The Next Big Thing in Social Media

Social media is huge! I've been on it for 8 years now. But are any of you starting to get a little overwhelmed by the number of social apps that you "have" to use every day? Are any of you annoyed by the stupid retweets of people you don't know by people you've only "met" online? Are any of you budding bloggers shocked by some of the comments you get in the blogosphere?

I am! I hate that "making it" in the online world means wading through trolls, tweets, and timelines. Maybe it sounds silly or like I'm complaining, but think about it: the next big thing is not going to be another social media site or app. We already have enough apps on which to check-in, like things, and share every little thing that crosses our mind. And there are already apps to combine all your social media sites, so it won't be something like that.

The next big thing is going to be multimedia, but it's going to be chic and clean. I know Myspace just revamped to try be like this, but there is too much on there and it's not original. It's still so social network-y and they kept the name which ties it back to our high school days. The next big thing has to be completely new, not a stripped-down version of something everyone already has.

The next big thing is going to be for the modern "renaissance man/woman": someone who doesn't want to just blog or just sew or just go get a career job. But it can't be for the people who just don't want to go do the typical career thing; it's got to be for the creative people who can do more than one thing very well and doesn't want to be pigeon-holed into a job that they do well in, but abandons their other talents. I mean, sure it's good to be a specialist and be fantastic at what you do, but what about people who are generalists but can specialize in anything when they need to? Those people, the ones who don't want to settle on one job and won't settle for less than perfection, are the ones the next big thing is for.

I don't completely know what it is yet, but the next big thing is coming. And it's going to be big. And it might be me. Or it might be you!

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi

Graphs and Stats: Twitter

I am obsessed with social media. I blog, tweet, +1, like, pin, and promote everything. Last week I shared this photo of my phone's social media folder. -->

The first thing I do when I wake up at 5:30am is turn my phone on (I sleep with it off so that my brain doesn't get fried by whatever is going in my phone lol), get my new notifications (from everything), and check Twitter.

I blog every morning while I watch the morning news. During that time I'm on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

Throughout the day, my phone is with me constantly. I respond to tweets, comments, +1s, messages, repins, and conversations as soon as I get them.

I tweet while I watch live shows like Good Morning Tri-State, Good Morning America, Early Start, Starting Point with Soledad O'Brien, Live with Kelly and Michael, The Lead with Jake Tapper, Piers Morgan Live, and ABC World News. More often than not, I get tweeted by the anchors or the PR of the show!

Last night I was on Twitter during the season premiere of Dancing with the Stars. I don't watch the show (I had to quit when I started ballroom a few years ago--their technique makes me want to die) but Twitter was blowing up during last night's episode. It got me thinking about Twitter and I started Googling stuff about Twitter this morning.

While I was researching I found twitaholic.com. I decided to see my Twitter statistics and found this very interesting stat:

I am the top ranked Twitter user in Northern Kentucky. Me. This blew my mind! 

I realized that my social media networking "strategy" is: tweet. So I started digging for more Twitter stats and found this amazing report from October 2012 by beevolve.com. 

The average user has 208 followers. I have 446 followers. The graph below (from the aforementioned report) shows that I have more followers than over 87% of Twitter users. 

I am, however, below target when it comes to how many followers I have (446) in relation to how many tweets I've tweeted (4,922).

According to our next amazing graph from this beautifully done report, I am in the top 4% when it comes to how many people I follow (1,148).

The other graph I found interesting shows that I'm going about website thing all wrong. Family and technology are the top two categories to talk about on twitter. For women (obviously more of my target audience), the top three categories are family, arts, and entertainment. Maybe I should have named my site "FamilyChick" or "ArtsyChick" or something instead pushing the envelope by trying to have too many opinions.

