Social media can be as perishable as my organic bananas. In
fact, your eyes will likely flicker away in about 96
seconds when the next social eruption hooks your attention with something
even more of the moment, but you won’t likely spend longer than a minute and a
half on that one either.
Shiny, short, meaningful and sharable. That’s what we’re
craving. We’re selling and shopping, talking and learning, rating and being
entertained at a bewildering rate, but the number of hours in a day isn’t
growing, so we need to keep getting smarter about our virtual investments.
With new sites hatching more quickly than fruit flies, many
of the greatest cyber thinkers advise against nipping at the lure too hastily. The
World Wide Web it’s easy to wind up wandering in a social haze. Technorati connects visitors
to more than 1.3 million different blogs, last time I checked. That’s just
blogs. But as the list of
social networking sites grows, a parallel list
of fatalities swells that includes some recognizable names.
For example, social buzz is pointing toward an early demise
for Twitter’s
Vine, a super speedy micro video creator introduced in January, due to Instagram’s new rapid-replay video app that looks like a
twin sister. And the sites tracking the sites are coming and going too. One of
the first micro blogging trackers, Tweetscan,
is closed for business, while data dispersing analyzers including the newly
simplified Google
Analytics are expected to help us shape decisions about where and how we
can have the greatest influence in the future. Find the analytics about the
people connected to the people you care about on Twitter’s recently improved
analytics tools and relationships maps or Google+ Ripples. Go with what you
know, watch it grow, and slowly test the waters.
So if you want to sort out how and where to invest your
online social hours in the future whether you are a consumer, an advocate or a
message maker, look for robust growth coupled with sustainability, according to
leading
social influencers, including Human Works President, Chris Brogan. Trending
and sustainable are social media channels providing real meaning:
- Social media promoting social causes as a driving force in shaping change on a global scale. Twitter is the leader right now with users sharing campaigns like Save the Rhino, which raised £500,000 to stop poaching.
- Politics and religion, the two things that have sparked social debate since the beginning. They still generate record high levels of visitors at the world’s most successful sites like Huffington Post.
- A dense and expanding digital sisterhood of sorts, with women connecting on a more personal level on the web, through Facebook, for example, according to a new study by Purdue University, in addition to their high engagement through professional channels.
- Crowdfunding entrepreneurship sites like Kickstarter.com which allow regular people to help develop ideas into products. Recently a new, more affordable gaming console Ouya was launched after being funded with $8.9 million in Kickstarter pledges. Investors get rewards based on the level of pledge, from a special e-badge to an entire run of products with their names engraved on them.
- And, e-commerce sites that integrate elements of social media with unsurpassed levels of artificial intelligence. The results on Amazon.com drive products directly to consumers and their influencers almost before they know they want them.
Because on this day, WorldwideWebSize.com , the website
counter reported that the Indexed Web contains at least 3.81 billion pages.
Trying to keep a handle on it all can bring on brain freeze. For most of us, with
limited social media time and resources, sometimes it is best not to be an early
adopter. Be authentic while you’re listening to, managing and inviting friends
on highly recognized platforms. Follow your favorite brands and causes. When the shiniest new sites swim past, grab a
shot for Flicker, while examining
deeper social interactions through the mechanisms that can prove their worth. We may not all become social sophisticates,
but we can make more informed decisions about where to log-in in the future.
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1 comment:
I find this post very interesting as it gives a clear orientation in the creative mass of opportunities (and threats) offered by the virtual world. Thank you Kim for your insights.
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