Techization

A research report from eMarketer proves 2009 to be the year that Baby Boomers jumped on the social media train.  2009 saw an explosion of growth with the older folks and consistent and steady growth for us young guns.   Check out the graphs below.

You can read a bit more on this newly release report  at Mahable.

I know it has been awhile everyone!  I have been super busy here at UW-Stout with classes and work.  Here is a nice in-depth entry I prepared for UW-Stout administrators on the use of Facebook in their crisis management plan.  Enjoy!

Facebook Overview

Facebook is the Internet’s phone book.  It is way to connect with friends, find old classmates and stay in touch with loved ones who live far away.  Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg at the age of 19 while attending Harvard University.  It was originally founded to be used at Harvard by students only. Facebook spread like wildfire on-campus and soon Zuckerberg and his co-founders distributed the service to forty-five schools and had hundreds of thousands of users within 6 months.   They were onto something.  It was at this point Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to pursue Facebook as a full-time venture in the summer of 2004.  Zuckerberg is still the CEO of Facebook to this day and has a net worth of over 2 billion.  Facebook has been estimated at a staggering $15 billion dollars by Microsoft Corp.  (Wikipedia, 2009)  In 2008, more than 93% of UW-Stout students had an active Facebook account.  (Kaskavitch, 2009)

Facebook User Count:  Over 310 million active users

Facebook Behavior during Crises

Virginia Tech, I35 bridge collapse, US Airways 1549 all have one thing in common.  Each event spurred dozens if not hundreds of Facebook groups often within an hour of the actual even occurring.  These groups on the network provided an open platform to share information at a very fast pace.  Facebook groups were setup during the Virginia Tech tragedy within 15 minutes of the news breaking on what was occurring.  News and information spreads faster than ever before.  So fast sometimes it can cause information overload.  A study published in New Scientist magazine in 2008 found that social network sites like Facebook, instant messengers, blogs and micro-blogging sites like Twitter spread warnings and information more efficiently than traditional communication channels.  (Catone, 2008)

How to utilize Facebook for crisis management

The big question:  How does UW-Stout utilize this tool in its campus crisis management planning?

The answer to this question is by creating “dark groups” on Facebook.  Dark groups are groups that are only visible to the creator and those whom the creator selects to invite, these are known as “secret” on Facebook.  These dark groups can then be pre-loaded with crisis plans and content that students, faculty and staff will need to know in the event of a campus crisis.

These groups will need to be altered and information about the actual incident will need to be added to the group description because of the fluidity of emergencies, but that should only be a paragraph or two.

Once a crisis occurs, you simply make the group public and invite the first ten or fifteen students.  With that small starting cluster of users, the group should grow exponentially will little administration effort.  It would also be worthwhile to put it on the UW-Stout home page to align it with other official channels of communication like news releases, blogs and messages from Chancellor Sorensen.  The power of viral spread via Facebook was demonstrated when students organized the Westboro Baptist Church counter-protest in under 36 hours.  All this organization and information exchange was done with a simple Facebook event.

You will need to consider a few things before considering yourself prepared to use Facebook as a platform in crisis management

• Will you include photos and videos in the group?  If so, will only administrators be allowed to upload media or will everyone be allowed to contribute?
• Do you want to enable the ‘wall’ to allow open conversation?
• Do you want the discussion board enabled?
• Who will manage it in the event of a crisis?

Organizations want very tight control on the messages being delivered and content being passed between users, especially during something as serious as a campus emergency.  Locking down the group and making it a billboard inside a walled-garden is not effective.  You have to be willing to open up and let information flow across the channel in an unfiltered manner.  The speed at which is can go back and forth across this medium could be incredibly useful during an emergency.  You want your message to get out, and you should want feedback from your receiving audience as well.

Creating dark groups on Facebook will not stop other groups from forming.  Having the official group will bolster much more credibility than groups created by students.  You will not be able to censor these groups and the information exchanged on them.  Having the official group and positioning/advertising it as an official channel of communication will make it more relevant and more likely ‘the place to be’ for your target audience to gather and exchange information.  You will be able to:

• Censor information (only if absolutely necessary)
• Direct message all members of your group instantly.
• Control the message and information presented within the group.

All these become possible only if you have administrator privileges in the group.  You would not be able to do the above points if you simply joined a student’s group and tried to calm the flames or correct information as a regular member.