So, why does finding this out do anything except waste three hours of my morning? It means that now I can have a more targeted approach to Twitter, and so can you! One of my biggest "problems" is that I talk about current issues instead of family, music, and TV. Am I going to start peppering in some more fluff? Sure! Will I start watching Dancing with the Stars to up my ratings? Well, that's a harder question. ;-)

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi

Addict Unplugged

Last Friday, I read an article by Craig Kanalley of the Huffington Post: "National Day of Unplugging" about unplugging from social media for 24 hours. I decided to go ahead and take part in the unplugging and report my experience.

First off, I read the article wrong. It said, "from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday." I started at midnight Friday night and went to midnight the next night. Oops!

A screen shot of my phone.

I have made social media a huge part of my life within the last six months, or so, because I'm trying to build my own online brand: ChickOpinion. I blog almost every morning, I tweet all the time, I'm on Facebook multiple times a day, I'm on Pinterest a lot, I play Words with Friends constantly, and I'm trying to increase my presence on Instagram, Google+, and the New Myspace. Even since I started this post, I've checked my Twitter a few times, Facebook once, and played in two Words with Friends games.

On Saturday, I woke up around 6:00am and immediately turned my phone on. My "routine" is to check Twitter for the headlines even when I'm still laying in bed! I almost hit my Twitter app and then remembered that I couldn't do social media. For a second I thought, "But how am I supposed to know what's going on in the world?!" Panic. But then I realized that I have the ABC app, the CNN app, and the WCPO (local ABC) app. So my headlines were saved!

My fiancé and I went to Louisville for the day to meet with our wedding ceremony officiant, as well as celebrate my dad's birthday and my fiancé's little brother's birthday. On the two hour car ride there, I kept getting Words with Friends notifications and couldn't play! My fiancé and I actually talked the whole way there instead of our usual car ride protocol: Josh listening to Pandora while I mess around on my phone. It was nice!

After we talked with our officiant, I was desperate to tweet about our ceremony plans! I was so excited and wanted to share it with everyone! But I didn't.

We celebrated with my family and then drove to Josh's family's house. On that 30 minute drive, I can't tell you how many times I reached for my phone to check Twitter or Facebook. I kept stopping myself, but it started making me realize just how addicted I am to social media.

On the way home we hit traffic. The last 10 miles on the interstate before we got to our exit took us 50 minutes. This is where the mistake of "sundown to sundown" came back to bite me. It was 8:30pm and dark; I was thinking how great it would be if I could get on Twitter to see what was going on with the traffic. Turns out that I could have checked!

Sunday morning when I woke up I realized I'd had a dream about not being able to tweet. I had 27 new notifications on my social media networks.

But now I have a bit of a conundrum: I don't have a job, so I'm doing a lot of online stuff to try to make money: blogging, Etsy, and writing articles. But when I'm anxious to the point of having nightmares about not having my phone with me so I can tweet...I think something is wrong.

I grew up without TV until I was 16. I didn't have a cell phone until my senior year of high school. How is it that someone who grew up knowing only the "little things" in life that you have when you don't have a screen in front of your face, be so addicted only eight years later?

How do you build your online presence to the point of being successful without becoming addicted?

This is something I am definitely going to explore. I feel like a lot of people must have felt this way on Saturday. Yes, I'm committed to building my online presence, but I really enjoyed getting to spend time with my family without having my phone glued to my hand. There has to be a happy medium, and I'm going to find it.

I have no intention of living every moment of my life with a phone in my hand, but I have every intention of being incredibly successful.

Did you take part in the National Day of Unplugging? What's your story?

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi

Social Media and Philanthropy

Social media has become a part of what I do every day. I started my ChickOpinion blog in late August. I started my Twitter account somewhere around that time, too. It seemed to be going well, so I started ChickOpinion.com in late October. That is also going well.

Andrew Springer explaining our engagement photo!

