Family Ties Draw Older Generations into Social Networking

In a recent study by research firm Anderson Analytics, social network participants from age 13 to over 65 were polled on their reasons for joining social network sites like Facebook and Twitter.

All groups had a significant number of participants who considered social networks “fun” and declared an interest in connecting with friends. However, a more pronounced difference between the generations was evident when it came to using these tools to connect with family members.

Just 27% of Generation Z (13-14 year-olds) saw family connections as a draw, where 51% of the over-65 group said keeping in touch with family was one of their reasons for joining.

Invitations also play a stronger role in the older age groups. 46% of Baby Boomers and 60% of the over-65 group said they joined because an invitation had been sent to them by someone they knew. Invitations played a much smaller role (under 30%) for users under 30.

Tags: Baby Boomers, Demographics, Facebook, Internet Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0, WWII Generation

Don’t Tell Me How To Use Twitter

There is no shortage of articles on how to make the most of social media when building your brand, your online presence, and your relationship with your customers.

A lot of it is really good. It’s exhilarating how immersive and potent these tools are for reaching out to one another. That excitement has inspired some very smart and talented people to give away tomes of valuable wisdom.

But where the best advice can work wonders for your company’s PR, Marketing or Customer Service, there are no real rules for individuals. Unfortunately, this leaves the door wide open for half-baked and even mean-spirited “experts” who try to bully others into following their own invented code of conduct.

One of the most famous cases is the “Cisco fatty.” If you’re not familiar with the story, Connor Riley (@theconnor) interviewed for an internship at Cisco, and upon receiving an offer tweeted:

She quickly got a nasty response from @timmylevad at Cisco. And her tweet was widely publicized as an example of abject stupidity and naiveté concerning social media.

Except she hadn’t even applied for the job, and it turned out to be outside her professional field. Her tweet was meant as an inside joke to her very small audience of followers who already knew she’d be turning it down. It’s easy to see how a Cisco employee would not be amused, but @timmylevad unleashed a public castigation in an effort to enforce his own rules on how Twitter should be used.

Ms. Riley herself makes a particularly cogent observation about how someone with 45 followers, all of whom she knows in real life, may treat Twitter differently than someone with over 500.

If that’s the way TIm Levad wants to maintain his Twitter feed, that’s great for him. Depending on his goals for the platform, it may be exactly right. What I’d like to see quashed is the idea that anyone has the authority to tell anyone else what their approach should be, particularly if the rules they are trying to impose are an effort to move people towards more sanitized and less human communication.

Jeffrey Zeldman is a legendary designer, blogger and independent publisher. His work has long been a guidepost for standards-compliant design, and his website A List Apart is a voluminously rich resource for anyone who makes websites. Due to his well-deserved internet fame, nearly 21,000 people follow @zeldman on Twitter.

Recently, Zeldman was scolded by a Twitter follower who expected more “value” from his Twitter stream. In this critic’s farewell email, he accuses Zeldman of letting his “ego take over,” because he dares to tell jokes and give his reaction to movies he’s seen.

In response, Zeldman rightly refers to A List Apart, his blog, and his free downloadable books where the disappointed unfollower can get the “value” he seeks. But he vehemently rejects the “mass-media channel” approach to Twitter. Jeffrey Zeldman is a real person, who has every right to use Twitter to connect with people and build relationships as a human being, and not just as a name-brand for web standards.

All the best advice for companies in the social media sphere seem to point toward more human communication and away from monolithic press release broadcasts. To push individuals in the opposite direction runs counter to the best of what social media has to offer.

Tags: Cisco Fatty, Low-Fiber Tweet, Social Media, Twitter, Web 2.0

Learn New Skills, Then Leave Them Behind

Thanks to a post from Krista Neher, I recently stumbled upon this picture from the excellent Cincinnati photographer Jim Talkington.

That brought back fond memories from bygone days. I could almost smell the D-76 soaking Tri-X in a mysterious bath, while I enjoyed the darkness and the isolation, giving birth to my creative vision.

The truth is, I never had much interest in photography before college. My dad was a professional photographer, but it wasn’t until I saw the job posting for the Publicity Office at Adrian College that I ever asked him to show me how it was done.

We went through two rolls, from shooting to processing to printing in his basement darkroom. I sent in a few prints and got the job. So I headed off to freshman year armed with minimal experience and my dad’s aging Mamiya.

Soon I graduated from PR’s tiny closet in the history building to the full size darkroom of the college newspaper, where I’d push 400 speed film to 1600, bringing out that week’s basketball games and swim meets in glorious grainy detail. The halftone machine was probably bigger than my dorm room, with a loud vacuum pump to hold the wax-resist paper where my shots would be reproduced in thousands of tiny dots.

Several years later, I aim a point and shoot camera at my kids without a thought about aperture or shutter speed. Not only is there no film to process, but my pictures automatically appear on my hard drive through the magic of an Eye-Fi card. It’s a very different world.

This nostalgic reverie actually has a point to it.

That was the beginning for me of some guiding principles I’ve carried with me through my whole career. Something like this:

1. Identify opportunities where not a lot of people have the requisite skill.
2. Learn new skills quickly, and don’t worry about perfecting them before you get started.
3. Keep moving forward, learn from your failures but don’t be afraid of them.
4. When better methods and techniques come along, don’t cling to your old skill set just because you put time into developing it. Embrace the new.

When desktop publishing replaced light tables and X-Acto kinves, I was ready to go along for the ride. When the web started gaining popularity in 1995, I got a Macintosh Performa and a “Teach Yourself HTML in a Week” book.

It took me until Dreamweaver 3.0 to make the leap into WYSIWYG editors, but then i didn’t look back and jumped with both feet into Flash development.

Now, I’ll still hand-code some html once in a while. I’ll put together a swf when it’s the best way to accomplish something. But I’m not married to those techniques. If there’s a faster, easier way to do something, I’m ready to learn.

This is why I feel at home in internet marketing, online development, and social media. The landscape is always shifting. This is an industry that rewards flexibility, adaptability, and a passion for learning. The most successful people in this sphere are those who move quickly, learn quickly, and waste no tears on the skills and techniques they leave behind.

Tags: Career Development, Internet Marketing, Photography, Social Media