Phyllis Zimbler Miller's Blog: Phyllis Zimbler Miller Author, page 63

Social Media Does Not Have to Bring About Racial Desegregation

Malcolm Gladwell's "Annals of Innovation" New Yorker article "Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted" in the October 4, 2010, issue is, in my opinion, totally off the mark when it comes to social media.

Let me first state that I thought Gladwell's books THE TIPPING POINT and OUTLIERS were brilliant. In both books he takes various events and ties them together to prove the individual book's overarching theme.

But in the New Yorker article he seems not so much to be comparing and contrasting apples and oranges as to be comparing and contrasting apples and kangaroos.

If I understood the article correctly (and it is hard to follow Gladwell's inclusion of what I would call "everything and the kitchen sink" elements), he believes that social media such as Twitter and Facebook can never create the type of social change that was created by non-violent actions during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.

Now he may be correct in this view – although I think it is way too early to know for sure – but where I feel Gladwell is very much mistaken is in comparing these two phenomena in the first place.

The non-violent protests of the Civil Rights movement had an explicit purpose – to force the American South to integrate blacks into schools, movie theaters, public drinking fountains, etc. In other words, to get rid of the Jim Crow laws that forced segregation on a great swath of the United States.

Social media such as Twitter and Facebook have many purposes – some of them purely social, some of them purely business, some of them a combination of the two – but nowhere does social media set itself up to cause the kind of social change that the Civil Rights movement had as its only purpose.

Gladwell spends much of his article talking about strong ties and weak ties. And even here I do not agree with the conclusions he draws.

In fact, I think that Gladwell's article has produced a gumbo stew in which he has thrown in as many variant ingredients as he can think of to prove a point that is not at all a valid point.



Read the whole article now to see whether you agree with me.

© 2010 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of Miller Mosaic Social Media Marketing. She is also the author of the novel MRS. LIEUTENANT, which deals in part with racial prejudice in the U.S. Army in the spring of 1970 during the Vietnam War.

What Does Social Media Have in Common With Fashion Trends?

Figuring out which social media sites on which to invest your time can be as tricky as figuring out which Paris or New York designer fashions are going to become popular with the masses.

And just as you may not want to be wearing blouses with shoulder pads when shoulder pads are so "out," you may not want to be, for example, on MySpace when Facebook is the more popular social media site.

If you want to figure out which of the new social media sites are destined to "catch on big time," there's a good bit of guesswork required.

Over two years ago when I had just become active on Twitter, someone I trusted recommended another site instead of Twitter in which to invest my time.

The truth is that I couldn't understand how to effectively participate on this other site – and I could understand how to effectively participate on Twitter. So I stuck with Twitter.

In hindsight, I'm sure glad I "bet" on the right site. But this was just luck – and my inability to understand the other site.

Now I expect that most of the readers of this blog get as many invitations to join new social media sites as I do. And this creates a major dilemma (unless you have a social media virtual assistant who does all your social media activities — which is NOT something I necessarily recommend.)

Early on when I self-published my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT in April of 2008 I joined as many book websites as I could find. I figured the more places my book was listed or featured the better.

But that is before I realized that, to really get the benefit out of social media sites, you have to be active on those sites. And the corollary to this realization was that I didn't have enough time to be active on all these sites I had joined.

What's the answer then about which new social media sites to say yes to?

Assuming you do not have a crystal ball to peer into the future to know which of these new sites will really take off, you can probably make reasonable judgments for your own time based on your social media portfolio.

In other words, once you have active presences on what I consider the big three (besides your own website and blog) – Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, which of the new sites appear to have features that complement or fill in the gaps of your other social media sites?

For example, if it is a new professional site, what are the advantages to adding this site to your participation on LinkedIn? Are there some features of the new site that compensate for some of the weaknesses on LinkedIn (such as often having to jump through hoops to connect with people)?

Perhaps by being an early adopter of the new site you can get more attention for your products or services than you can on a popular site such as LinkedIn. Or perhaps you think the group functions on the new site add to your group experiences on LinkedIn.

Bottom line? We cannot be like a kid (or in my case an adult) in a candy store; we cannot have it all. We do have to consider our budget (time instead of money) and then make the best choices based on our own business objectives.

As I frequently write, one size does NOT fit all in social media. So as with everything else, we have to make well-reasoned choices.

And if you want to recommend any new social media sites you think are really terrific, do share in the comments below.

