click2engage

Social media is you and me!

Users consume it, define it and shape its future.

We learn by doing, gain “street cred” and share the experience.

WOM is not just about talking and making some noise! WOM is also about listening and believing! Are you the opinion leader in your group of friends? Who listens to you? Who believes what you say? Who do you listen to?

WOM is the way people gather information they can use to make decisions because it comes from others like them, people who they trust.

All it takes is one: one person to embrace that idea / product or service and believe that by sharing it with others like him / her will help others.

Before you know it a movement is created and others will follow – provided the leader has the right attitude – and soon enough a tribe is formed.

Generally speaking new ideas that challenge the status quo are rarely met with enthusiasm. They will, for the most part, be dismissed or ridiculed. It’s up to the leader to keep the flame burning and get “true followers” who will spread the word and make it all worthwhile. The followers, won’t do it for the leader or the movement, they’ll do it for their friends, family etc because they believe that an idea can help THEM!

Think of Twitter at its very beginning! Few believed in it and many did not see its purpose, classing it as “a waste of time” which will not provide opportunities or advantages for either individuals or businesses (nothing beyond the trivial status update that helps you keep in touch).

The market then shifted dramatically and Twitter is now a profitable platform for many businesses and freelancers, where they can leverage the Marketer-to-Consumer, Consumer-to-Consumer and Business-to-Business interactions within the context of a marketing objective.

In March 2009, at the SXSW, Foursquare was launched and the online world has seen similar reactions to this as have been experienced with Twitter in the past.

However, users are embracing it, proving once again the power of WOM and peer influence!

And Foursquare is leading the movement seeing a big increase in both the number of users and businesses using the service.

And now Foursquare has gone global. It will be interesting to follow how the use of this game based social network platform will evolve and how businesses will harness its power to build a brand and engage in the conversation with consumers.

Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare or any other social media platform out there, it all boils down to how much you listen and how you use what others are saying to continue the conversation and keep them engaged.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference is due to taking place, between the 7^th and the 18^th of December 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark and the online world has been buzzing with numerous news, articles, blogs, tweets and Facebook updates regarding climate change. Chances are you either received or seen a plea for signing an online petition which, presumably, will make a positive difference in the actions will the world leaders take on the matter of climate change.

Listed below are some of the, possibly, best known “calls to action” and some statistics on their online presence:

Initiative Description		fans	followers
On the 15th of October, bloggers around the world wrote about the issue of climate change in a unified attempt to raise awareness on the seriousness of the subject.They’ve all reached an incredible 18,085,076 readers!	13, 605 blogs registered from 156 countries	53	5,634
On 24 October, people in 181 countries came together for the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet’s history	+ 5,200 worldwide events + 22,000 submitted photos	65,268	12,054
“the world’s biggest, most diverse mandate – showing our leaders that the world is ready for a bold climate deal in Copenhagen”	10,505,591	14,280	4,470
“the petition will serve as a reminder that our leaders must negotiate a fair, balanced and effective agreement in Copenhagen (…) that will benefit all nations and people”	438,681	10,249	12,877
Vote to add more weight to the worldwide mandate for positive action against global warming.	1,229,023 Votes in 207  countries	101,768	19,391

At first glance it all seems very impressive: over 10 million people expressed their support for this cause!

From the safety and warmth of our homes, sitting comfortably in front of a computer!

Dare I ask, how will this “passive digital activism” have an impact on what the leaders of the world will decide?

Are online petitions and social media tools truly effective in the attempts of organisations or individuals to gain support / fight for a cause?

The only example that I could dig up so far, was a group on Facebook that had a real contribution in the cancellation by the UK government of the vote on concealing MPs’ expenses. More than 10,000 people joined the group and sent thousands of emails to MP’s about this matter. The group stirred the online waters quite a bit and managed to get some media coverage.

I would love to know if there are cases out there where this type of approach triggered the change desired by those who “signed” the petitions or joined groups on social networking platforms. If you do have such an example, please do share it with the rest of us!

However, despite the fact that I’m basically saying that “seeing is believing”, I also feel that this type of online engagement in social causes (whatever they may be) can have a positive impact in terms of creating awareness and changing some aspects of our lives, by simply empowering or, perhaps, inspiring individuals to make a change themselves. And I think Patrick Ball – Director of Human Rights Program, Benetech perfectly described this issue by saying:

Internet plays a critical, amplifying role in any production, idea that has to get to the world

And if Sami Ben Gharbia, Advocacy Coordinator, Global Voices Online is right in saying that

Empowering the individual to make changes won’t change the world but it is changing some aspects of our lives,

then I’m asking you:

How do these campaigns influence you in taking action?

One of the blogs I found recently and absolutely love it, asked this question: Is anything private anymore?

I would say that once you enter the world of online communication / sharing and connecting, one should openly and consciously acknowledge that  the online world is a private as the information one chooses to share on this medium.

Despite my age and despite not fitting into the “less tech-savvy” category, I was one of those people who believed that what you put out there (whether in the form of information about yourself, comments on different blogs or forums ) is the ultimate measure of how people will judge and see you (which is why I waited so long to even open a blog). To a certain extent I still believe that (i.e. this comment will instantly generate an impression of me for whoever chooses to read it and they may like it or not), however in this day and age everyone has an opinion about everything and while some may agree with what you’re saying, others will not.

It’s just a fact and users of online tools must learn to accept that as long as they’re online they’ll probably have as much privacy as a fish in a bowl.

On the other hand, privacy is definitely an issue and users cannot be expected to automatically know what to post online and how to protect themselves. An article published  on the irishtimes.com was debating this exact issue:

Presenting a keynote address at the RSA conference in London, People Security’s chief security strategist Hugh Thompson said that while posting on social networks has grown, “there hasn’t been a commensurate education about what information we should be sharing”.

A good example of this lack of education and knowledge among users,  is the photo blogging site launched in February of this year – www.dailybooth.com - which already has approximately 6 million active users.

This new trend of blogging attracted various groups of people specially teenagers that uses pictures to express themselves instead of words. Amazingly, others responds also in their photos as a reply. Though you can also reply in written comments.

The majority of its users are women between 15 and 25 years of age, who posts photos and comments about their daily life in pictures.  Therefore, despite the fire Facebook came under regarding the privacy of the photos users post online that were used without their consent by 3rd parties, users don’t seem to mind posting their webcam photos on dailybooth.com. The issue here is that, although the site does offer users some privacy settings, is it  really educating its users enough in the issues involved in “Documenting and sharing their lives with others”? Or is it expecting users to know what it’s involved?