Category: Uncategorized

So the big news this week is online. If you haven’t heard yet, the mega-social network Facebook purchased the social media darling, Instagram, this week for an obscene amount of money (I really like Instagram, but a billion dollars is insane). And there is no shortage of coverage or articles picking apart the deal, just Google it.

As is our way here, let’s ignore the herd and what it means for the future of social media, Instagram, the presence of any bubble, any of that. Instead let’s focus on the process, the sausage-making, as it was. How did we find out about the purchase? Not by press release, not by SEC filing or investor call, not by leak or broken embargo. Nope, by Facebook status update. That’s it. And I think there are two things we can learn from this.

First, this is a viable way to break news. Billion-dollar news. News that’s way bigger than almost anything you need to talk to the media about. Deriding it as a fad or anything less than the future of breaking news is tantamount to malfeasance as a communicator.

Second, once you’ve accepted that Facebook is a real breaking news medium, you should be realizing how poorly we monitor Facebook for breaking news. Sure, we’re getting good at monitoring Twitter and other breaking news media, but Facebook is so distinct, so large, so disparate… And sure, Mark Zuckerberg is a good newsmaker to follow, but what about that person you don’t know that will make news tomorrow? All of her social network will know before you, before your agency, before the media. It will be viral before you’ve even heard about it. Good luck getting ahead of that or “being first.”

While I like to post on very deep subjects around these parts, sometimes I just have to point out some cool new tool that’s making a splash. Today, we’re on Facebook.

I think that posting about how ridiculously integrated Facebook has become in our lives is kind of trite. And if not in your personal life, I can guarantee that you’re the one dentist out of five that doesn’t get it. The total amount of people with accounts is mind-boggling. The numbers of people who check their feed first thing in the morning is amazing. And the total amount of time spent per month by an average user? Well, all of that time your kids spend texting seems small by comparison.

Therefore, I argue that it’s important for crisis communications.

The other tool that I think is changing the business? Video. And yes, while YouTube is a pretty big deal, I think we’re already seeing where video will be most useful: on the front lines, live. I’m talking about Ustream, the most famous of the live, web streaming services out there. I’ve talked about where this going before, when we talked about the “backpack journalists” of the Occupy movement. The biggest problem with Ustream? It’s tough—nearly impossible—to find feeds. Unless you know someone in the know, you won’t know about it.

Now, imagine, we could put the two together.

What if you could stream video, live, to your Facebook Page right in the Timeline and allow folks to share it with all of their friends? And now imagine that terrible thing you can’t imagine being livestreamed. According to TechCrunch, we’re headed in that direction.

See? Tiny news blip. HUGE implications for those of us in crisis communications. Let’s see how Occupy uses this new tool this summer.

I find that the more that I help folks set up social media presences, the less I talk about the tools (which is mostly what they want to talk about). Very little Twitter, some Facebook (admittedly no Google+). I talk about the process, the why, goals and objectives.

Earlier this week, Scott Horvath of USGS summed it up perfectly. This might be my closing slide from now on:

Don’t use social media unless you’re going to be “social.” If you’re not replying, commenting, or contributing then you’re just “media.”

— Scott Horvath (@S_Horv) March 6, 2012