There is one ‘issue’ with pre-creating these groups ahead of time.  You will need to name them right away and you cannot change them later on.  Therefore, you won’t be able to put actual situation specific information in the group name.  Some advocate practice setting up these groups, know the setting’s you want and have the information ready to paste into the group.  You would actually create the group once the emergency or crisis occurs allowing for a detailed group name.

New technologies and communication platforms like Twitter and Facebook connect large clusters of students like never before.  Information is exchanged at light speed and exchanged more efficiently than more traditional channels of communication.

I was browsing my Facebook photo albums yesterday and was stunned!  I had over 30 photo albums and nearly all the photos in them I had not saved the original digital photos.  This blog is a bridge to a another recent blog of mine entitled ‘Is Media Becoming Too Disposable?’.  I knew I needed to act to back-up all these memories from the last four years.  You could go one-by-one and save each photo individually.  That would take forever!  I found a great Firefox plug-in that saves entire Facebook photo albums to your hard drive in one easy click.

The plug-in is called FacePad.  FacePad is a simple Firefox plug-in that allows you to right-click a Facebook photo album and download all photos inside very quickly.  An album of 60 photos takes about five seconds to download on a 10 meg connection and places the photos where you specify within Firefox preferences.

What could be a ‘Facebook creeper’ use of this plug-in?  You could begin archiving Facebook photo albums from friends and random people on Facebook, then place them into software that is now available with face recognition technology.  Tag people for the software to recognize then cross-check to see if their face appears in any photos you have archived.  Your talking about cross-referencing possibly thousands and thousands of photographs.  There’s a new way to keep tabs on someone!

Get It now!  Click below!

Tragic news broke Thursday afternoon as Michael Jackson was pronounced dead at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.  Jackson left many fans heart broken across the globe as he took a great deal of talent and mystery to the grave.  He almost took something else with him as well, the Internet.

Twitter had to temporarily shut down their search results, saved searches and trending topics to mitigate a full-blown site failure.  This isn’t uncommon for the micro-blogging site.  Twitter has been known to be very unstable during breaking news like the Hudson River plane crash and the Iranian conflict.  “We saw over twice the normal tweets per second the moment the story broke as people shared their grief and memories,” Twitter co-founder Biz Stone told The Associated Press via e-mail.

AT&T said they set a new record for most text messages being sent over their network.  In the minutes following Jackson’s death AT&T subscribers were sending 4,000,000 text messages per minute at its peak, they also said call volume was up 10% during that same time.  AT&T went on to say that the spike in volume from Jackson’s death was even greater than during the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York City.  This is an unfair comparison by AT&T because their customer base significantly increased thanks to the Apple iPhone in the past three years and mergers.  In 2001 AT&T wireless had about 20 million subscribers, in the first quarter of 2009 they had just under 80 million.

Internet giant Google was also crippled by the breaking news.  The security software that protects Google from hackers thought it was under attack with so many queries coming in.   Those on Google News had to enter a ‘CAPTCHA’ code to prove they were real users and not bot.  Google also began displaying ‘malware’ alerts for users trying to search for breaking news on Jackson.  Search queries spiked around 2pm Pacific time, skyrocketed by 3pm, and finally leveled off by 8pm. The majority of Thursday’s hot trends related to Jackson’s death, Google said.  Google provided this chart showing queries about Michael Jackson on Thursday.

Facebook unsurprisingly dominated the social media spread of Michael Jackson’s death with its 300+ million user base.  The saturation of networks is best shown on this chart. (Look at that spike for Facebook!!!!)

Yahoo.com had a record setting day as well.  Yahoo News had 16.4 million unique visitors, breaking the 15.1 million record set on Election Day 2008.

This event will likely continue to be studied for months to come.  I’m waiting to see information released on the stress placed on Google’s server farms and Internet hubs worldwide that funnel traffic in places like Chicago, New York City, Atlanta and Dallas.   Sure trend analysis like the graph’s above are nice, but I would like to see some technical break down of the event.

Brad J. Ward joins the discussion for Pt. II.  Brad is the Chief Explosion Officer at BlueFuego.com,  BlueFuego helps universities effectively utilize web-based tools for admissions, marketing, yielding and more!

In Pt. I we discussed identifying new media platforms that you should invest in.  When you begin to build your presence on a platform, you need to identify your goal.  What is your purpose for being on XYZ network?  Build relationships?  Build awareness of your brand?  Maybe a bit of both?  You must identify the purpose and goals before you dive in.  This will help later when trying to examine your progress and success which sometimes can be difficult.  Traditional marketing and advertising analysis often don’t apply to measuring social media.

