No Win Anonymity

YikYak strikes again, and this case should strike terror in the hearts of all institutional (K-12, higher ed or other governmentals) administrators.

The Chronicle tells us today of the case of Univ. of Mary Washington and a lawsuit against the school for not going after anonymous threats via YikYak.  Tragic circumstances here with the murder of a student.(UPDATE: A more detailed account from WaPo, with references to other university who successfully went after YikYak users.)

We've seen cases at University of Rochester where they have gone to YikYak for information, and most famously at Michigan State.  In this case, the threat of campus violence and an on-campus public safety based cyber investigative unit got real time results.

I have spoken with colleagues at other major universities regarding the chasing down of spurious rumors.  We've had calls from media where they are using YikYak as an early warning tipsheet.

This unfortunate situation was predicted by my good friend and former colleague Debby Jennings of Tennessee.  In 2005.

We're sitting in Destin, Fla., at the annual SEC meetings, and I'm discussing the future potential for social media and streaming data and audio/video on our futures.  In bringing up "the Facebook" as we all knew it then, Debby surprised me and others by saying UT was not monitoring it.  Why?  Prophetically she responded, because our lawyers advised if we do, we'll be liable and have to take action on everything that is there.

Fast forward a decade.  Now we are told we cannot monitor students, particularly student-athletes, as that is an invasion of their privacy -- even though they represent our institutions by legal statue in may states.

Frankly, like Topix before it, YikYak is a digi-bully's dream.  All the ease of social media and none of that messy responsibility.  Not knowing all of UMW's circumstances, but what are we to do?  To effectively respond will require knowing who made the accusation.  YikYak won't like that -- eventually it will break down their model because they will comply in life-safety situations.

What happens when the next YikYak goes off-shore, lets say to Iceland, where privacy trumps public safety?

What the UMW and Michigan State cases should tell you once again, in a digital landscape, there really are no secrets.  If you make dangerous, terroristic or libelous statements, the chance of you getting discovered rests less with you and more with how bad the state wants to discover.  (Remember, Facebook is now the first subpoena for many divorce cases.)

Have no answers for you today . . . just food for thought.

PGA Fights the Future

In a cut your media off to spite them move, a Sports Illustrated contributor had her PGA credentials revoked for using Periscope.

So let me see . . . . a key influencer of public opinion about your sport gets banned for using new technology.

Fans may continue.

And golf's overall demo continues to fade.  (But not on Fade, no, never, not some digital thingamajig)

Not smart.

Championing the Fab Four

File it under "duh", but the Chronicle discovers today that social media (Facebook in particular) is important to student well-being and retention.

Opportunity to repeat the "Fab Four" developed at Northwestern State to help students gain footholds.  We actively encouraged them to . . .

Follow the university main feed (for news and annoucements)
Follow the athletic department (for entertainment and activities)
Follow their academic area
Follow their social group

Of these, getting the academic areas to understand the need for good content and consistent interaction with students was important for both recruiting and retention was the greatest challenge.  For the non-digitally inclined, it became "why" and "you're not paying me to be their friend."  Uncompensated work, some added.

Look, our jobs revolve around getting and keeping students.  This is just another tool.

Interestingly, the social group was the one that was the toughest for the students.  Sure, if they were greek, that was easy.  But for general student body, what was that -- the rec center?

Luddites with Lumber

So the NHL gets the Gillmor Prize for attempting to fight the future this week.  Teams are banning Periscope and Meerkat as violating their broadcast rights.

Good luck.  Like the Olympics tone-deaf work to try and stop social media in 2012 and 2008,

CBS figured this out several Final Fours ago.  No one is going to choose to use someone's Meerkat stream when they can see the NBC broadcast.  Well, unless the broadcast isn't available.  The days of restricting access are gone.

The value added nature of media is what sells, and will continue to draw subscribers, viewers and advertisers.

Potpourri of Changes

A series of links to things you need to check.  Facebook changes the algorithm again, and it's bad news for institutions.

