Newhouse Social Media // Curated by colleagues from the PRL600.3 Social Media Public Relations class in the Communications Management Executive Ed. Program at the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University.
Today’s trending topic on Mashable, touched upon the recent study conducted by Larry Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University which revealed how the obsession with Facebook amongst today’s teens may be leading to the development of psychological disorders such as antisocial behavior, narcissism, character flaws and a several other negative behavioral side effects.
Rosen shared his findings during a presentation titled Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids at the American Psychological Association’s 119th Annual Convention. His quantitative study results combined information taken from 1,000 urban adolescents who participated in a computer-based survey and a 15-minute observation of 300 teens in the act of studying.
Along with the above mentioned effects, the research also revealed the presence of aggressive tendencies, lower school performance and reading retention rates. However, what I also found interesting was how the Facebook era has also help developed “virtual empathy”, a behavior that stimulates positivity and behavior. In the long run, this behavior will help impact their social accountability and virtual currency.
In assessing my personal and professional circles, I believe in general amongst all age groups, cultures and social-economic levels, the obsession with social networks has stimulated the ADD/ADHD in us all. I oftentimes, secretly survey my peers by gauging the length of time it takes for them to redirect their attention from a meeting/project to their mobile devices (i.e. mobile phone, tablet and/or laptop). It never fails, most of the group becomes preoccupied within the first five minutes. I would venture to say that social networks harm us all! What are your thoughts?
Learning’s
Keeping your social media presence squeaky clean has never been more important. For those of you who still believed that “social” means an informal gathering that promotes communal activity, is not aware of the new FTC ruling which allows companies like the “Social Intelligence Corps” to run social media background checks on potential employees on behalf of companies/organizations.
Although prospective candidates are required to provide consent, the screening allows Social Intelligence to search through all of the candidates social channels including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Linkedin, to name a few. The companies search through photos, videos, and groups to determine an applicant’s social media history dating back seven years. Companies are screening for positive and negative offenses such as racist remarks or activities, sexually explicit photos or videos, and illegal activity such as drug use. Positive examples include charitable or volunteer efforts, participation in industry blogs, and external corporate recognition.
For those of you interested in taking preventive care of your social profile, check out MindFlash, an online training firm that recently developed an infographic that reviews ways in which employers are using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs to screen employees.
As highlighted in this article, a 2009 CareerBuilder survey revealed 45% of companies use social sites to screen potential hires; 18% of the employers found positive content on social sites that influenced their hiring decision, while 35% found negative content which influenced their decision against hiring candidates. The leading positive decision was gauged by good feelings of the candidate’s personality, while the leading reason why employees opted out of hiring employees was listings of provocative/inappropriate photos and/or information.
Question
Why would anyone believe in this day and age that online posts are private? Has “Weinergate” and “Tiger Woods Scandal” not provided substantial enough reasons why technology and personal business should never be integrated?
So, my Droid told me today that I needed a Facebook update…in a really sneaky way. It showed up at the top of my news feed. Like Facebook was one of my friends. I checked throughout the day, and there it was. Always at the top of my news feed. Thinking it might never go away, I relented and downloaded the update.
At first, I thought, “Wow. This is a lot better.” It’s so much faster, and so much more like Facebook on a regular computer.
Facebook for Android got a long overdue update tonight (perhaps the final push was Mark Zuckerberg’s installing the Android app himself last week?), after playing second fiddle to the iOS version for far too long. The updated app gains some of the iPhone’s client look and feel, but also adds a draggable Notifications drawer and a new photo reel showing pictures and videos from friends.The new client for Android supports more actions from the main screen. You can now respond to friend requests in the app, for example. There’s also a one-touch button to post a status update, support for Events — including RSVP in the app — and the new photo reel along the bottom. A Facebook spokesperson told me via email that the new client now supports in-app video playback that uses H.264 encoding, although I haven’t tried videos just yet. None of my friends are camera-happy today, it seems.
Android device owners that already have Facebook installed will see an update in the Android Market now. There’s still room for improvement here — I’m thinking support for Facebook chat and contact groups — but overall, the overhaul is welcome. And the Notification shade is a nice play on the native Android notifications, allowing Facebook users to be informed, but not overwhelmed with new information from their friends. After missing the fuller-featured app when I moved from iOS to Android in January, I’m ecstatic that I now have a richer Facebook experience — consider that a warning to all of my Facebook friends that I’ll be annoying them far more often now.
Many of the updates seem designed to keep users in the application longer. That’s not a bad thing — I personally prefer to stay in apps instead of bouncing out to the web for related features. Though like other Facebook mobile products, the new Android client doesn’t yet have ads, Android’s massive growing user base combined with increased engagement could make a killer platform for mobile revenue opportunities.
Facebook is a great way to engage your community with its business pages. From videos and photos to questions, there are myriad features on Facebook pages that help you appeal to every type of user.But how can you keep the content you post on your Facebook page fresh? If you want to get your community to engage, you need to offer something valuable and new.
Here are 25 ideas to liven up the content you share on your Facebook page. If you want tips like these for Twitter and your company blog, check out the latest eBook from the social business hub oneforty.
via ragan.com
The Social Habit is a new study conducted by Edison Research and Arbitron, and is derived from the 19th Edison/Arbitron Internet and Multimedia Research Series, one of the longest-running studies of consumer adoption of the Internet, new media and other technologies in existence.
This study was originally presented by Edison Vice President of Strategy Tom Webster at Blogworld in New York on May 25, 2011, and presented new, unreleased data for 2011 on America's adoption of social networking sites and services, with a detailed look at Facebook and Twitter usage, mobile social behavior, and location-based apps and services.
Highlights of the study included the following:
Social Media now reaches the majority of Americans 12+, with 52% having a profile on one or more social networks.
This figure is driven largely by Facebook, which is now used by over half (51%) of Americans 12+.
Twitter is as familiar to Americans as Facebook (with 92% and 93% familiarity, respectively); however, Twitter usage stands at 8% of Americans 12+.
Approximately 46 million Americans 12+ now check their social media sites and services several times every day.
Much of this frequent usage is driven by mobile access. 56% of frequent social network users own smartphones, and 64% of frequent social networkers have used a mobile phone to update their status on one or more social networks.
Location-based sites and services (such as Foursquare and Facebook Places) are familiar to 30% of Americans 12+, and used by 4% of Americans 12+.
One in four social network users knowingly follow brands, products or services on social networks. For those who use these sites and services several times per day, this figure increases to 43%.
Amongst those who do follow brands, products or companies on social networks, 80% indicate that Facebook is the network they use the most to connect with companies.
Nearly a quarter of social network users indicated that Facebook is the social site or service that most influences their buying decisions. No other site or service was named by more than 1% of the sample, and 72% indicated that no one social site or service influenced their buying decisions the most.
Facebook studied journalists’ pages to learn which types of posts draw the most engagement—“likes," comments, sharing—and when they’ll see the most activity from readers.The results are helpful not only for traditional reporters—they can help steer the types of pitches PR people send to them—but also for bloggers and brand journalists.