When diving into the social media pool, what do you want to accomplish?

• Create brand awareness?
• Build relationships?
• Both?

Once you have you goals identified you must then assign resources to manage your new web presence.  Part of assigning your resources is trying to figure out where they will be spending their time.  But where is your audience!?  If your trying to reach students the likely choice will be Facebook or MySpace, if your trying to reach out and connect with Alumni, LinkedIn might be a better choice.  Brad J. Ward of BlueFuego.com often speaks to universities about ‘Big 6′: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr.  “Typically, not all 6 fit within the strategy of the school’s presence due to limited resources (staff hours).   If you had to go with one, I would choose a Facebook Fan Page.  That’s where it’s at right now. ” says Ward.

Universities often ask who should manage this presence?  One or two people?  Each department separate and ‘doing its own thing’?  Brad Ward and I agree that there needs to be a champion leading the social media effort.  It doesn’t necessarily need to be a communications specialist, but someone from a department who feels comfortable with the task and is knowledgeable in these new media technologies.  The most ideal situation when using social media on a campus is when each department can dedicate someone to manage their social presence.  However, communication is crucial between the departments as they try to gain synergy and push in a common direction while accomplishing their goals.

You have now identified your platforms and have begun invading them.  You begin uploading pictures to Flickr, start tweeting on Twitter and managing your Facebook Fan Page.  Easy right?  Well yes, but no!  Wait, What?  Social media is often thought of as self-sustaining. You sign-up and your presence alone will draw traffic and conversation.  This might be one of the biggest misconceptions with new media.  Your presence alone is not enough.  Would you design a static webpage, never update it and feel content with it?  I don’t think so.  You need to engage on the platform your utilizing, this is ’social’ media after all, right?  Your Twitter should not simply be a one-way broadcast platform for your news.  Your Facebook fan page shouldn’t lay dormant with no new photos or notes.  When you enter the realm of social media, your trying to build a community of followers around your brand.  To build that affinity you need to engage your audience in a interactive manner, not just broadcast content like a normal website would. 

“The schools who are really investing resources and staff hours into the social web are the ones having success.” says Ward. 

Now that you have started to invade your selected platforms and understand that you must dedicate resources, how do you go about engaging your audience?  This and more in the next installment of this multi-part blog!

Thanks to Brad J. Ward of BlueFuego.com for providing his commentary and insight.  Brad is a leader in higher education recruitment and is the Chief Explosion Officer at BlueFuego, a company he co-founded for consulting universtiies on how to recruit students using social media. 

Iran has blocked the social networking giant Facebook as their June 12th presidential election nears.  “We are disappointed to learn of reports that users in Iran may not have access to Facebook,” Facebook said in a statement.  Reports from Iran are buzzing that the site was blocked because supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, an Iranian presidential candidate considered to be a liberal re-formist, were using it to communicate his views and organize events. “It is always a shame when countries’ cultural and political concerns lead to limits being placed on the opportunity for sharing and expression that the Internet provides.”  Facebook added.

Situations like this should make us reflect on how much freedom we have here in the United States.  Sometimes I feel we take it for granted.  Exchanging information is powerful, and platforms like Facebook and others facilitate that power for free.  Iran isn’t new to blocking sites that spark conversation and communication.  They banned Facebook in the past, we’ll just have to wait and see when they re-lift the ban.  June 13th anyone?

Long gone are the days of high school students checking out ‘college guides’ from the local library and having 10 No. 2 pencils on stand-by for their application for admission.  Students now surf the Internet digging up all the information they can find about their universities of choice and applying through e-applications.  Universities should be aware of what potential students will find out about them online.  I will discuss the importance of universities managing their brand in social environments to shape perspectives and opinions of potential students and their parents.

Identify — Invade

You must identify ‘e-hangouts’ for your potential students.  These e-hangouts can range in size from very small to massive.  Some of the major players you must consider are:

• MySpace
• Facebook
• Twitter

You notice that Facebook is highlighted.  Students in high school currently see Facebook as a bridging/transitional tool.  It is a well established feeling by young adults that:

MySpace = High Schoolers’ & the perverts who chase them

Facebook = College students and the drunken parties that ensue

High school students, now more numerous on Facebook, often use the popular social networking network as their first glimpse at university social life.  They will search the universities name and dig through all groups, pages and events that are visible.  Here are some at my university I find when typing in ‘UW-Stout’:

• UW-Stout Choirs (Group)
• UW-Stout Blood Drive (Group)
• UW-Stout Drinking Team (Group)

Pictures, videos and comments are all visible to see.  High school students may even network with current college students on Facebook to ask questions or get advice.  This new digital information sharing really is the wild-wild west, anything goes.  There is not much you can do to stop any negative information from being said, the best thing you can do is have a presence on the network to have your voice heard in the conversation.

