Last year, I had the privilege of speaking in a Promotional Communications class at The College of St. Catherine’s in St. Paul, Minnesota. The class was mostly comprised of working women returning to school, and covers more traditional marketing than new media and social media. I was asked to come share my experience with some of those pieces.
A conversation
It was a blast. I’m one of those “I don’t love public speaking!” people, but it was FUN, for one thing, since the subject matter is something so ingrained in my life – personal and professional. For another thing, it was conversational, because I prefer speaking with people rather than at them.
This year, they’ve asked me to return (:::picture my happy dance here:::). I honestly didn’t think I’d make it back there, seeing as it’s THIS weekend in Minnesota and I’ve run out of my “relocation savings” and am just now starting to get paychecks coming in; I didn’t think I’d make it because of the airfare. Fortunately, that all worked out and I will get to hang out in Minnesota this weekend!
I’m excited because 1) I can’t wait to get back to St. Kate’s and talk with Melinda’s class again; and 2) I miss my family like whoa and I can’t wait to catch up with them, even if it’s just for a couple of days.
I want to pick YOUR brains
All that being said, I got some great feedback from my own online social network, and figured I’d consult you all again. After all, my network has grown and changed in the last year in the same way the social media landscape itself has, and I have no doubt I can get some great feedback from so many of you.
So here goes! It’s a fun presentation, and I’d love to include some quotes and notes from you. Below are the questions I’m going to be discussing, and your added perspective is greatly appreciated! Just leave a comment (you’ll notice I uninstalled Disqus; you’re welcome) and let me know what you think. Also, I’d love to get some insight from YOUR networks as well, so if you have some blog real estate I can rent out from you on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week, let me know and we can pose this question to YOUR network as well.
Get to the point already
Ok, folks – in YOUR experience, perspective, and just plain ol’ opinions (there are no wrong answers here, obvi)…
- How do you use social media, either personally or professionally? Are you working with a company that uses social media to build their brand? If so, what’s awesome about that? If you’re using social media purely as a personal tool, how are you using it? Self-promotion? Relationship-building?
- Name a brand, campaign, or company that used social media in a way you thought was brilliant, engaging, or just downright interesting. Or completely flopped.
- What do you think is the biggest change in the social media landscape in the last year? A new product? An acquisition? What has been the biggest change in YOUR use of social media?
- What’s your favorite online social network or application?
- What do you think is the Next Big Thing?
Thanks for your feedback, folks! I’m so lucky to have a rich and diverse network and audience of social media power users as well as people who are just skimming the surface (hi, mom!). I’d love feedback from any and everyone, because we all use this differently and I’d love to discuss the broad range of reasons that people right now are using social media in their personal lives as well as in their jobs. Have at it!
Doniree Walker is an aspiring yogini, jet-setter, foodie, and story-teller. She's a writer and geek girl by trade, and a lover and a connector by lifestyle, and is currently obsessed with: train travel, single-serving chocolate milk, and brand new notebooks. Oh, and she's also part supergirl. Wanna be friends? 
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I think people panic when it comes to social media, thinking that it means you have to lock down your facebook and remove any photos picked up by Google in order to get a job. I’d argue that social media actually empowers to get a job by being YOU over being professional.
I graduated with 79 other people all equipped to do the same thing that I can; I got my job because my employer was able to experience my personality and get to know me as a person to determine that I was the right foot. While I might reel in the drunk photos, being YOU is starting to trump being stereotypically PROFESSIONAL.
Remember to put your best foot forward and look at it like your own personal showcase that can be as much or as little as you’d like for it to be!
I only use social media as a personal tool to keep in touch with people from back home, college friends and to make new friends over the Internet.
Honestly though I find it a wee bit overwhelming sometimes to keep up with ALL OF IT (especially if you haven’t enslaved yourself to an Iphone with 24/7 online access and availability).
I see how a social media profile might be able to help or hurt you in your professional life – so I’m a little bit “torn” in that regard.
… seeing as how I work with social media for a living, I will not try to address each point because then I would never move beyond responding to this post.
