Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Is Personal Brand Management destroying Social Media?
"Don't even think about posting those photos online without retouching them!", my mother tells me after a recent visit. Not that my mother needs any retouching, but a huge insight from someone who is about as far removed from technology as someone can get. Social Medial connects with us for it's unabashed honesty. It's openness. We bow down to it for its ability to break down walls. It allows us to connect to those we would ordinarily not have access to with a level of intimacy that reminds us of our own dysfunctional family.
But we have learned, in part from advertisers and in part from our innate need to protect our persona - and we have begun the slippery slope to brand ourselves. Privacy settings are less about 'who gets to see what' as they are about becoming the tools of how we craft our own personal brands.
The question is whether this defeats the purpose of what social media's success was in the first place. To lead the way with transparency, with authenticity. To break down those walls. It appears we are building them up again, as we become a reflection of the stylized marketing messages we sought to educate.
In order for social media to survive, we need to remember what connects us. Yes, we buy shiny new products, but we also long for the creative quirks, the social ineptitude and the expressive vision of the eccentricities in all of us.
And lastly, 'we' are not for sale!
Brand-Yourself.com Launches Platform to Manage Your Personal Brand Online
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Watch as Location Based Services free us from our screens!
With information overkill, hyper localization via mobile GPS may be the way to filter down what is most relevant to us on a real-time basis. Twitter is certainly planning on that from a news standpoint and will surely beat major media at their own game with localized news feeds. Google Buzz has added the service and I am certain that Facebook is sure to follow (potentially in partnership with FourSquare?).
Specialized applications like Meetmoi for dating or MeetGatsby (via Foursquare) for introducing like minded individuals spontaneously who are close by are starting to get traction. I have been using MeetGatsby myself over the last few days and have been fascinated by the potential of meeting random people with interests close to mine as I am out and about during the course of the day. Time will tell as to the value or distraction that this will bring. It will be crucial for companies like these to form partnerships in addition to fostering an open development community in order to build out unique offerings before they are made irrelevant by the big boys (Google, FB and Twitter) when this kicks in full force.
The only thing holding many of us back is the concern over privacy (once again!). I believe we will all 'get over it' as we realize the potential of push applications that capitalize on real-time technology to do the hard work for us behind the scenes. My excitement over this is driven by the hope that this will allow us to spend more time participating in the real world, as opposed to being glued to our screens in search of connections...
Altogether a good thing.
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