Public relations and recruitment specialists should be aware of these digital platforms and what is being said about their institution.

Once you identify what platforms hold the most value, you must INVADE! No, I’m not talking beach at Normandy style.  You need to devise a plan on how to use each platform to obtain your goals.  How will you position yourself on each particular platform?  How will you increase your visibility?  What will be your message and what is the messages purpose?

Pt. II of this multi-blog entry will focus on just those questions.  Subscribe as we take this journey into the digital environment for recruiting post-secondary students!  I hope to talk with Brad J. Ward for the next installment.  Brad is the Chief Explosion Officer for BlueFuego.com, a web based higher education marketing and recruitment company.  Brad also co-founded the popular site BlogHighEd.org.

Everyone and their mother wants to create a Facebook group about some kind of random notion or cause.  Many believe their group will take off wildly and gain hundreds of users a day if not thousands.  Many are disappointed when after 6 months, they are still the only member of that group.  Who would have thought your the only one who loves ‘eating chocolate covered broccoli while watching Grey’s Anatomy‘.

1. Are there groups out there already you could join?  Sure you can’t be admin and have the control, but if a group already exists, it’s unlikely that your group will flourish.  If a group exists, they have claimed stake first at the top of the digital ant hill, and will likely keep momentum if they have a following started already.  Don’t try to fight the other group if it fits the same interest as you.  Segmenting the group’s in Facebook is just terrible, and nobody wins with users scattered among 20 of the same groups!
2. Back to the basics!  If you want your group to be attractive and visually appealing while users browse search results, you need a picture.  Make sure it is appropriate to your group and appeals to the kind of people who might want to join.  I prefer pictures that are overlays on top of a white background.  It works fantastic for logos and product photos.  It makes your group picture look very clean and really pop on search results.  Put up a picture!!!
3. Fill out all the basic information that you possibly can!  Group members like feeling part of a community or cause, something they can identify with.  When they click on a group and see no information on why the group was founded, what it stands for and its purpose for existence, they are less likely to join.  Keeping fresh content updated in the recent news can also aid in pulling new members in, and get ‘return visitors’ looking at the group consistently.
4. Don’t get message happy.  One guaranteed way to drive away members away is getting carried away with the ‘Message All Members’.  Members who are ‘transient’ or just join because their best friend invited them will quickly exit if you direct message them.  The real question is do you really want or need these ‘on the fence’ members within the group?  I say yes, because they could become interested at some point.  However, only use the ‘Message All Members’ button under the most important circumstances.
5. If your a net geeker guru, publicize your group like you would your web page.  Blog about it, post it on your site via widget, social bookmark your groups address, tweet about it.   Your Facebook group is no different then any other Internet element, it needs to be nurtured before it will start snowballing on its own.   This is especially true with Facebook groups.  If you can drive an initial 50-100 members, you will start a slow member drive by viral spread through out your members networks.

Do you have any Facebook best practices?  Post a comment, I’d love to hear them!

Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) has been a identifiable illness that has affected hundreds of thousands across the globe.  How do you know if your’re an Internet addict?  Here are some things to watch for to tell if you or someone you know is a interwebs addict!

1. You wake up from terrible nightmares screaming ‘Bill Gates’
2. You have more Facebook and MySpace friends than you do actual friends in reality to the 5th power.
3. You have lost a significant other because you tried introducing them to ‘Layla Tonners’, your Second Life sex mate.  You lost them at the point of explaining they could co-exist in your life.
4. You post more Facebook comments per day than you have real conversations.
5. When writing letters or memos, you begin to refer to people with an @ before their name.
6. You own a t-shirt stating ‘I Facebooked Your Mom’.
7. You refuse to vacation in a location that has no Internet access
8. You finally give in and decide to vacation in a location with no Internet access, but only after purchasing a satellite modem for your laptop.
9. You place a vinyl ‘YouTube’ sticker in the bottom right corner of your new 52″ HDTV so it feels more like YouTube.
10. You asked your local librarian where they keep the wikipedias.

The Internet has come a long way.  Remember when it use to be like this?  I think I do, I was about four at the time!

Late 1980’s news piece about the upcoming phenomenon known as the ‘Internet’.