Personal vent here: if I want to get info from companies, teams or colleges - damn it Facebook, stop jacking around with that.  We all have something we are passionate about, and I don't want you continuing to make it harder for me to see that.

Frankly, I want to see LESS from some of my inane friends (sorry, hugs, but for reals).  And don't tell me, go to Twitter.  Doesn't work well for other reasons.

(Bill steps off the soap box)

Here's the key takeaway:

users who actually want to see content from their friends: "content posted by the friends you care about" will be "higher up in the News Feed." Also, if a friend interacts with a post from a brand or publisher page, it will be less likely to show up in your News Feed.

Read more from the Verge.

The latest Pew usage by teens -- ever so important to those who recruit them -- is out.  Once again, their Facebook usage is down, but it is still such a large number participating that it still keeps it the best place to reach them.

Pew's annual bellwether in this area – and that 71% usage combined with the raw number being so tremendous – confirms where we are as a university:  Facebook is a vital part of the strategy for potential recruits despite continued “buzz” that it’s done.

The key takeaways:  multiple platforms for the message, Instagram continues to rise, and in this survey, Twitter is now down around Google+ (a finding that seems a bit off).  You will want to drill down into this one through all the pages.

http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/09/teens-social-media-technology-2015/

Huff Po added more to the teens on Facebook

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/09/most-popular-social-network_n_7033964.html

 

Social Media Customer Service, Advanced Course

Coming home from Washington DC and the American Association of State Universities and College's Communicator Conference, I noticed former Lady'Back legend, youth author and - dare I say - activist for good Celia Anderson was at it again.

Celia was helping someone out. Gasp.

I'm putting the backstory on as an image - courtesy of Celia - so you can understand where this went in social.

After doing the decent thing to assist Iona, she then decided to let American Airlines know about it on Twitter. Quickly, the script was broken . . . what is the team going to do when we can't contact the original person?

Interesting that one of my major teaching points at AASCU was we as institutions can no longer think that responding in social is an option - because folks like Celia (the 82% of those online according the the latest surveys, BTW) EXPECT an answer.

Notice the hour gap between Celia's last comment and AA's last response.

What would you have done? Serious social customer service food for thought.

Two Apps, Two Screens, Two Somethings

Ah the joys of social media and separating one's personal life from professional.  More than a few will say it can't be done, but I'll recommend at least making a physical separation on those social accounts you can.

Facebook's native environment is bad for this -- and I can't tell you how many times something for the institution came out on my personal by accident.

By the grace of God, I'm not in the shape of these two folks.  Twitter tends to be where this happens most, and you can do what I do (and many other pros): use two apps.  I know folks who go so far as to separate those two apps onto different screens on their mobile devices -- a work screen and a personal screen.

The Washington Post famously told the world about one of their social media team's feeling about the upcoming March Madness.  More directly in the sports world, one of UTEP's SIDs mistakenly gave his opinion about a player intended for his personal account.

If It's Digital, It's Not Anonymous

Here is a truism of online life:

"I love [SERVICE] because I can say what I want."

Guess what?  Fill in that sentence with anything -- and it simply is not true.

SnapChat? Nope, they were caching all along.  Screen names? Ask GeauxJudge about that.  Text messages?  Check in with B. Petrino.

Today, the latest epic security fail:  the conviction of a Michigan State student for his bad behavior on the supposedly anonymous YikYak.

Here is the important note from the Lansing State Journal:

He is among at least a dozen college students across the country who since September have been charged with using Yik Yak to post threats, according to news reports.

I do enjoy these I told you so moments -- digital assets are easily copied and extremely transportable.

Send This Link to Every Student-Athlete You Know Now

"This is not Twitter’s fault or the Internet. That’s like blaming Ford for someone being run over. This is people."

Truth spoke by enraged father Curt Schilling in USA TODAY talking about his online revenge campaign against the unwarranted assault on his daughter's commitment to play softball for an East Coast private college.

If you want to see the unexpurgated worse Tweets, of course, Deadspin has them all.

So far, cost the jobs of a part-time Yankees ticket taker and a part-time sports talk host who was a community college student suspended from school.

