SOCIAL IMPRESSIONS

Active participants in social media have different reasons for interaction. Some enjoy the friendly banter exchanged with fellow users, while others are attempting to increase the traffic on their own sites. A perfect site is a harmonious blend of the features mentioned below. Since we don’t live in a perfect world, sites tend to showcase only two or three items. Below are some of the features that I have identified important to users. Please feel free to additional ones in the comments and participate in the poll.

Site Focus

Many social news aggregators are topic-based; therefore they appeal to users who are interested in a specific niche. There are also several sites that have a broad set of subjects that appeal to a larger audience.

Content

Users believe that content is king. Anything that seems too commercial, manipulative, subpar or poorly written doesn’t gain traction on the popular social aggregators. Users are looking to learn new perspectives, issues around the world, business-related news, and technology innovations. Site members are the first ones to call out poor content.

Community

The culture of a site can determine whether a person signs up or not. When selecting a site to participate in, users research the dynamic amongst the members. They ask themselves: “Are the members here friendly or are they just assholes?” Some sites have sociable, helpful and supportive members. Other sites have wimpy kids who miraculously grow muscles while sitting behind a computer screen. Despite the attitude of the users, many of the community members are invested in the growth of the site. They will provide input and constructive criticism to see the site evolve into its full potential.

Traffic

One of the benefits of social news aggregators is that they can send a significant number of visitors to a site. Users participate with the major goal of accumulating as many eyeballs as possible over a long period of time. After all, traffic can help monetize a blog, increase the number of subscribers, establish reader loyalty, and build engagement on the site.

Competition

Making a site challenging can actually entice people to continue participating. The desire to become a top user will obviously encourage members to invest a significant amount of time engaging on the site. Sites can retain those users by making it hard to reach front page, and setting a high bar for them to reach.

Comments

Comments are the online version of a dialogue. They serve as the interchange amongst users to share their opinion. Some site members are more into the comments than the submission itself. On many social news aggregators, you will find insightful POVs about the topic or just pure comedy. Some users actually enjoy the obscene feedback that other members provide to a submission.

Customer Service

Many social news aggregators have lost members mainly due to the site managers’ unresponsiveness and general disinterest in the community. Users can make or break a site. If a large portion of the users decide to leave, the site will ultimately fall. The site managers should listen and reply to their users.

Features

Users want to go to a site that has multiple features and gives them the flexibility to easily interact on the site through adding items, sharing digital media and corresponding via site mail. Launching features on a regular basis will keep the users intrigued and interested.

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Fitness has always been very important to me, and with my wedding just a year away I decided to re-energized my efforts to feel comfortable in my wedding gown. I joined Club Fitness and hired an amazing personal trainer, Billy Mosley, for three experimental sessions. During my workouts with him, I felt more challenged and motivated. He understood what my goals were and crafted a wonderful workout for me. While doing my lunges and curls, I wondered if I could actually do all of this alone. Will I stay dedicated and do the correct combination routines sans the support of a personal trainer? After all, having an expert dedicated to helping me accomplish my goals comes with a hefty price tag. Although it would be difficult to equate the personal support of a trainer with social media, I decided that it would be a great experiment to conduct. I would like to test if social media can help me with accomplishing my fitness goals. I have outlined my step-by-step process below:

Step 1: Share the Hard Core Facts

I am openly sharing that I am 27 years old, 5′5″, and weigh 145 lbs (no pic so you have to believe me). According to Billy, I need to lose approximately 20 pounds to reach my ultimate goal. I have successfully avoided junk food restaurants like McDonald’s for the past year. However, I find that I have not watched my food portions and I have a weakness for chocolate and ice cream. After all, I think popcorn and Whoppers are the tastiest combination ever. Plus, I am a Diet Pepsi addict, which is apparently really bad even if it has zero calories.

Step 2: Announce my Effort

I am using my blog in an effort to put social media to the test. We have repeatedly established that it is a great space to establish a strong supportive community. I would like to see if social media can assist me with my fitness goals. Thus, my big announcement: Social Impressions readers - I am fully committed to losing 20 lbs. Mark the date - there’s no going back now!

Step 3: Set a Budget

Although I would love to retain Billy as a personal trainer, I doubt that I can budget it in. Weddings are extremely expensive and I have to save up for that special day. I just invested in a gym membership in a great facility that provides me with 24/7 access, top-of-the-line equipment, aerobic classes, etc.