Though I would like to respond to #5 — succinctly, “The Rise of Augmented Reality”
Yep, it’s here. Google it if you don’t believe me. And I, for one, am stoked.
1. I have always used some form of social media to keep in touch with friends because I’ve lived all over the place. Now I have Twitter and it’s changed how I interact online. I have one group of “friends” on Facebook… people who are in school with me now or are old friends or family who only keep up with me via Facebook. Then I have Twitter for another group of friends who really are more like me and who I consider better friends. I use email and gchat with other people. My blog is personal, but I hope to have fellow grad students find something rewarding in my words. Even if it’s just a chuckle or a “omg yes I know how you feel” kind of thing.
2. WTF is Google Wave? That one confused the hell out of me.
3. What has been the biggest change in YOUR use of social media? A new blog and Twitter.
4. TweetDeck. Keep it simple.
5. In social media… I have no idea. Teleportation. Because that way we can have Tweetups whenever we want. Instantly. For free. After the cost of the teleporter , of course.
1. I use social media for myself to meet friends / network . I use social media for a brand (Daily Burn), and the things that I have learned from playing around on my own make me valuable to the business because I know how find / connect with influencers on the web easily.
2. Interesting brand – Slowtwitch.com – they tweet out interesting endurance sports articles that I read during the day – not too frequent and always relevant to my life.
3. What do you think is the biggest change in the social media landscape in the last year? Definitely geo-location apps like foursquare have been all the rage – for good reason.
4. What’s your favorite online social network or application? Twitter – I’ve got the attention span of a goldfish and a shitload of things to do – give it to me in 140 characters, baby, or don’t give it to me at all!
5. What do you think is the Next Big Thing? Geo-location is going to move beyond the “oh my god, people may stalk you and rob you” debate, and we will see meaningful data and social experiences as web apps start to use geo-location in a more sophisticated way. Oh, and I want some AR glasses that don’t look like ski goggles! That would be cool – I see that getting big in about 5 years.
I use social media primarily to connect, personally and professionally, and to see what people who I adore are doing. It’s a conversation, an ongoing research project and a case study. Every moment. And that’s all kindsa addictive.
Hopefully this time next year I’ll have more information on how I use it professionally =)
Hey Doniree – found this via a tweet. Thanks for asking!
1. How do you use social media, either personally or professionally? Are you working with a company that uses social media to build their brand? If so, what’s awesome about that? If you’re using social media purely as a personal tool, how are you using it? Self-promotion? Relationship-building?
I’m a stronger user of social media personally rather than professionally at the moment; I’m building an analytics consulting business and have plans to use a bifurcated approach of blog posts and twitter awareness to reveal insights to any audience willing to listen. In the meantime, I use a combination of facebook, twitter, and ancillary tools (like foursquare and hootsuite) to build a brand that is part stream-of-consciousness and part controlled, trying to judiciously assert the deposits of my brain to narrow, selected channels (facebook) or the whole world (twitter.) Above all else, the use of social media online has, in my estimation, arrived perfectly for me to be a self-employed, freelancing type of individual. I feel strongly connected conceptually, even in the midst of physical isolation. In this way, I am more focused, as I can control the flow of information, instead of feeling a daily draw to feed my social needs. By the way, I still go out!
2. Name a brand, campaign, or company that used social media in a way you thought was brilliant, engaging, or just downright interesting. Or completely flopped.
So far, Google is not able to translate their uber-success in organizing information into organizing social information. Buzz’s adoption is lukewarm at best, few understand how Wave will improve their lives. This is surprising because Google is usually expert at boiling down complex information scenarios (like all the residue of one’s network online) into easy-to-understand solutions. But they just can’t seem to do it.
3. What do you think is the biggest change in the social media landscape in the last year? A new product? An acquisition? What has been the biggest change in YOUR use of social media?
The synergy between location-aware mobile devices and location-aware social services is starting to change things, and marketers will be mining this vastly interesting data in due time. For me, social media started to make a LOT more sense when I picked up an iPhone. Having a separate camera to document my life seems silly now, and it is truly a “document and share in real time” device.
