Module 1 Musings – “Social media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate”

The above quote comes from the YouTube clip The Social Media Revolution 2014, (Totalprofit 2013).

Web 2.0 - organisations (including us in libraries!) can no longer just hope people will visit their website/opac/physical library – the key strategy for today is to tap into social networks to get in the face of users and to keep us (and our services) in their minds (Barnatt 2005).

78% of people trust peer recommendations, while only 14% trust advertising (Totalprofit 2013) – businesses are going to have to realise that SM is going to be (and probably already is) a very powerful tool in “selling” your organisation’s business – whether it be a commercial venture, government organisation or educational institution.

We no longer search for the news, the news finds us. We will no longer search for products and services – they will find us. I have experienced this first hand recently – I’m not quite sure how this happened but after browsing on a sports trophies site for my local club, I am now noticing tennis trophies ads are popping up all over the place – in headers, sidebars etc when I am looking at other sites – HOW DO THEY KNOW?!!!

Fred Cavazza (2010) advises us not to confine ourselves to Facebook – using a mix of some of the other online services will provide us with a much greater richness, including some more subtle social mechanisms. Charlene Li (2010) says the same thing – to use a Media mix (ie multiple channels) .

I was impressed and inspired by James Surowiecki’s TedEd clip (2005) The power and the danger of online crowds. The idea that various forms of social media were able to collectively provide better and more comprehensive coverage of the 2004 Colombo Tsunami  than traditional news reporting avenues was staggering.  First hand accounts, images and videos allowed social networkers to show a true picture of what it would have been like to have been there.

James also captured my attention with his thoughts about “Collective intelligence”. Under the right conditions, groups can be remarkably intelligent. But there is also a “dark side” – he argues that the more tightly linked we become, the harder it is for us to remain independent and that the network starts to shape your views and interactions with others. I can see the sense in this – often it is easy to get swept along with the mentality of the group. James believes that networks make it harder for people to remain as independent thinkers. I like his ant metaphor - where no individual ant knows what it’s doing, but collectively they work together with remarkable results. But occasionally one ant goes astray and all the others seem to follow and just do what the ant in front does. He sees this as being similar to a network situation – we need to be careful not to blindly follow the one(s) in front but should remain independent and separate-thinking if the collective intelligence of the group is to be fully realised.

Lots to think about as I move on to trying to nut out my project proposal - got a lot of ideas in my head at this point and think it is time to start documenting.

References:


Barnatt, C. (2008). (YouTube clip). Explaining Web 2.0. Accessed 28/11/13 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BAXvFdMBWw&feature=related

Cavazza, F. (2011). Social media landscape 2011. Fred Cavazza.net. Retrieved 29/11/13 from  http://www.fredcavazza.net/2010/12/14/social-media-landscape-2011/

Li, C. (2010). Selling social media strategy to leadership (podcast), accessed 21/11/2013 from http://ontherecordpodcast.com/pr/otro/selling-social-media-boss.aspx. 

Surowiecki, J. (2005). When social media became news. Ted Conferences LLC. Retrieved 25/11/13 from http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/james_surowiecki_on_the_turning_point_for_social_media.html   

Totalprofit. (2013). (YouTube clip). The social media revolution 2014. Accessed 25/11/13 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eUeL3n7fDs&feature=player_embedded