Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about online identity & facebook. I’ve seen a lot of people complain about facebook changes over the past few months. There’s issues with privacy. There’s the flaws in usability. Lastly, there’s the ever increasing flood of crap that facebook continues to force into the user experience. If facebook continues to overwhelm the user, and under deliver on the necessities such as usability and privacy- what will be their enduring value proposition?

As facebook becomes more and more common on a myriad of sites, I think facebook (along with google) is vying for what will be the next major advancement in social media- Identity. Currently on the web you need little more than a fake name and picture cut from a magazine to register an account as someone entirely different from yourself. While the loose structure of current online identity begets many of the things techies adore about the internet, it also creates serious cases of virtual identity theft.

In past years, defense of one’s personal identity had to be carried out on a case by case, site by site basis. This has created back breaking work for the user and made it nearly impossible to verify identity across sites. Then came open authentication and suddenly a login to facebook/twitter/google could be used to register on various other social sites. Thus the identity is verified across sites under a single username. This make protection and isolation of identity a single step rather then several.

My prediction is that facebook’s oauth capabilities are the beginning of their attempts to carve out a identity niche. Sure, I bet they have plans to stay a top ranked social site, but just in case they’re making sure they survive by initiating the process to create cross site identification. While facebook’s friend connect isn’t anything new, the developing concept of verified virtual identity is. With google also on the oauth train it will be interesting to see who develops a full virtual identity management system first.

As social media continues to cater to the niche, whoever presents a way to verify a virtual identity across site is set to score and score big.

I am not sure how I missed this interesting piece by Shelly Kramer, but I did. And if it hadn’t been for @lizasperling giving me a far too gratuitous shout out, I might have missed it entirely. Shame on me! I was just crawling into bed for some much needed shut eye when I, as always,  checked my twitter. This article, tweeted directly at me, set my mind so firmly into motion that I was forced to pull out from under my haven of warmth and put my currently turbie twist covered head to work.

I agree with nearly everything Shelly Kramer shared, but I think there was a little something missing. I suppose that something is the perspective of how men and women cognitively approach things different. As much as I would like to say men and women are equals in everything, it’s not quite the case. Fundamentally our brains are wired differently, thus making certain things more appealing/ intuitive based on our gender. I am not by any means saying that a women is not capable of doing everything a man can. Simply, that we might have to fight little against our cognitive tendencies to do some of those things.

What is the  Difference between the Male & Female Brain

A neurological study on brain mass found that in the male brain the cerebral cortex it is slightly more likely (60%) to be non-symmetrical. What might be the male advantage of a lopsided brain? Well a thick cortex can suggested increased functionality of the brains processing. Things that are function based, like staking claim to things & defending territory, may benefit from the increased thickness.  Women on the other hand have a more symmetrical cerebral cortex which suggests an uneven thickness in neither the right or left side of the brain. Since the a female brain is naturally more symmetrical, the thought processes which require multi-directional processing are more easily developed.

Another study in cited Psychology Today found that the male brain is characterized by systemizing tendencies and mechanistic thinking. “Systemizing” is  just a fancy way of saying they have natural tendencies to analyze, explore, and construct a system. They intuitively figures out how things work both literally and figuratively.  In contrast, the female brain is characterized by empathizing tendencies or mentalistic thinking. Empathy is the “the drive to identify another person’s emotions and thoughts”, and to respond to them appropriately. Mentalism, the other strong component to female thinking,  is the ability  to  understand people and what drives them.

So from this understanding of the brain, what can we deduce? Let’s make it simple: Women naturally do well with multitasking, cross-topic organization, community development, and communication. Men naturally do well with promotion (territory claim),  self preservation, concept exploration & system development .

How Does this Alter  the Way We Look At Women in Social Media?

Research has shown us what I think we already knew subconsciously was true, women naturally are more focused on conversation, men are naturally more focused on self survival (promotion). This doesn’t mean that all women are capable of is girl talk or task management. Nor does this mean men are only capable of tooting their own horn and exploring undeveloped concepts digitally.   I am simply saying that advance science shows that each gender has a natural tendencies to certain skill sets. Naturally men will promote themselves more, whether they intend to or not. Likewise, women are more likely to engage in a community, whether ore not they set out to do so. All this put into perspective, it make sense why the “biggest” names in social media are predominately men. It’s not they are any better or more talented than the lovely ladies of digital community, solely that they got prepackaged with a little more natural intuition on how to put themselves top of mind in the field.

In order for any of this to change and for more women to get credit for the more than excellent work they do, us ladies need to focus a little more on self-promotion & industry presence. I know it’s counter-intuitive, it’s uncomfortable, and frankly it seems a bit “used-car salesman like”. Hell, we’ve got thousands of years of  evolutionary developed cognitive processing fighting hard against us.  If we can go a little against our intuition and do a little more to promote our work , women-in life & in social media- will be better. Here’s just a few ideas of simple things we can do to promote women in social media.