4. What’s your favorite online social network or application?
I’d loved facebook for a long time (the hours I used to spend on it would validate this), but I am increasingly getting bored and causing brain dissonance to follow SO many people from various stops along my life’s journey. For now, I dig hootsuite, because I can schedule tweets and updates for various accounts (personal, business, and nonprofits) and see streams contiguously in one place.
5. What do you think is the Next Big Thing?
Movement away from using computers at fixed places and fixed times. I think we’re already heading there with devices like the iPhone.
Facebook connects me with people not only from my past but those who are blog readers that have evolved over time into ‘friends’ even though some of them- ok, A LOT of them!- I’ve never met in person. The connections on Facebook keep me informed with what everyone is doing. I may not be able to see family members, or some of my local friends, all the time, but through Facebook at least I know what they’ve been doing. I love it when friends share links to interesting articles or websites to explore.
Twitter has been an incredible tool to connect and branch out from Facebook. By utilizing Twitter for broadcasting blog posts, I have increased my readership almost double of what it was prior to using Twitter. I’ve connected with multitudes of locals, including an awesome group of women bloggers and we’ve started a networking group for socializing, support and volunteer work. Twitter has also clued me in to local happenings that I would never know about otherwise- the South Mpls fire at Heidi’s/Blackbird came to my knowledge through Twitter, and I watched it happen live because of that. By following local restaurants, stores and other community aspects of life, one can keep up with special events, and there is plenty of Twitter-only information and specials out there that I would never know otherwise.
Then there is Foursquare. It’s interesting to see where my friends hang out, and so stinkin’ cool when you get a FSQ update and find that one of your friends is right around the corner from where you happen to be! You can learn about places you may not think to go or explore a part of the city that you normally wouldn’t go to by seeing what your friends are doing.
And in your whirlwind visit, will you be hanging with Pops and Ray Z. for the Syrah wine seminar? I will be there at Noon.
You know how I use all this social media stuff…..to keep up with you! to know what’s going on in the lives of my children, my nieces and nephews, my brother, and (occasionally) my sister. Have connected with cousins via Facebook….(which I thought I’d NEVER do) And although I don’t ‘use’ Facebook much, I do read everything that pops up.
So, for me, it’s a connection. A connection to a faraway kid, closer-by newlyweds, adventurous brother, and nieces and nephews who are coming into their ‘own’. It makes the world a smaller place……easier to contact, keep up with (grammatically, that’s wrong..so what?…:) and share information/life/opinions with.
I just posted on this actually.
1. For now, personally. Will eventually fall into the professional category too, I’m sure.
And to note Alex’s point…Google Wave was…interesting. I think it will *become* a useful tool. And Google Buzz just pisses me off.
; and generally have just fallen in love with a fresh, diverse way to communicate w/ people.
2. I love @Gaiam’s tweets. Just generally. They engage, listen to their community, post interesting stuff, aren’t all douchnozzley (i.e., they don’t seem like they’re pushin’ product), provide feedback & help when customers have questions. Awesome! Full disclosure: I won a kick-ass, $60 yoga mat from them through a Twitter contest. (Yay!) But I loved them before that.
3. A big change in the last year (and particularly the last half of last year) was simply people’s engagement in social media. Everyone (individuals, organizations, companies) wanted to get all up in social media — and so in some ways it has become diluted, primarily because people want to use it but don’t always know the best way to do so. But I don’t view people’s engagement as a bad thing…I think it’s good. As soon as people become more comfortable in using it. And using it well.
4. Twitter. Hands down. I have: won products/contest (see #2); been introduced to new businesses; met SO MANY AWESOME PEOPLE (you included!!!); had an extra (and fascinating) RSS feeder by way of my Twitter stream; learned a bit about being succinct (this response doesn’t count
5. Man. I don’t know. Twitter will eventually phase out. Eventually. Might have to agree with @nicopolitan — AR.