This week’s presentation was from Meg Kerr, Social Media Integration Manager at Mosaic. Meg Kerr’s job is to manage social media strategies, community management, analyzing, and blogs of various companies. Meg has been with Mosaic since 2006 and full time since 2007. Meg has an undergraduate degree from The University of Western Ontario in Media in Information and Technoculture. She also has a degree in Broadcast Journalism from Fanshawe College.
What is social media and why should we care?
Meg showed us a few quotes on what social media is. One of these quotes is: “Social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos, and audio.” – Wikipedia.
Meg also showed us a video called “Social Media Revolution,” which shows us exactly why we should care about social media.
What are the four social media trends?
Trend One: Real time and smartphones changes everything
Meg explained how technology allows anyone to share and search for information in real time and from anywhere. It has changed how we get information. It’s traditional word of mouth, but on steroids. Nearly half of Canadians own a smartphone and web traffic on smartphones in Canada grew 193% in the past year. By 2013, mobile phones will overtake personal computers.
An example of real time news is the Tiger Woods scandal. @breakingnews on Twitter was the first outlet to break the story. People are starting to use Twitter for news since they get it quicker. However, there is an issue on speed versus accuracy.
Trend Two: Location based
The increase of GPS enabled smartphones is a driving force behind the rise in popularity of location based services – they would not exist without this technology. An example of this service is Foursquare, which works by checking you into locations from your phone. Your Foursquare friends are pinged when you check into a location. You can get points for checking into different locations, can unlock badges, and even be named “Mayor” if you’re checked into a location more than anymore else. Friends can find out when you went into a restaurant and give you tips, such as to order the nachos or to leave because of bad service.
More facts on location based services:
- Foursquare currently has 3 million users (1 million in March)
- Twitter took 2 years to hit 1 million
- Foursquare took ½ this time
- Last November, Twitter added the ability to Geotag
- In the past month Facebook rolled out Facebook places
- Facebook places should arrive in Canada in the next year since it’s currently only available in the USA
- To be determined what effect Facebook places will have on Foursquare
- Location based services are in the mainstream
Trend Three: Privacy
In order to attract users, the sites must restrict information:
- Twitter is the least private and is nearly completely open
- You can read anyone’s tweets, whether following them or not
- Tweets are indexed in Google
- People often link their Foursquare to their Twitter account, which can show the whole entire world where you are in real time
Trend Four: Social media gets less social
Meg explained how first and second generations of social networking portals were about opening up to the world. However, the third generation is about closing it again. For example, exclusive niche networks are becoming more popular. Examples include Blue Chip Expert where you have to submit a resume and be selected to become a member. Another example is A Private Club which is a social networking website that is for popular and successful New Yorkers. The top seven countries that use Facebook are actually declining in overall number of users. The novelty of first and second-generation social networking websites is dying off.
A site I found interesting that Meg talked about was Web 2.0 Suicide Machine. This website allows you to permanently delete several networking sites, such as your Facebook and Twitter, in a quick and easy way. Some of the stats of this site include:
- 1,176,563 friends have been unfriended
- 504,978 tweets have been removed since launching
- 4,344 people went before you!
Other information I found interesting in the presentation includes how if you are paid to blog, you will be fined if you don’t disclosure the information. As well, one in eight couples met online in North America. Overall the presentation was very interesting and taught me a lot of interesting facts about social media.
Meg Kerr’s Contact information:
Mississauga, Ontario L4W 4V9
Phone: 905-238-8422
Twitter: @meg_kerr
To find out more about Mosaic, visit their website.
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