1. Endorse Female Conference Speakers- Until the landscape at conferences becomes a little bit more balanced, it’s going to be harder for women to get the social media street cred they deserve. There is no reason more women shouldn’t be speaking at conferences & Shelly Kramer’s post had a list of women who are more then capable of delivering an excellent workshop or speech. Frankly, I’d enjoy some more balance in things; It would not only add some spice to the current conference rosters, but also produce new insights &  program management ideas. Plus, it’s getting old not seeing women on panels or giving speeches. While the world  ~50% female, conference speaker lists make it seems as if we are going extinct!

2. Boast just a little- If you’ve got accomplishments, share them. Chris Brogan doesn’t hesitate to mention he’s a NYT best selling author, neither should you. And if you know anything about Chris, he never comes off as a self promoting jerkwad. He’s balanced in his approach. He balances promoting his events & speaking engagements partnered with vocalizing his legitimacy , all while maintaining a more than active conversation with the public.  I think one of the women who may be doing this best in social media is Liz Strauss. Mingled in with her day to day conversation she still takes time to mention her events and do a little healthy self promotion that never comes off as excessive or in your face.

3. Schmooze, Chatter, & Network- If we’re naturally better suit to create dialogue based communities we should use our strength to help overcome our brain-based weakness. The sum is greater then the sum of all the parts, right? If we can create positive social media orgs for women, then as women break through the barrier, they can mentor and train the next generation to over come the same challenges. There’s a lot of insight and drive here, we just need a little more organization.

This networking function goes beyond  just connecting with other women in the industry. Network with the men who are currently leading the charge! I am sure you’d be surprised how many of them also think that women are unrepresented  in the scene ( especially at the events). If they know who the talented women are, that their intentions are honest, and that their work is superior, then  it is likely they were use a little of their social capital to help these women out.

In Short: Women are doing excellent work. I am confident we can & will lead advanced social thinking & dialogue, but to do so we need to start fighting our intuition and step into the portion of the spotlight we deserve.

The other day I was asked to give advice to a company on how to spot Social Media fakers. After much thought and some valued input from @db, @BROOKLYN2020 & @justjon , I threw together the following presentation with 15 ways to catch these vendors of certified crap & tainted  social media views right in their slimy  tracks.  Enjoy!

If we don’t start pointing out the losers in this business, it’s going to be hard for any of us to be winners.

One thing Social Media “gurus” are experts at is making up definitions for words that already have established meanings. I bet old Merriam & Webster are pretty pissed about this and rolling in their graves. Wait are they dead? Alive or deceased, it’s pretty ridiculous for people to think they can change the meaning of something just because the context is new or unique.  This is exactly the case with one of my favorite social media buzzwords “Engagement.” Yes, you could logically argue that in the 15th century, when the transitive verb first entered into colloquial speech, that it’s creators weren’t thinking, “gee we ought to put a clause in here for how this relates to internet marketing.”

No of course they didn’t. They couldn’t predict the future, and they were marveling over the recent discovery of my favorite portion of the food pyramid- chocolate. But I am not going to judge them because-hey-even though they didn’t throw us a media tailored definition,  the standard serves as enough to easily judge any type of social media related meaning we could throw at it. Look at the beauty of M&W’s fine work:

Engage: to hold the attention of: engross <her work engages her completely> b: to induce to participate <engaged the shy boy in conversation>

Now you could argue that anytime someone liked something a brand produced that they were technically “engaged” with the brand.  Let’s be blunt here- my specialty.  Do you walk around telling people, wow I am really engaged in those boots right there, I have to have them? No you don’t. Okay. Well.  I know you’re yelling at me in your head saying- “boots aren’t content, stupid!” I ask you this, when you read a blog, watch a youtube video, or listen to something on the internet how often would you feel comfortable using the word “engaged” to describe your experience? And further more how often do you share that content that you read, watched, ore heard that did not “engage” you? I would bet the family farm that it’s probably around 85% of the time.

Now I’ve heard & read time and time again that engagement is best measured in RTs, reblogs, shares & etc. I don’t agree.  RTs don’t show engagement. Why?

1. How many times do we retweet something solely because it has a good title? I’ll admit I’ve done it more times then I am willing to say. We ALL have. If anyone says they haven’t they’re a liar and -if you believe in some sort of god-he knows when you lie…

2.  A retweet doesn’t show any actual engagement with the content.  It just shows that you know how to copy & paste, or if you’re using more “advanced” means of tweeting, it means you know how to click a button. Clicking a button is not engagement, it’s showing you’re about as smart as the average monkey.

3. That said, even if you did read the content and like it and retweeted it for all the right reasons, did you really engage? Do we measure engaging with a TV commercial by how much people liked the content?  No, we don’t. There have been plenty of awesome & amazing commercials that have generated little engagement. I know several ad agencies that can tell you all about this.

