Archive for January, 2008

Social-Network Funnel Effect

Published on January 28, 2008 in digital, reputation and social media. 0 Comments

The growth of the FB economy has created an unlikely division amongst my online social contacts. I see it is as an social-network funnel effect, where the top funnel represents opted-in spam (friends, emails and newsletters) and the bottom your your close friends (real-life contacts and favorite influencers). While the middle portion usually contains varying degrees of friends, all adding some measurable value.

While sorting through this social-network funnel has become an everyday battle to gleam useful content or information for me. Everyday it seems to get bigger and I am constantly looking to cut the time I spend searching for valuable information. This is where a funnel process helps.

If I could apply an overall funnel or class system to contacts based on their history of providing me with value it would help me to quickly indentify quality. How would this work? I am imagining an engine that aggregates all my social media into one spot.

From there an algorithm based on certain factors including history, real-life relation and inbound links would identify users, contributors, and influencers. These contacts would then be broken down into three buckets. For this blog lets call them levels one (most important) to three(least important). You could either sort these buckets individually or apply another set of algorithms to that content.

The next algorithm would then filter content by text-analysis for certain tags similar to Google Alerts. For instance, I would set socia-media as a tag and anytime a mention from a real friend or favorite blogger used social media online it would sort into a “social-media” bucket.

How are we to process all this content? As we progress into digital citizenry honing our filters to maximize utility across all platforms will become an overriding tool of workplace success. And quickly filtering content value will be the best weapon to have in your arsenal.

Ambient Interruption and Subsurface Recall

Published on January 21, 2008 in ads, branding, consumer insight and engagement. 0 Comments

Today on Armano’s blog he mentions something called “ambient interruption.” Its about the pervasive ever-present aurora of brands in the digital space. Its true that we are facing more subtle engagements from brands everyday. Email, display advertisements and search are all forms we experience on a daily routine. Our minds are able to block out many of them but they still seep into the brain.

All this “ambient interruption” has some interesting side-effects including subsurface recall. What is this? Today’s consumer is bombarded so frequently by messages that they are able to ignore most of these ads. But some are ignored at the conscious level and soaked into the subconscious for later recall.

These messages however sit inside the mind and can infect you at any time. Do you remember seeing and ad and wondering why it was astonishingly familiar? Perhaps because you have seen it before but blocked it out only to have it find it lodged in your subconscious.

Facebook Notification Spam & The Emergence of a Model

Published on January 14, 2008 in digital, engagement, reputation, social media, social networks, viral and websites. 0 Comments

Why are my so-called friends spamming me? I open my notifications in Facebook to find this monstrosity and it is only a portion of the tower! The really amazing thing is that most of these notifications come from the same 2 or 3 people. As I think conscientiously about my social connections managing them will become ever more important as I seek to filter the best data from this spam.

Which part of the importance filter are you? Our reputation economy is eroding quickly and I suggest you stay on the side of value. Needless notifications will only serve to invalidate your reputation and further erode your social networks trust. Its the essential “boy who cried wolf” model.

Think about the content you choose to disperse and make it useful to your network. We are all dealing with so much information and your reputation will be the defining factor of whether you wind up being a digital loudmouth or important addition to a network.

Brand Me

Published on January 7, 2008 in branding, digital and self-branding. 0 Comments

I have been reading quite a few blog posts lately discussing self-branding. And, in the world of social media and fragmenting media models it’s important to realize the breadth of our brand online. A digital trail of “brand you” is everywhere–from Google SERPs to social networking profiles.
Due to this increasing lack of control over one’s digital image, I started to think about my real image as seen by the outside world, and whether that image aligned with my own thoughts and digital interactions. In a highly unscientific study, I asked a few friends (some who know me well and others who know me casually) to suggest five adjectives that they felt described me. Their answers represented an interesting range of ideas with some overlap. Here is a list of the adjectives I received from my subjects:

Subject #1 - Creative, Conversational, Inquisitive, Immature, Selfish
Subject #2 - Driven, Consumer, Abstruse, Elusive, Charming
Subject #3 - Cultural, Particular, Confused, Smart, Inquisitive
Subject #4 - Funny, Stylish, Happy, Flirty, Cute
Subject #5 - Creative, Driven, Intelligent, Hard-working, Flaky

The interesting takeaway here is that each subject has a slightly different idea of me, but overall, their descriptions do reflect me. The pattern that emerges is of a creative, self-driven, and fun person. The results are not quite what I hoped for but I think with a new year it’s a good start and gives me a solid place to start improving.
If you know me I would really appreciate your input. What five adjectives do you think describe me? Please use negative or positive words to help with accuracy.