The Great Disappearance

Get ready social media friends . . . your views are about to tank, courtesy of the usual source -- a change by a provider.

This time, it's Facebook.  Read more here.

The key quote: 

As part of the change, Facebook says it anticipates “this update may cause reach and referral traffic to decline for some Pages.”

There is lots more in the article on the "hidden" parts of the mysterious algorithm.  Although, duh, friends and family are priority.

I'd like to know why I'm randomly seeing crap from old connections that -- Mark, are you listening? -- I do not care to see things from, but don't want to completely unfriend.

Why, oh why, can't I get priority to non-humans that I actually have strong interest in?  But I digress

Online Only Marks Milestone

None other than Nieman Labs - more US journalists work for pure online publications.

http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/06/there-are-now-more-americans-working-for-online-only-outlets-than-newspapers/

Trolling Is Different To Your Face

This is a great piece from the Chronicle today, and it supports something I've said for some time about commenting in social media.  When the angry believe they are talking to a faceless entity, they are a heck of a lot more rude.

The key line from Marney White's column:

Perhaps online trolling and less extreme forms of public criticisms are just that: a failure to recognize that there are real people at the other end of the attacks.

Indeed.

Your Golden Hour is Just That

Harped upon to the point of you not listening in this space, but another report today with up-to-date 2016 numbers that you must respond to your fans and customers.  I've preached and preached that the Golden Hour is literally that -- at best -- on social. (Couple past blogs for links: It comes fast | Earlier basics)

The shocking new takeaway:

A total of 90 percent of the 1,000 consumers surveyed have used social sites to communicate with a brand in some way. What’s more, consumers reach out on social before all other methods, including phone or email, when they have a problem with a product or service. Messages requiring responses also increased 18 percent over the past year, which indicates that more consumers are shifting to a social-first mentality.

That means this slide I use in social media crisis management needs updating.  Look at the progression among major consumer response studies:

Read more at Social Times: Ignore customers on social at your own peril

Download the entire Sprout Social report here.

Once Digital, ALWAYS Available

In my talks with social media users, I use the early Facebook era story of a varsity athletic team at a major university (no, not UA or A-State) where the players had a private group in which they shared, well, everything.  All the pics of pre-season parties, opinions of the coaches, etc.  It was all fun until the one walk-on, non-scholarship team member walked off the team.  And shared screen caps with the head coach.

That was 2006.  This week, national attention is turning to Saint Louis University after some less than acceptable running commentary among baseball team members was reported to the university and then to the general public via social media.

No commentary offered on what was said or the university's current response.

What I do want to re-emphasis is how this happened.  Your personal security depends on your friends.  That is what unraveled University of Oklahoma and a fraternity party video.  This time it was a Group Me screen capture of comments among members of the team.  Shared with a soon-to-quit the team player.

A year ago.

Read more here in the River Front Times.

Algorithms vs Words

Friends, would you share if you are seeing this problem.  In the past month, the number of followers shared images with text is running an order of magnitude below photos on most of our Facebook pages.  Similar content, similar times of day -- an infographic is doing several hundred; the straight photo several thousand.

What concerns here is this:  everyone in athletics is consumed with using services, etc., to generate social media content with numbers and scores.  As InstaGram declares their allegiance to the algorithm and Twitter tries . . .  the industry is wasting a ton of time and money on messages no one will see.

Before I sound a general alarm, who else is seeing this?

A not so ideal side-by-side example below as the graphic on left ran for about 36 hours compared to the photo on right's 24.  Didn't get the 24 vs 24 hour comparison, because item on left was hovering around 800 reach.

Social Media and the Hiring Process

Since the beginning of this blog, I have warned students, friends, faculty and staff of the impact of their social media upon their future employment.  Again, I do not care what laws may or may not be in place in various states -- we deal in reality here.  Whether legal or not, it happens.

Here's a reminder from the New York Times today in case you forgot.

The key quote is the last line:

In other words, social media has to be treated with the same nuance as real life — because these days, that’s what it is.

A Big Brother New Year

Active shooters, bowl game and holidays . . . apologies my dear friends for the dearth of posts.

Today, I've got one to ask you all about.  Have any of you experienced the following:

Yesterday, for the first time ever, I had the opportunity to send three emails to Elle Mohs at KTHV in Little Rock. All related to a story she was working on about A-State's hover board policy.

I've never searched her name on-line.

I've never looked for her (or even her station) on Facebook.

This morning, look who is at the top of my "friend suggestions."

Now I've seen this kind of crossover during that past couple of months -- a podcast subject searched for on iTunes appearing, some personal email interactions suddenly bringing those friends back to higher frequency in my Facebook feed, new people added in Twitter popping up in Facebook.

So I'd chalked a lot of that up to coincidence or obvious data sharing (the searched Christmas gift items as a prime example).

But this was my work email -- which is in no way tied to my social accounts by design -- that has led to a "random" appearance as a potential friend of someone I have extremely weak social graph ties to.

And at the top of the list.