Mea Culpa & Sociological Side of Social Media

My sincerest apologies for letting this blog lay shuttered and gathering dust for such a long time.  As many business owners know (especially service providers), the first order of operations is to serve your clients. Unfortunately, I have been extremely busy at C3. Creating Connections Consulting, LLC assisting some amazing businesses in tightening up their social media marketing strategy; creating new training materials for our workshop series,  staying on top of the latest in the digital industry; and doing the occasional speaking gig. Throw in life and I had very little time for writing.

I have to be honest, this truly pained me. I am a writer at a heart and have been at the practice since I could hold one of those large yellow pencils and put words to lined paper as a kid. I have been published in several magazines and news stories and am a co-author of a social media book.  Once upon a time I was writing for four different blogs and working on a suspense novel.

I’m carving out time into my schedule to return to this practice that I have loved so much. I hope to continue to share my personal perspective on all things digital here in this space. If you are looking for more hard-hitting posts on social media best practices, you can find them on my C3 Blog here.  This space is for me to examine digital through my eyes and to view the world through the sociological side of social media that we are all living through.

I’m so glad to be back!

Don’t Rob Me, I’m Just Checking In…….

Social Media Privacy Panel at NMC- Michelle Beckham, DG Hollums, Daniel Johnson, Jr. photo credit: Christiaan Todd Photography

Life on the Grid:

Discussions on Privacy all seem to be the rage right now. Thinking that this is due to the roll-out of Geo-location apps like Gowalla and Foursquare (1 yr old)  and the introduction of geo-loca capabilities currently with Twitter and soon to be with Facebook next month.  I sense that similar questions will arise from the unitiated as they did with Twitter.

“Why do I care what Adam had for lunch??”

will turn into,

“Why do I care where Adam went to lunch?!!”

Well from my perspective, there are a lot of great reasons to care.  Using Foursquare as an example, I see the following benefits:

• Keeping tabs on where your friends are
• Knowing who the tech-savvy people are when you arrive at a venue (check in list will show this)
• The venue knowing that you are on-site or nearby and having the capability to offer you a discount
• The gaming aspect that strikes at the heart of all us competitive Type A personalities (unlock badges, awards, become Mayor, etc.)
• The stalker aspect- ability to glean info about friends that you might not have known (for example, who was out into the wee hours…)

I participated in a panel on Internet Privacy yesterday at the New Media Cincinnati 2nd Saturday Event and Foursquare was prominently discussed.  Check out the Live Stream HERE.  I personally had been holding off on all of the fun because I had concerns about privacy issues.  After reading up on the applications and attending an American Marketing Association meeting in which Foursquare and Gowalla were featured, I came to realize that this cool tool offers a hot bed of marketing opportunities to the venues who jump on the bandwagon.  By the way, Starbucks just announced that they are partnering with Foursquare which should help to nudge the rest of the retail world into joining the party.

I joined Foursquare about 24 hours ago and am really liking what I see.  Will continue to update this blog with my experiences as I make my way through all of the settings and repercussions that ensue based on my choices.  And for folks who know about the Please Rob Me. com site- I will NOT be checking in/out of my home.

For the record, I have an alarm system and a killer watch-dog, so keep on going when you hit my  ‘hood……..