Monetize the word of mouth

In the eternal search for attention and access to market, businesses now turn to "influencers" to reach specific target and promote their products. Influencers are people that have strong following on social network and that are ready to spread a good word for a product/service/brand in return of some incentive. They are literally selling their word of mouth.

One more twisted way to use / manipulate people into buying stuff. I suppose it's fair game to use any mean necessary to get someone to buy. Still, I have a problem with the idea that someone I follow and probably trust would be "paid" to influence me. How can I trust anything said by anyone if there is always a probability that they are paid to write good comments.

I'm sure most of the influencer will only promote product that they actually like but there is certainly some that will push for products they don't necessarily like. At the end, it's all about credibility for those who doubt. But just like the for TV advertisements of the 50s few doubt. They had to put rules and laws about advertisement because marketer exploited the credulity of the people to lure them into believing anything. TV advertisement was a relatively simple medium to regulate but how to do that on social media?

Annd there is more, a recent study found that more people, mostly the new generations, get their news from social media. I'm getting nervous by the minute...

The coming cyberwar

In his book Cyberspies - The Secret History of Surveillance, Hacking, and Digital Espionage, Gordon Corera present a thorough timeline of espionage form the great nations of the world. From the first code breaker of World War I to the hackers of today. Since all government are good secret keepers the more you go back in time the more you have access to declassified information. For the actual reality, he relies on leak information and extrapolation but it is still very relevant and credible. 

According to the BBC journalist, the next war will likely fought not only on terrain but also in cyberspace. In fact the war is already started in someway. All the great nations are equipped with armies of hackers searching for weaknesses, placing logic bombs all around waiting to strike. The link between cyberworld and real world is becoming stronger by the day. The next wave of innovation will likely be in the form of Internet of Thing. All devices connected to the Internet...

By linking our houses, our building, our critical infrastructures to the Internet, we open the door to the script kiddies, the small hackers but also to the state-sponsored hackers. In case of a major conflict between two states it is likely that attacks would be made on domestic and public targets. The overall lack of security in networks puts us all at risk of becoming a target. 
As for now, not unlike the arms race of the cold war, every body is planning and looking for weakness but no one wants to make the first move knowing that an attack would like be answer to the Nth level. The cyberworld is still a bit more tricky because of the pseudo anonymity. The attacker must be identified before any reply and that may not be easy to do. 

Social Media in an Orwellian world

In his classic novel "1984", Georges Orwell presented a dystopian world where everyone was watch at all time by the all knowing Big Brother. This entity controlled the though of all citizen ensuring the good of the society.
The witty writer would have marvel at the social media networks and ubiquity of surveillance in our world. All for the sake of security, all major communications an social tools are subjected to government "spying". The government does not intervene as strongly as in the novel, still it is scary to see how our information can be use against the population. 
Often more aggressive than governments are the corporations that profile online users to present the best marketing strategy. Just by looking at the "likes" of someone on Facebook, it is possible to deduce some personality traits. From there a marketer can build a solid profile by looking at the purchases made, items searched in the last month, etc.
With almost every online activities logged, what your are looking for can easily be determined. The catch is that almost everyone willingly grant access to all that information. No one is forced to "post", "search", "like", etc. online. We do it to be part of something bigger. To be recognized by our peers, to be "in". And quite often we like having the right advertisement at the right time. Who cares how they guessed what I need if it save me the hassle of searching.

Twitter Chat

I must confess, of all the social tools the most incomprehensible for me was Twitter. Granted, I am not a fan of any social tool, I can still find my way around most of them to find something interesting for me. But Twitter was still a mystery to me. I understood the basic principle that is: someone write a short post to his followers. They can then reply or forward the post.
That was it for me. Beyond that I was clueless.  

Not anymore.

Looking for some interesting topics on groups in social media I came across TwitterChat. These are scheduled chats on Twitter where you can interact live with people interested in the chat subject. The chats are moderated by a host and gives the opportunity to meet new people. During the chat you can asked question or reply to others question. The idea is to share and discuss on a specific topic. It is a very dynamic group as it vary from chat to chat.

The tricky part is to find an active TwitterChat. I found an interesting one #contentchat that was having place this afternoon. The chat was moderated by Erika Heald @SFerika ‏ and had many participants. Some asked questions while others answered or commented on the post. In all the experience was interesting and I think this kind of social group is very effective by its dynamic nature and heterogeneous composition depending of the subject.

Wikileaks

In the turmoils of fake news and media blaming, one site still keeps bringing the truth.
Wikileaks was build to unveil the the truth about back office deals and hidden agenda of political groups around the world.
It is paradoxical that one of the most respected site and awarded for its transparency and openness about the source is aiming to make state secrets public. In this case, the credibility of the site is its main characteristic. All document posted on the site are thoroughly authenticate by multiple sources. Without this process, the site would lose the trust of its readers and its main goal.Still, it proves that even in an era of misinformation there is a way to promote truth and inspire trust.

"WireTrump"

More and more the use of social media to promote political agenda is eroding the trust in the online information. 

Earlier this month, president Trump accused the previous administration and president of wiretapping his phone line during the presidential campaign. While President Trump maintain the accusation, no proof have been presented. What would follow is a series of public exchanges and requests aiming at discrediting the other party. While it is common place in politics to claim and disclaim all sorts of pseudo fact, in the social world things are generally more subtle.
Don't get this wrong, there is plenty of false statements on social network but they don't affect a nation security nor they are officially framed to attack the previous president. By using the social network to manipulate the public opinion, President Trump, bypass the traditional news outlet and flood the public with posts that are both entertaining and political. The negative impact of this strategy is a diminished trust in information in the social network.
We live in a society where information is front and centre of everything. If we cannot trust the news media or our social network (friends, colleague, family, etc.) how to find the truth? It is necessarily somewhere hidden behind some lies.
A survey by Environics found last year that less than 30% of respondents trust the information on social network which not far behind the less than 50% for broadcasting news. Even if we know the information may be false, the message stick if it is repeated. A poll by the news channel WJHL hint at a 25% believing the president. This poll is on a voluntary base and may not well reflect the general opinion. Still 25% is a lot of people backing the president on an accusation for which he has provided no proof.

To comment or not comment

Since its beginning, blogs have been a way to communicate to people, get feedback and promote discussion. At first it was only logical, since blogs were, at the time, the option to replace old fashion BBS and Usenet. As time passed by, new tools emerged and the discussion migrated to more social tools than some simplistic comments to a blog. Nowadays, you want your comment to be instantly visible to all you network. Not just those reading the blog. And rightly so, if you commented, it's because you wished to convey an idea to the world. 

Furthermore, comments on a blog are challenging to manage and maintain because they must be moderated, cleaned, and so on. Removing them is a bit of relief but you still want a way to interact.

What can a blogger do?

More and more we see news outlet replacing the comment section on their blogs by pointing to other social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. This way, they can reach more people and even create a buzz. This approach is only the natural evolution of the blog positioning itself in the social web universe. It serves to present an opinion or a position while somehow backing it with other sources of reference. A blog is richer than a Tweet or Facebook post. It is more structured. 

To get to your readership you must levied all the networking power of social media. It is through those channels that you relate to your audience. This should be reciprocal.