I've been going nuts on Twitter lately, trying to get my name (well, ChickOpinion's name) out there. In the last week alone, I've been tweeted by Ginger Zee (meteorologist for Good Morning America), four of the local ABC news anchors and reporters, the local ABC station, CNN Presents, Sam Champion (meteorologist for GMA), a few writers for different newspapers, Anderson Live, Project Runway, Andrew Springer (social media strategist for GMA and ABC News), Tyra Banks, Jo-Ann Stores, Dan Harris (anchor for GMA), The Katie Show, and Lara Spencer. Today one of our engagement photos was on GMA Live because I tweeted it to them. One of my tweets was also on Anderson Live earlier this week, but wasn't read on air.

It's been a little bit insane, but here's why I'm glad it's happened: I want to make a difference. We're coming up on the one year anniversary of my getting diagnosed with fibromyalgia. It has been an interesting year: diagnosed with fibro in January, narcolepsy in April, graduated from college in May, got engaged in June, moved to Florence, KY in July, my fiancé started a new job in August, I started volunteering for the Obama campaign in September, and I've been working on my blog/website all fall. I don't have a job. I can work pretty hard (seated, not standing) for about three or four hours and then I have to take a break. I am definitely not the only one in this position. People all over the country (especially women) struggle with this.

I want to create a nonprofit organization, called "FibroPhilanthropy." One of the best things for my pain is to make and give things to people who need them. Two weeks after Superstorm Sandy, my mom and I sent 15 hats and 25 scarves to the victims in New Jersey. My mom makes adorable little kid hats and I knit and sew, so we got busy! I loved spending my time making things for people I knew would be so grateful for them. It was the best couple of weeks I've had in the last year--I was happy, my pain was manageable because I wasn't having to move around much, and I was helping people. 

With FibroPhilanthropy I want to make it possible for fibromyalgia patients to make things (scarves, hats, blankets, clothes, sweaters, anything else people can make) for disaster relief to send to victims of natural disasters. Patients all across the country can make anything, we can collect the items, and then the second a natural disaster happens, we send everything we have to the victims. Then we start all over again! If it's a nonprofit, we can be exempt from taxes but still take donations, so the materials and postage could be paid for by the organization. I know first-hand that most fibro patients can't afford to do this on their own.

I know I've been a little over the top lately with the tweeting, but it's one way to get people all over the country to see what I already have on my site and, now that I'm posting this, what I want to do in the future. Maybe we can raise enough awareness that we can get the funding we need to start this nonprofit organization and be ready to have a batch of warm items ready to send out by the time the next natural disaster happens.

Please share this, email it, retweet it, favorite it, or whatever you need to do on the social media platform you use to raise awareness of this idea. I would love to get as many people involved as possible so we can help everyone we possibly can!

"Be the change you wish to be in the world." --Gandhi

Social Media: Overshare?

Wow! I just have to say "thank you" to everyone who read yesterday's post--there were over 300 views yesterday alone, and now I'm up over 2,200 total! I've only had this blog up for a month and I am just so excited that it's getting such positive feedback!

I got to thinking about why my blog is doing so well and realized that I would be completely unknown without social networking sites. (Granted, the photos yesterday didn't hurt my views, but I don't really think that's the reason people read my blog.) This morning, I heard that Justin Timberlake is revitalizing Myspace and launching it soon. This is the link to "The New Myspace" preview video. It looks like it's going to be a music sharing/event making/store/hanging out site. In light of this event, I got to looking at the social media scene, and all of the sites I'm on and what I use them for.

http://www.solveitmedia.com

Facebook: This is definitely the social media site I spend the most time on. I am connected with my family who lives all over the U.S., friends from all over the world, and people I've met at professional conferences or educational events.
Pros: Easy to connect with family. Great photo uploading. User friendly.
Cons: It seems boring; I've been on it for over five years and I don't know if it's because I'm older and have better things to do than creep on people or if the site is really just losing its luster, but it's not as interesting as it used to be. Also, I never know what privacy setting has changed; I feel like I read the "terms" every week just to make sure I'm not missing something.

Twitter: I love Twitter for updates that seem kind of silly. I don't necessarily need to post a whole Facebook status about it, but I still want to share or comment.
Pros: Super easy to use. Easier than FB to connect with celebs.

