Update

Well Well, I owe a thanks to AdAge for throwing some stats up to validate my sentiments. In even better news, word out is that the missing girls have been found and are safe at home.

This could be an interesting take-away when working on SoMe ROI. The article on AdAge mentions that Americans want prime time to escape and the Kennedy specials did not rank well against other shows. Line that up with my observed minimal Kennedy discussion on Twitter, even with other Mass residents and you can see an alignment with the statistics and the observations I noted.

Social Media WILL Turn Traditional Media On Its Ear

I live in the land of Ted Kennedy - aka Massachusetts. I have been barraged by the media attention paid to his wake and funeral arrangements. I know he was a very important individual to both Massachusetts and American government. I realize that his death is a HUGE deal. But really, I haven't been able to watch television for 2 days now because the local media sees fit to show me every last detail of his funeral arrangements, his neighbors next door, his neighbors down the street, in the next town over, and all over this state. It's set in a loop. Why is nothing else newsworthy in this state at the moment.

Yesterday a few friends of mine posted this on Facebook. Two fourteen year old girls are missing from north central Massachusetts. These young women have been missing for 6 days now. They are not even hinted at on the Boston.com website. I haven't seen them on Boston.com, any of the news channels in MA or anywhere other than Facebook. I googled the names of the girls and found a twitter post from the unofficial AmberAlert account and I found someone commenting on the fact that they are still missing.

Maybe I'm just crabby today or maybe I'm just over sensitive because I am a mom. Why is this NOT newsworthy? I've heard on the grassroots level that their families, friends & teachers are worried sick about them. Yet, we barely get more than the results of the Red Sox game and the weather in between "Ted Kennedy Moments". This just seems so wrong to me.

I was dealing with a twitter blockage earlier this week, but now I find it my refuge. It's discussing Ted Kennedy, sure, especially since I follow a number of other Massachusetts residents and professionals. The thing is, I don't follow any media professionals on my account. I follow real people and they aren't talking about Ted in excess.

Why does this make me think that social media is going to turn traditional media on it's ear? Because when broadcast media, print media (or what's left of it) go on to SoMe sites and really listen, they are going to see that it's not the dominant discussion. So in overloading us with Ted Kennedy visual memorabilia, the media is, in fact, missing what we want. Someone in a corner office decided to disrupt scheduled broadcasting not because we, the viewers wanted it, but because their competitors are doing it. So here's my quandry - should the media try to listen to Social Media and deliver what WE want? It's an optimistic thought and I understand it sounds so much simpler than put into practice. But it would be nice, for once, to feel like I have an influence on what the broadcast media finds as 'newsworthy'.

Love this Video!

I saw this video online this morning - not only do the stats excite me, but it also makes me confident about my future career path! Thanks to Erik Qualman for creating this!

Oh LinkedIn, You Have Some Work To Do! (Part 1)

LinkedIn is the go-to social media tool of the recession - obviously. It's a way to network in your PJs on the couch, network 24x7, network with the former coworkers you don't REALLY want to talk to, but might be good to know if their company is hiring. It's a great tool and has tons of great functionality - things I find VERY useful. It still has a lot of opportunity to improve - some of my Pros & Cons are listed below.

"Who's viewed my profile?" widget.

Pros:

• Users can see if HR or hiring managers have visited their profile recently - users may be tipped off to potential job openings if the profile visit is from a company not necessarily on their "job seeking radar".
• Reveals new potential contacts or colleagues you may have lost contact with a while ago.
• You can control privacy by closing your profile to people who are not contacts.

Cons:

• Can be vague - see image below for vague!
• Must pay for the upgrade to see list of ALL profile visitors. (Actually - I don't have the paid version, so I don't know just what the paid version gives you regarding this and it's not detailed when you click the upgrade button - making that a bonus "con".)
• They don't give you when someone has been on your profile - more specifically, they don't tell you more than a range of days - and they bump the time range around to make it look like you have more visitors on your profile.
• Closed profiles may hide your information from a hiring manager - if you're looking for a job, you need to be out there & obvious!

Groups

Pros:

• People can participate by asking and answering questions.
• Opportunities to strategically expand your network.
• Free job listings - good for HR good for job seekers!

Cons:

• Groups can not transfer ownership.
  (Consideration: A company creates a group enhance communication with it's B2B customers. Group launched by a manager within the company. The group flourishes and becomes a great resource for customer input. Economy sours, manager gets laid off and takes the group with him/her.)
• Filtering group content is impossible.
• Subgroup membership depends on general group membership.
• Users can not aggregate their group emails, so instead of a daily or weekly summary, people with multiple groups get an individual email from each group. They can opt out, but then have to proactively scan the groups for meaningful data.

There are so many more opportunities for LinkedIn to improve the user experience. Please send me feedback so I can include your thoughts in the post - or you'll just have to read all of my thoughts on this topic! The next pieces in this series is coming soon - stay tuned!