This leads me to what I would like to call my REAL Social Media definition for engagement: (ta da)!

Engage: to hold the attention of: engross <her work engages her completely> b: to induce to participate <engaged the shy boy in conversation>

Duh. You should have seen that coming.

PS. if you want to “engage” with this content leave a comment, start a discussion, or etc.

PPS. If you don’t want to “engage” and just want to share this, please do. Even though it isn’t a good measure of engagement, it is a good measure of popularity.  Just like an insecure teenager, I don’t mind sitting at the cool table.

Everyday on twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc I see posts on how to measure Social Media.  Usually while reading these posts I have to resist the urge to find a knife and go on a “people who cheapen my skill set in the social media space” killing spree.  For the most part the measurement solutions proposed in these articles lack context,  double count metrics, and fail to isolate an overall measurement goal. The result is equations (usually to measure ROI or some variant of ROI) that have enough holes in them to strain the pasta for my Sunday spaghetti dinner.

Yesterday I got into a nice discussion with  Olivier Blanchard about just how twisted many of the these measurement suggestions are and how they actually gain notary in the space. The conclusion was simple: people are making a quick buck off of people who don’t understand what measurement really is. Or in my candid and oh so witty manner of speech- people are getting played. In general, measurement is facing the same issue much of the social media world is facing- everybody’s “expert”.

So holding all this in the back of my head, I tried to understand how people get guided so off course by both these articles and their own better judgment. At around 5 o’clock last night it hit me. Adding qualitative aspect to a previously primarily quant based world has thrown some people so far for a loop that are willing to accept complete gibberish as a viable marketing solution as long as it has words like “tweets”, “likes”, and “posts” built into the equation. Additionally, you have an influx of tools to measure social media that don’t really MEASURE,  they MONITOR.  Did you see how I caps locked those words? It because we’re getting to my thesis: Social media monitoring is not social media measurement.

Why do people group these two very different things it one haphazard mess? A) because they can B) because people are dumb enough to listen to them c) because there’s a confusing mass of a no mans land in the middle that I like to call “reporting”.

So what really constitutes measurement and what types of analysis are simply monitoring? Well it just so happens I created the chart below to help clear up the misconceptions. Note you won’t see the words “engagement” or “volume” in this chart. This  focuses solely on the outputs and ignore the inputs ( ie: variations of metrics & types of  content).  Why are we ignoring the inputs? Because any good data nerd knows that the inputs should be guided by your companies internal goals and not by some one with a white board and a video on youtube. I could jabber on and on  about what each of these is and why they fall where they do, but this post is already too long. I’m going to let the image speak for itself.  In entries to come I will be analyzing various proposed measurement methodologies, pointing out the potholes, and giving credit where credit’s due. Thoughts? Comments? Bitter rage? Let me have it!

Special thanks to @devintrix &  @norcross for  listening to me babble last night about this.

I know this video is old, but I remembered today how angery it made me. This is me calling it out.

I’m a data nerd and as much as I hate to admit it the first thing that happens when I see a video like this I get pulled into the numbers. I immediately begin to back track and comprehend how they came upon the random slew of statistics.

Then inevitably I get angry and begin to realize that these statistics are either immeasurable of completely ridiculous. Take from the piece above. “India has more honors kids than America has kids.” How can you measure that? Does the US or India have a way to measure honors kids? And if they do does there definition of an honors student equal the same thing? And as my mind begins to spin off into a tizzy of possible measurement scenarios, I realize the slow drip quicksand has caught me-out of context data vomit.

It’s hard not to fall into the trap; our society routinely practices data bulimia. We choke down stakes of facts and figures and just regurgitate them out often with little planning. It hard not to with all the new ways to collect data; even the most useless facts seem alluring. Did you know that Mosquito’s are attracted to the color blue twice as much as to any other color?

But numbers are useless without a well framed purposed and without context statistics are not actionable. For example, let’s say Fred’s Fish Bar does a survey of customers and finds delivery to be the least satisfactory service in the restaurant. They spend a large portion of their next quarters budget revamping the delivery service only to see no change in results.

This is the set up for the classic contextual faux pas. Digging deeper into the data find that while delivery WAS the lowest scoring service, it was only marginally lower. Also, the survey was only administered to people who visited the restaurant for a sit down dinner-those who may not find as much value in delivery. Also, they find that while family dinning wasn’t the least satisfactory service, it was significantly lower among women. Perhaps the investment would have been wiser spent creating a family friendly perception of the restaurant targeted at women. But, who knows because this is all hypothetical- ie I made it all up.

But the issues addressed in the fantasy example all too easily plague real world businesses. How do you get data that isn’t just compelling, but actionable? It’s simple ,build a frame work. Take time to invest thought into the following 3 questions:

1. What are you looking to measure, and why?
2. What do you plan to do with results of your research?
3. Can this metric be backed up by any additional data?