On December 1st I received an email notice that North Korea News was following me on Twitter. How utterly random? Not so when you investigate from the analyst's perspective. A little digging revealed these previous posts:
November 30 #cloudforce Radian6 announces Social Hub which allows routing relevant posts within the org
December 1 Can number crunching offer true insights? Radian6 launches Social Marketing Cloud #cloudforce @pcmag http://bit.ly/uSM52S
Notice a common thread? Mention of Radian6 which happens to be a social media monitoring tool, not a radioactive material. Let's see Radian, Radon...
In any case the nice folks at North Korea News shortly stopped following me after my Radian6 posts ceased. I know this as Mr. Unfollower notified me of the unfollow.
No it's not how many friends you have or how many pictures in which you're tagged. Mashable conducted a study using EyeTrackShop to discover exactly what a potential employer or mate looks at when viewing your social sites.
This is a brilliant move. Even though the test size was small - 30 test subjects, the methodology still provides measurable data rather than guesswork. Measurability is the very foundation of analysis. I've heard this statement and often quote it in my presentations: IF YOU CAN'T MEASURE IT, IT DOESN'T EXIST.
So what are the takeaways from the eyetracking study?
1. Profile pictures matter most to visitors of social media sites. The manner in which a person chooses to depict him/herself sends a message. Is it B&W or color? Do they smile? Is it an avatar? Is it explicit? All these factors convey a message about the profilee. OKTRends indicate smiling is a myth, in addition to 3 others.
2. Job Title clearly won out on LinkedIn. So make it impressive. Underwhelming are (Title) in (Industry). As in Portfolio Manager in Financial Services. Spelling counts!
3. Who you know gets attention. Being connected to Pete Cashmore will get you plenty of Whoas! If you're not, then Guy Kawasaki will get a couple sage heads nodding in approval.
4. Content on top wins. The same rule online applies to social sites, the further down you have to scroll the less attention the user pays. Keep the good stuff in the top 1/3 of the page.
I've got a bone to pick with Facebook. And it's different from the time I changed my status from In a Relationshipto Single. After which Facebook promptly grabbed a random photo from my personal album (it happened to be one of me dressed as Trinity wearing dominatrix boots and skintight leather pants. Come now, it was a Halloween costume) and posted it as an advertisement that read: Rekha is now single. I got pokes, notifications and wall messages from friends galore. Then of course were the friend requests from unknown men who were responding to the "ad."
No, this bone is a bit subtler. I'm ticked off at Facebook for the free service they provide to track down people who don't want to be tracked down. Mashable lists 53 results when searching on *Facebook + exes*. I'm glad they acknowledge the surplus of this trend but quite frankly I'm tired of Facebook as a vehicle to resurrect exes. Last summer unearthed a bumper crop for me. Was there something in the water or was my blocked profile page too hard to resist for guys I dated when I was a a wee little lass?
A UK poll revealed 58% of respondents looked up two or more past partners, and 15% had actively changed their Facebook status expressly to make a current or past partner jealous. Men were more likely to stalk women, with a tendency to spend 8 minutes or more “spying” on their partner’s profile per day.
Spying on a profile is one thing. Digging into their personal data is another issue altogether and dredges up a new millenia concept of phone trust. Just ask the most public example of this - Tiger Woods.
Speaking of trust, there's an app for that. iTrust is a keylogger that uses a pretty nifty trick to track attempts to bust into your iPhone. Check out the video.
Trust with the mere price tag of 99 cents. Now that's a bargain.
Trust aside, there's the little matter of posterity that's becoming a social media caveat. 15 minutes of fame might be the American dream, but the lifetime exposure of an embarrassing video? Not so much. Undeniable truth is that social media lives forever. Take this one step further and you've got a platform that captures and exposes - if permissions are enabled - every flirt, sext or shared dalliance with a partner. Blogger Samuel Axon says Facebook will record every relationship mistake you've ever made. And showcase it forever.
Expert recommendation? Go the old school route. Tor Myhren President of Grey Agency gives a compelling presentation on this very topic. His bottom line? ease and speed of communication does not equal emotional connection.
My take? Leverage every bit of technology as a means to know the object of your desire. But don't stop there. Get to know the person energetically. You can fake enthusiasm, commitment, plus, er other things. But you can't fake energy.
