Today in the News...

As my knowledge of social media grows, it is impossible but to think about everything that everyone has to say about it. People all over the Internet, are discussing the Pros of Twitter and the Cons of Facebook, and people are discussing the advantages  of living social and the disadvantages of GroupOn; etc. On the Internet, through blogs and news updates, people are dissecting which media is best for what purpose. One of the issues, it seems, is that everyone has a different thing to say.

In writing this blog post, however, I am just becoming one of the group, and discussing the pros and cons of Facebook as a social media tool. I am trying to attack this from a different perspective though, and analyze what others have to say about it, and then what my reflections are.

Googles overwhelming response...

After typing into Google, "The Pros and Cons of Facebook," I received 6,980,000 results in .22 seconds. This is remarkable, and demonstrates the multitude of the opinions that absorb the Internet regarding Facebook and it's uses.

In order to tackle this I decided to go through the entire first page of results supplied by Google. Google really dominates how Internet users can search the web, so I think it's the fairest way to approach this question.

Hub Pages suggests that Facebook’s best advantages are that it's free, and that it's "the best" medium for communication, while its main disadvantage is that it’s addicting. Clearly this approach is not from the business perspective, but rather the personal.

Facebook itself notes that its fast communication is the best advantage, while its lack of security, or “theft of personal information,” is the biggest disadvantage.

Lorna H. Findlay of Ezine Articles notes that Facebook’s best advantage is its enabling you to find people, while its disadvantage is its overcrowding. Interestingly, BizCentral notes the SAME EXACT qualities- is this a coincidence? I don’t think so.

ShoutMeLoud suggests that Facebook’s best advantage for Business is its enabling businesses to make more profit through networking and marketing, and that its disadvantage is its lack of security.

Lifestyle Lounge lists the largest advantage is that Facebook’s interface is easy to use and orderly, while its first disadvantage is that its interface is boring compared to other social media sites.

After all this is said and done- I think that it’s fair to say that the advantages of Facebook, from a personal perspective, are that you can connect with people that you have never dreamt of before. Facebook enables grandparents and connect with grandchildren, and parents to meet class mates from high school they had ALMOST forgotten about. Its greatest disadvantage, from the personal perspective, is that is can be overwhelming and extremely time consuming.

From the business perspective, I think that it is fair to conclude, based on Groundswell by Li and Bernoff AND these blogs/news articles, that Facebook can be used extremely advantageously to make online communities. By interacting with a company’s audience, rather than just regular updates, a company can build their brand and in-turn increase business revenue. New and aged businesses alike can grow from successful use of Facebook.Contrastingly, if companies do not engage appropriately, than Facebook can be a stagnant form of business growth that just proves to be a waste of time.

In summation of this post, I would like to leave the audience with this. Today in the news Ignite Social Media rates the top 50 Branded Facebook Pages from the beginning of January 2013 to the end. Regularly, Facebook, YouTube, and Coca-Cola make the top three. This past month, however, Blackberry moved up 26 spots, at a HUGE 86%, to #15. CartoonNetwork, at #28, grew 7%, and Amazon, at #29, grew 8%. This really shows how Blackberry ignited a community around its release of the Z10 phone.  The video below demonstrates this hype perfectly. Even though the people are confused in the video, it is funny and creates interest.
Ultimately, people are talking.

I ask in this post, what do you think the advantages and disadvantages of Facebook are? Do you think it’s fair to listen to what people are saying online, or should all people AND businesses make up their own rules, and find how Facebook best works for them?

Social Media at Local Non-Profits

Timothy VanSlyke explains, "Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite. They prefer random access (like hypertext). They function best when networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games to "serious" work."

I work at Girls Inc. of Worcester, a non-profit that caters to girls in grades 5 through 12 that live in the Worcester Area. This age group contains much of the digital natives that VanSlyke explains. I have found it interesting, since beginning my employment, to discuss with the girls the impact of social media, as well understand the social media marketing plan of the organization.

Interestingly, the non-profit is currently revising their social media marketing plan. The national organization recognizes the importance of social media in non-profits. It is understood that social media is "just as important to non-profits as it is for traditional business." It is true that social media in both the non-profit and for-profit industries that social media tools are best used to share and discuss, rather than broadcast.

Something that was interesting, which caught me off guard, is the the girls did not even realize that the very organization they are a part of use the same social media they use at home, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Flickr. Not only that, they were not openly interested in learning about how the non-profit uses social media safely, and to it's advantage.

If one of the main points of the new social marketing initiative at this non-profit, and something important to all social media in 2013 is pulling information out of the audience and getting full audience involvement, I would think that trying to get the members involved would be the first priority. Contrastingly, this initiative is not one of the priorities of the new social marketing plan.

This is just another example of a non-profit that understands the strengths of social media, yet is not thinking about the people first before the opportunities, strategies, and technologies (Li and Bernoff, Groundswell).

I ask, in this first blog post, how it is possible that as adults we analyze the positives and negatives of social media, and dissect how best to manipulate Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. so these tools can be used to our advantage, yet as digital natives it is difficult to even comprehend the abundance of social media? As digital natives, with forms of social media right in front of them that are easily utilizable, why do the girls have no recognition of the social media used at the non-profit they are participants of?

Lastly, with readily available knowledge about the advantages of social media in both non-profits and for-profits, and proper techniques about how to use the forms of media, why is it still so difficult for non-profit to understand the advantages of the pull system necessary in social media?

Finally, a video that helps us all think about this.