Facebook will be able to do the same.
And Facebook has a goldmine of demographic data that advertisers will presumably use to target those new pages.
Wired magazine and others have written extensively about the ongoing war between Facebook and Google. Google obviously owns search in its current form, but it can’t crack Facebook’s walled garden. Now Facebook is pushing to own the social media space (as if it doesn’t already.) With that dominance, it can in turn also concentrate on social search, including real-time.
Which leads to the question. Long-term, are users going to search through the prism of what companies and content providers want us to see (Google)? Or are users going to want to search through the filter of what their friends are doing and what companies/content providers they recommend (Facebook).
As Matlin writes:
“. . . I’m sure Facebook will be happy to air your thoughts on the matter. Even if you write them on Blogspot, Google’s blogging network. After all, that’s why Facebook bought FriendFeed. [Blogspot feeds are included in FriendFeed]. So it could own you.”
Users control how businesses will fare on social media
I read Jacob Morgan, a social media consultant, when I can. Last week, the headline on one of his posts read: Do You Really Want More Companies Using Social Media?
His questions? Have people really thought through what it will mean if all businesses jump to the social media platform? Will oversaturation of businesses kill the value of social media for businesses and consumers?
When I hear questions like these I think back to a not-too-long ago time when something called e-mail came along. At first, it was cool. Then it became a nuisance, particularly when used as a tool by marketers. Laws eventually had to be passed and spam filters created to protect the consumer. Despite all the hassles, e-mail became a staple of life.
This time, though, it’s different. From the start, the consumer has had the power with social media. Is a company or marketer you don’t want following you on Twitter? Hit the Block button. Someone you don’t know wants to connect on LinkedIn? Hit the I Don’t Know This Person button. LinkedIn doesn’t take kindly to folks abusing their product. Someone want you to be a Facebook friend or join a group? Ignore them.
Overzealous marketers will feel the backlash from social media users when they violate the rules — both written and unwritten. Simply stated: A company will fail if it isn’t genuine and helpful in their social media conversations.
So the answer to Jacob’s question: For now, consumers have indicated they want businesses on social media. It’s up to the companies not to blow it. The consumers will decide if they’re wanted or not.
‘No Surprises’: Radiohead understands social economy
A departure from the usual subject matter today, but I promise there is a connection to this space.
Thom Yorke, frontman for Radiohead, the Brit alt-rock music giant, told Believer magazine this week that the group will no longer produce full-length albums. Radiohead previously shook up the music industry by offering its last self-produced CD, “In Rainbows,” for fans to download at whatever price they wanted to pay. “In Rainbows” was available later at the normal fixed price, although still distributed outside the record companies.
OK, where’s the social media connection? Hold on. Radiohead has a huge and devoted following worldwide (Disclosure: Including me) and knew its fans would honor its pay-as-you-download model. Just last week, Yorke and Radiohead sidekick Jonny Greenwood released an anti-war homage to the last surviving British veteran of World War I. Ironically, the veteran died as the recording was being released. Again, sidestepping the music industry, the recording is available for download at Radiohead’s site for one British pound, with the proceeds going to the British Legion (which supports the families of Britain’s vets).
In earlier days Radiohead actually opposed offering individual songs for purchase through iTunes. However, it’s clear the band listened to fans then, and they are listening to their fans today. Rather than making fans wait forever for a full album, Radiohead will offer singles and EPs, undoubtedly providing more music (and more diverse music) in a much shorter time frame. That will be good for everyone. Especially their fans.
I understand this now after a couple hours of teeth-gnashing and actually tweeting that fans should prevail upon the group to change its course. Thom Yorke has a strong understanding of who his fans are and what they want. He also knows the industry has changed, and listeners don’t want to pay full price for CDs which often don’t deliver more than a couple good songs.
I wish the reclusive Yorke and his bandmates would step out of the social media shadows. (They do have their own fan social network through their site.) However, they seem to understand the new relationship economy better than most: Give more than you get. Pay attention to your audience. Be ready to try new things. Be willing to change course in the middle of trying new things.
We’ll see if Radiohead’s model will work. I suspect many others will eventually follow it. Not a bad idea, actually.
(For non-Radiohead fans, “No Surprises” in the headline refers to one of their songs.)