Step 4: Set Up a Plan

I want to lose this weight in a healthy manner with exercise and a nutritious diet. I am committed to working out three times a week and trying my best to eat protein-rich meals. I will make a conscious decision to check labels before purchasing food to make sure they are low on sugars, carbs and saturated and trans fats.

Step 5: Initiating Support

As any addicted social media user, I surfed the social sphere to find if there are any fitness social networks available that will provide me with meal plans and work out plans. I signed up on Gimme20.com which is an online health community. I also announced my efforts on my blog in hopes that the social media community will be invested in helping me during my process. Additionally, I have recruited my friend Julie Lujan, AKA Calinazaret, to be my online Drill Sargent.

Do you think social media can help with fitness or is it something a real life personal trainer can help with? I will write a follow up post to document how social media has contributed to helping me reach my final goals.

During a panel at OMMA Social conference in New York, President of SocialVibe, Joe Marchese, asked a very important and relevant question to online marketers and Fortune 500 companies: Are impressions more important than relationships with social media users? Many of the branding and social media strategists raised their hands in agreement when asked if their motives were to build relationships.

Are online marketers really interested in relationships? Despite that response, Marchese calls “bullshit.” Online marketers want to have as many eyeballs as possible on a branded property. The number of impressions is a measure of success. Exposure to a branded campaign is a benefit to social media, but it shouldn’t be the only priority of a social media effort. Although brands want to have a high traffic rate to their Facebook profile, what’s the point if these users don’t convert?

Relationships are key for the development of a branded effort conducted online. Through establishing online relationships, a brand gains loyalty. Although impressions establish awareness, they don’t necessarily create a direct relationship with the brand. When expectations are set early, companies will know how to measure success for social media. The launch of a social media campaign might start slow, but if it gains traction it will establish more relationships.

During the panel, an important point was made about a need for a new measurement matrix. Some marketers and Fortune 500 companies rely on the traditional matrix, which simply does not work for social media. There is wider variety of considerations that need to be included when gauging the success of a social media campaign, like the context conversation and tone.

Marketers need to understand that users don’t want to be sold something. They are against branded messages being pushed on them. Users want to contribute and engage themselves in discussions about the brand. They want to invest in the development of products they are already passionate about. At the same time, impressions can help leverage key relationships that are necessary to build brand loyalty. This continues to prove the need for a new measurement and reporting method.

On June 4, I wrote a post about the five levels of voting and commenting behaviors online. During an IM conversation with Julie Lujan , she mentioned similar concerns.

This is a guest post by Julie Lujan (AKA Calinazaret). She is an active participant and contributor to Mixx and is a co-host on Saturday Night Monkey every Saturday at 10 p.m. PST. She is also a psychology student at a university in California.

I’ve always thought social media’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness– people. People are caring, supportive, creative, funny and friendly, but people can also be immature as hell.

Recently in my online endeavors I fell into a nasty interaction with someone who could benefit from going back to kindergarten. This user submitted a story to Mixx which I felt was not entirely accurate and I down voted it. This user then visited my profile and down voted every story I’ve submitted to Mixx in the last month! Of course I respect a person’s right to disagree and down vote my submissions, but this was done out of the spirit of meanness which is untenable. I have to wonder how long it took him to go through it all, and why on earth anyone would take that much time out of their day to do something that makes so little difference.

It continually amazes me the ways which people find to express their emotions in virtual environments. It’s as if humanity must reinvent communication altogether for this new medium, and some who are barely able to communicate in real life revert back to childhood on the internet. Hence all these poopy-heads who are barely cognizant of their behavior.

Here are a few tips for dealing with internet asshats:

• Be an adult. People tend to mimic the behavior of those around them, so if you start flinging poo at an aggressor then prepare for a shit storm. If you can make yourself act calmly, rather than react angrily, most of the time it’s enough to get the situation under control.
• Kill them with kindness. Yeah, I don’t try this one very often because I hate those asshats and being nice to them is the last thing I want to do, but even if they don’t change you’ll feel better about yourself for doing the right thing.
• Gather evidence. On some social media sites (such as Mixx) you can gather evidence and the admins will ban them if their behavior is deplorable enough.
• Just walk away. This is the hardest one, but if nothing else works, it’s what you must do in order to maintain your dignity.

Always remember that there are some awesome people online that make the experience worth it. In the process of stewing over this situation and trying to vent without losing my cool I told a friend about what happened and he promptly voted up all the affected stories. How cool is that? The asshat’s efforts were totally thwarted and all was set right by the power of friendship.