© 2010 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) and her business partner Yael K. Miller (@MillerMosaicLLC on Twitter) are committed to taking the mystery out of social media so that individuals and companies can utilize the power of social media to attract more business. See their Quick Start Social Media Track.

Remember to Revise LinkedIn Company Profile

Thanks to Leena Rao's TechCrunch post "LinkedIn Beefs Up Company Profiles With News Feeds, Career Data, And More" I re-visited the Miller Mosaic company profile on LinkedIn.

This re-visit enabled me to update the company info while also coordinating my LinkedIn profile and Yael's LinkedIn profile with our LinkedIn company profile.

I admit that previously both Yael and I have made changes to our LinkedIn profiles without making parallel changes to our LinkedIn company profile.

And while I frequently write about the need to revise social media profiles, I often overlook updating my Google profile.

So after updating the LinkedIn company profile for Miller Mosaic, I went over to my Google profile and did some updating there. Check out this revised Google profile now.

Bottom line? Whenever we review our social media activities to check on consistent messages, we should remember to review our personal and company profiles on all the major social media sites on which we participate.



Read Leena Rao's entire post now.

© 2010 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) and her business partner Yael K. Miller (@MillerMosaicLLC on Twitter) are committed to taking the mystery out of social media so that individuals and companies can utilize the power of social media to attract more business. See their Quick Start Social Media Track.

Social Media Marketing Campaigns Can Offer "Exclusivity" Benefits

Thanks to David Littauer for sending me the link to the InformationWeek article "JetBlue: Anatomy Of A Social Marketing Failure? Or Success?" by David Belind.

While the article talked about a very specific program that JetBlue had – the AYCJ (All You Can Jet) program – for which JetBlue used only social media, for me the most important information was near the end of the article.

This is because I wasn't surprised at how successful social media had been to reach people who wanted to purchase t...

Will New Twitter Have the Same Fate as New Coke?

After sampling the New Twitter, will we active Twitter participants clamor for the return of Classic Twitter?

It's probably too early to answer this question, although below are some of my thoughts:

Full disclosure: I just got the option to try New Twitter, so I haven't spent much time appreciating the additional information.

But I have spent some time trying to find the old elements that I liked.

Yes, I know, there's probably an owner's manual somewhere with instructions, but I like to test...

Your Website: A Place Where Design Should Take a Backseat to Social Media Considerations

Design in items can be incredibly exciting — after all, there are design museums featuring such items as eye-appealing tea kettles.

But, when it comes to your website from which you are promoting your products or services, it is advisable that design take a backseat to a social-media friendly site.

What do I mean by social-media friendly in a website?

A website that reflects the same openness and willingness to engage on a personal level that the best social media presences reflect.

Let's take...

Who Is Social Media For?

Hear ye! Hear ye! Here's a compelling response to this question from Mitch Joel:

The truth is, asking "Are [sic:] social media right for my company?" is a flawed question. Instead, ask yourself: "Should my business be sharing who we are and what we do with the world?" If the answer isn't yes, feel free to pick up the computer or mobile device that you're reading this on and whack yourself upside the head until you realize the answer is always yes!

That's why you're in business: so more and...

For Your Website Be Careful What You Pay For

I was at a networking meeting when a member of the group said to someone else in the group: "I've got a terrific person to recommend to build your website. Really inexpensive."

And here's what I thought to myself:

"Inexpensive or expensive. If the people hiring a website builder don't know the right questions to ask and get answered, the new website could do a huge disservice to the people's business at any price."

What do I mean?

There are certain basic things any website needs to have in...

Twitter Helps You Get in Front of Potential New Markets

The Wall Street Journal article by Elizabeth Holmes titled "The Importance of Tweeting Oscar: The Invisible Style Setters Who Dish Personal Details and Plug the Brand for Their Designer Bosses" included some very valuable information on the power of Twitter.

Erika Bearman, who tweets for Oscar de la Renta under the username @OscarPRGirl, made this important point:

"If your customer isn't on Twitter, isn't that an excellent reason to speak to a new audience in a new space?"

One of the biggest b...

New Twitter Format Has Important "Tip" for Effective Websites

Twitter is rolling out major design changes that will probably be very beneficial for everyone effectively using Twitter.

Chris Crum of WebProNews wrote a good blog post – "Why the New Twitter May Benefit Businesses and Marketers Greatly" – about these changes.

But what truly interested me in his post was this sentence:

"Users will have less reason to click away from the site."

When I read this, I thought about how I always caution clients to consider how many links they are providing for...