Cons: From what I've observed, people spend less time reading profiles on Twitter, so it's harder to promote yourself or a product. It's also kind of impersonal; just a list of random one-liners.

http://www.emersonsocialmedia.com

Google+: I only use Google+ for promoting my blog and work-related stuff. (Also, I have YouTube; love that.)

Pros: It's connected to Blogger. Hangouts look like fun.

Cons: It's not user-friendly at all. I really don't like the way it's organized. Also, it's not as clean as FB so a lot of people didn't switch/add Google+ when it came out, because why should they? They have a social networking site that they know and love.

Pinterest: LOVE! :) This is pretty much how I'm planning my wedding and getting ideas for what I want to do with my apartment. I love this site.

Pros: It's so easy to use. It's fun. There are so many links to other sites I would never find with out Pinterest.

Cons: Every single thing you pin shows up under your name if you Google yourself. Interesting. 

Recovery Record: BEST APP EVER for people recovering from eating disorders! I use it every day and try to log all my meals! It's great.

Pros: You get rewards (songs) for logging your meals. You can "pair-up" with someone else and give them virtual gifts. It's FREE. You get encouragement emailed to you if you don't log for a couple days and it's really sweet. It's exciting and makes you want to log your meals and get better. It's customizable for your particular needs.

Cons: Again, pseudonyms are the only thing allowed, so you can't really connect with people even if they sound super cool. Sometimes there are glitches and you don't get them fixed until they send out an update.

http://hazellcottrell.com/category/social-media/

Little Monsters: Joined it yesterday to promote my blog since it was about Lady Gaga.

Pros: If you love Gaga, that's the place to be. It's nice to see young people coming together and sharing their problems without any criticism or bullying.

Cons: It is so emo. I'm a little old for the site, I think. 

LinkedIn: Professional social networking site. I have one, but don't use it a whole lot.

Pros: My resume is uploaded. Everyone can see my qualifications for jobs.

Cons: I've had this site for 5 years and have never had someone call me for a job.

The Knot: Wedding site!!! :)

Pros: It has so many ideas! We can have our own wedding site and blog. It gives you a timeline and to do list!

Cons: Honestly, I don't know if it's worth it. I have found a lot more ideas on Pinterest than The Knot, and I have this blog, why would I make another one? 

Fitocracy: This is like an RPG for fitness! It's awesome! I use it every time I work out.

Pros: You don't have to use your real name. You can upload photos. You can give other people "props." Join fitness events in your area. Join groups that relate to your fitness goals.

Cons: Doesn't tell you why you get more points for some exercises and less for others. There aren't a lot of people on it yet, so you have to mostly connect with people you don't know.

PatientsLikeMe: Track your symptoms and see other users who are going through the same thing! I used this a lot when I started having more medical problems. I don't use it much anymore, but I really liked it.

Pros: Awesome graphs. Tons of conditions listed.

Cons: No real names allowed, so if you really want to talk to someone about something, you don't really have a way to do that. Not very user friendly.

http://nowsourcing.com/2010/03/17/social-media-infographic/

So, these are all the social sites I'm on. Social media and social networking is great, but this is kind of crazy! I know that it's the only reason my blog is read, but at the same time, I don't go out and hang out with people, because I'm working on my profiles all the time. Also, none of these are private! Anyone can search and find all of this about me. I don't regret any of it; I feel like I've been very true to myself and I'm honest on everything. It just seems a little bit creepy that I've allowed all of these sites to have access to my information and keep it even after I cancel my accounts.

Our world is moving forward so quickly and social media and social networking is a HUGE part of it! It seems like being social is the exact opposite now of what it used to be: You used to have to try to be noticed; now you have to try really hard to stay anonymous. So, my life is pretty much displayed online; that's typical for our generation. But is it safe? Is it smart? When is privacy more important than sharing everything online?

myspace.com

I asked for an invite to the new Myspace. :)

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi