Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

Rachel McLean and Marie Griffiths gave an interesting insight into an online trend on the rise – the increasing publication of private lives through social media such as Youtube, Twitter and Facebook. They refer to is as “Washing the dirty linen” – nice title

Some of the trends recognized by McLean and Griffiths are:

• broadcasting of domestic events
• broadcast of disputes and declarations of love
• lives lived online
• transgression of boundaries
• work colleagues and friends mesh together
• generational boundaries transgression

The participants in their study gave the following reasons for broadcasting their life online:

• for advice or support
• to show off to my friends
• I can socialize when I’m stuck at home
• I can stay in touch with my friends

However, why do so publicly? Could you not post these videos and comments in more private arenas and not in e.g. Youtube? The following is an example of a publication of a very private situation (let it run for a while):

Why would kids want to broadcast this? And do the parents even know? Also, it seems that not only kids are living their lives in the public. For instance, how many times have you experienced that a colleague or not-so-close friend shared details with you that you wish they hadn’t? I know I have…

Are these trends a side effect of our growing presence online? The many hours we spend updating our status on Facebook, sharing our pictures in Flickr and ‘tweeting’ about everything we do? Have we become socially incompetent?

Please join in on the discussion! Personally, I’m the discrete type, and do not use my status (whether Facebook or Twitter) to disclose personal details – but I know of some that do. And frankly, I would prefer it if they didn’t…

What is your opinion?

Friday had a session on Privacy and Social Media where Fred Stutzman did a presentation on ‘Managing multiple online identities’.

This presenation touched upon a very interesting aspect of web 2.0 and communication. As we spend more and more of our time online, and engage in different types of networks – social and professional – we need to think more about how we ‘act’ online.

If you are using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or other similar media types, you may recognize the title of the presentation – ‘Managing multiple online identities’.

Personally, I have made the choice to use Facebook for personal social relations (and only for those I actually wish to maintain a connection with), Linkedin is for my professional relations and Twitter is a mix of social and professions (leaning on professional).

I also have a blog (duh! You’re reading it!), and it has changed from being a personal blog with entries concerned with personal stories to one where I write blogposts on topics relevant to my work within marketing, communication and web 2.0.

But returning to Stutzman’s presentation, his results from his studies indicate that multiple profiles enable:

• accomplishment of promotional and collaborative goals
• catering to specific audiences at specific times
• not having to apologize for off-topic posts
• offer differing informaion streams (topic/interest)

…which caters well to my own epxerience in handling my many online identities.

How do you manage your online identities? Have you decided what online channels you want to use for specific purposes?

Let me know

På deres nye danske site www.pepsimax.dk, har Pepsi fuldstændig overladt kontrollen til brugerne. Indholdet bliver hentet fra sociale netværk som Twitter, Youtube, Flickr samt diverse playlister – og Pepsi lover at der bliver plads til såvel negative som positive kommentarer, altså ingen censur…

Adgangskravet til at bruge sitet som en “feeder” er at man har en Facebook-profil, noget ca. 95% af Pepsi’s målgruppe har.

Men vil målgruppen bruge sitet? Er det ikke bare endnu én i rækken? Pepsi lover en række tiltag der vil tiltrække og fastholde målgruppen, herunder konkurrencer hvor fænomenet “crowdsourcing” bliver en aktiv spiller. Brugerne vil blive delagtiggjort i konkurrencerne, eksempelvis som ‘dommere’ i konkurrencer hvor der skal stemmes om bedste billede, osv.

Jeg kan sagtens se den gode idé, og ser frem til at følge dem i den kommende tid. For vil det lykkes for dem? Et godt råd herfra vil helt klart være at aldrig må gå i stå! De skal blive ved med at udvikle deres platform, og komme med nye tiltag for at fastholde brugerne. Ellers løber det bare ud i vandet.