But the mind-blowing part of this isn't that guys say cruel, misogynistic, heinous things about famous (or in this case, the children of the famous) women.

No, it's that at least a couple of the haters are strongly rumored to be future fellow student-athletes at the college where Schilling's daughter was about to attend.

Let that sink in.

As the former BoSox pitcher himself said:

“It’s idiotic on their part. I know how hard they had to work to get there. They’re going to use 140 characters and let it cost a $140,000 scholarship.”

What was a minor Twitter-Meme among athletic departments late last year, just became real life.

Go.  Go now.  Grab your athletic directors, your coaches, your student-athlete support staffs.

Put this story in their face and dare them to think it couldn't happen here.

Because it can.

To my fellow blogger and father of a high school senior at 38 Pitches, kudos.  Take a moment to read Schilling's dad-rant.  It is angry.  It is in the face of anyone who doubts his point of view.  And on
many, many points -- especially how this kind of digital wilding can lead to teenagers doing physical harm to themselves -- he is spot on.

The Storytellers

The Brothers Grimm captured the concept centuries ago: a truth told through story.

This is a timeless principle.  But since we find ourselves in a world in constant need of reinvention, here's two links to articles that relate the social to the storyteller.

Edelman's quick read on Storytelling in the Age of Social is a great starting point.  Social Times adds some tactics to the strategy with 8 Ways to Become a Better Storyteller.

And as always, you can just apply the Facebook Five to any platform.

Shocking News: People Like to Interact

It's good to have your notions confirmed by research.  You'd think it was obvious, but this article provides some numbers to back the belief that companies and organizations that interact with their fans and followers fair better than those that don't.

Long Time, No Rant; Well That Changes Today

2015 belated greetings, my friends.  What is the one of the longest standing lessons from this space when talking social?

Know the platform, don't automate.

From the "I Told You So" File today, a slice of advice on how to get your inner Taylor rolling.  The highlight quote from this DigiDay story (courtesy of our good friends with the daily PRSA email).

#EachSocialNetworkIsDifferent, or, learn the difference between platforms
The audience on Twitter is different than the audience on Tumblr, which is different than the audience on Facebook. This truism is regurgitated over and over in countless articles on how to achieve social media success for your brand, and yet we continually see the same content cross-promoted on brands’ social networks. If your social team isn’t creative enough to take one piece of content and craft that story differently on each platform, then you need a new social team.

OK, my bold and under at the end.

The Cautionary Study, 2014

They come around with regularity, so I offer up the recent edition of "I told you so" for colleagues related to social media policy and preparedness.  Good friend C.K. Syme makes The Chronicle of Higher Ed's newsletter this week with her summary of a CoSIDA study on best practices for college athletics in social media.  Check out the link here.

The question for you, dear readers, is which side of these numbers are you on?  Perhaps you've got administrative and/or legal constipation that prevents you from formalizing a policy?  Might be time to share some of these kind of surveys with them in hopes of loosening the log jam.

Cause it's not if, but when, the social media monster visits your campus.

History Made by President

At lunch today, President Obama released a statement teasing his announcement regarding immigration.  Granted, the President can command the airtime from the networks, but he went to his Facebook page to make a video pitch.  OK, that's happened before -- classic be the media work.

CNN ran the video clip in its entirety.  And they didn't say a word.  No complaints about access.  No raising questions about the validity of the President going direct to the people.  No editing of the video or using it as b-roll.

THAT is a change that should be noted by all.

Auto Posting = This

I've railed to all of you about the bad policy, the downtrend impact, the just plain laziness of automatic social media -- whether it is cross platform posting or . . . . .

This: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/patriots--twitter-account-sends-out-racial-slur-with-automated-message-034040725.html

Oh, I give you both the link, and the full text of the link to read.

If this cannot convince you of the moronic nature of auto posting, I cannot help you.

Just Another Crimson Day

It shouldn't come as a great shock that a Harvard utilized photos of students in class as a part of a study on attendance.  After all, as this Chronicle of Higher Ed story notes, Harvard also sifted through resident dean email accounts trying to find a leaker.

Why no shock?  People, please.  The greatest personal data mining operation in the history of the world was invented there.

What Were They Thinking?

A little more ominous than "experimenting" on sentiment and motion with Facebook users, this note from the Chronicle.  Stanford and Dartmouth apologizing for fake mailers sent by political science profs to see if they could alter the outcome of elections in Montana.

Not sure what part of this is the most disturbing.

We get enough manipulative mailers from corporations and dark money groups. How did these academics think it was OK to join in?

Two coastal private schools thought they'd just experiment in Montana? Because it was isolated? It was flyover country? It wasn't California or New Hampshire?

Read more: http://chronicle.com/article/DartmouthStanford/149687/

A political-science study that involved a deceptive mailing to Montana voters raises questions about a new research trend.

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News You Can Use

No less than the Grey Lady of Journalism opines:

About 30 percent of adults in the United States get their news on Facebook, according to a study from the Pew Research Center. The fortunes of a news site, in short, can rise or fall depending on how it performs in Facebook’s News Feed.

It comes from an article on the impact of social on the traditional news world.  (Tip of the hat to the daily PRSA Issues and Trends newsletter -- are you a member? You should be.)

By the way, the study link -- that's to a Pew Research piece we referenced a couple of weeks ago regarding the way we use social to get our news, but I was more focused on the items further down the page.  NYT was all about the very first graphic.

So if the NYT is concerned that the gateway to the public is social, why oh why are you not doing the same?

Gets Worse From Here

An interesting take and a use of a favorite analogy regarding the North Carolina scandal in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education.  The authors, from nearby South Carolina, bemoan the inevitable nature of cheating driven by the desire of boards of trustees, high paying donors and upper administrators to bask in the reflected glory of athletes at Good Ole U.  The trio of authors opine:

The real problem is that, as the days pass and this latest scandal fades, coaches, players, tutors, and administrators will most likely go back to business as usual, and college-sports fans across the country will tune in to ESPN’s College GameDay and savor the sweet smell and taste of their big-time college-sports sausage, all the while ignoring the discarded athletes, as well as higher education’s integrity, that have been ground up in the process.

Ah yes, welcome to the sausage factory.

I call Dr. BS on two parts of this.  First, it didn't take the Athletic-Entertainment Complex to cause this type of activity.  Anyone remember when Louisiana Gov. Huey Long dragooned trains into the service of transporting his Fighting Tigers of LSU around the South?  Didn't think so.  BTW, that was the 1930s for the kids these days.

Second, while Disney/ESPN didn't cause all this, the incredible amounts of money flowing are exacerbating it.

About a decade and a half ago when the first thoughts of a national championship in football begat the BCS and today's playoff, I turned to friends and said:

You thought the hundred thousand dollar free throw was something?  Try the million dollar game.

I think I was off by an order of magnitude.  Anyone who thinks whole administrations won't compromise themselves for the incredible piles of cash available is naive.

Remember, we -- the collective of fans, college athletics and university administrators -- have done this to ourselves by demanding the "ultimate" title game.

Free Speech Isn't Free

Let's add a direct athletics chapter to the "say it social, pay a penalty at work" book.  The Big 12 fined Baylor's SID, Heath Nielsen, for comments made on his Twitter account related to the BU-West Virginia game.

Very notable in this:  it was also what he retweeted.

I know many in the game who will forward a link or retweet and then claim, oh, I was just sending along someone else's comments.  No, by forwarding you just ENDORSED those comments.

Having vented myself on radio as a color analyst, I know there is a fine line between accurate reporting of questionable calls and "undermining" officials.

Kevin Trahan of SB Nation makes another key point.  Fining the Iowa State AD for his video comments was one thing, handing out a $1,000 fine to an SID . . . you might as well add another 0 to that so you could get a sense of what that means to the underpaid and overworked in that field.

Sure, Big 12 is trying to send a message.  Here's one: don't do it on the backs of the people who make your machine run.