The Crazy Social Media, Inside-Lost and Happy

8/8/2019 The Crazy Social Media, Inside-Lost and Happy

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The Crazy Social Media

Inside, Lost & Happy...

By Vinod Narayanhttp://facebook.com/vinodn

http://twitter.com/vinodn

http://linkedin.com/in/vinodn

http://vinodnarayan.tumblr.com

http://www.vinodnarayan.com

http://vinodnarayan.tumblr.com/


http://www.vinodnarayan.com/

http://www.vinodnarayan.com/







http://facebook.com/vinodn

http://facebook.com/vinodn



Table of Contents

Introduction! 3

Structuring An Evolution! 5

Connections To Networks! 7

Visible But Transparent! 9

Advertise, Please Don’t Irritate...! 11

“Show us the Money” - Businesses! 14

Culture Is The Culprit! 16

Personalities Should Coexist! 18

Time Travel!

20Influencing What You Don’t Buy! 22

The Profits In A Social Change! 24

Vinod Narayan! The Crazy Social Media



1. Introduction

I am no Social Media expert, I believe no one is. It is tooyoung to claim expertise on, not yet in my view. But as I

saw it grow it has become an integral part of life, so

important that many relate the phenomenon to other basic

needs like walking, thinking, talking, seeing and more.

This paper explores some random often crazy thoughts

that come up in a Social Media debate at least in my mind,

Some might sound philosophical and some may sound

nonsense (at least Now) , Some arguments I

apologetically found weird myself after reading them but

still including them to save time from editing

There are countless books being written on social media,

but the fact is every new book has its relevance and it is

still difficult to claim to be an expert in the field. And this

is why...

1. Social Media still has a long way to go

2. Businesses are always researching how to use it




3. New users are exploring it daily

4. Existing users are exploring new things Daily

5. New products in social media are released often6. New ideas are debated every day

7. The more you know the more the unknown

Social media today is not what it will be tomorrow and it

is going to maintain this dynamic nature at least for quitesome time as I would expect. So everyone who practices it

are in reality researchers all contributing to finding ways

to use and reuse it for one need or other.

It took years for man to bring his intelligence together to

make a wheel or a pulley, Social media might not be an

invention of the same stature but will definitely make

future innovation happen at a blazing speed. Social Media

will bring collaborative intelligence to race towards

solutions to every day problems

This paper is written to pen down views that exist now in

a tiny brain but with the power of the social media can be




sent out into the open so that intelligence external to the

one that created this paper can debate, accept or refute it.

Every aspect of this paper is out for debate and it needs

the readers help as we are passing an age when collective

effort is the only thing that will change the world for the

better

2. Structuring An Evolution

“Structuring something that is still evolving is like locking in

the shape of an amoeba”

And the way this paper is structured is that it is

unstructured in all sense.

It was never intended to be written in a structured

manner. Some might find it to be abstract and some times

too noisy with lot of information passing through withouta beginning and an end. But then Social Media for the

common eye is nothing but Noise scattering on the Net. It

is unformed at least for now




This paper was written in 3 hours in one sitting with

another hour for the front page and one more hour in

simple editing.

This is purely intentional as this is the way today’s Social

Media works. You are thrown into an open world with

people making noises, winks, gestures, unknown

linguistics, masked faces and everything else that can

drive the sane mind insane.

But below all these noise we all believe there lies some

very useful information and we all know that or we all

have a gut feeling about it. Here begins our journey to

finding ways to be part of this noise, build a conversation,find a meaning, connect and start relating to personal or

business gratification.

When we talk about Social Media, or when we try

researching about it the first ability that we feel over selvesneeding is the ability to look at something from outside

but by being inside and actively participating in it.




Weird though, how can one be inside something and yet

look at it from outside?

Well interestingly Social Media by its sheer nature enables

this ability in us

Feel free to email me and I can assure you that your

comments will not get lost in the noise and that I will do

my efforts best to reply back promptly.

3. Connections To Networks

“Connection is not the key element now, it is the network that

brings out the spice and the pace at which your connections

grow into a network”

Very obvious and any kid knows that Social Media helps

you connect with one another. But that is only Social

Networking which is just one role or benefit of the Media.

When you hear the word connection you think about both

one to one and one to many connections. But the








You become transparent in the Social media. Social Media

makes you two things at the same time Visible and

Transparent.

Visible because you get to be in front of more people,

communicate with more in real time and let the world

know what you think and exist for every day. Transparent

because social media can enable people to look through

you and into you, into your thinking, your aspirations and

bits and pieces of your past.

People like visibility but often dread transparency. The

fact is simple, we always feel there are things about us that

even we are not consciously aware of and don't wantpeople to know about and our actions in the open often

leave its footprints and people could trace us straight to

who we are

The optimistic view to this, is that a transparent world inthe course of time helps us to be devoid of fear. This also

enables people to be truthful and not phony.




It might take time before the social media can imbibe the

much needed openness into many of the people but it will

come one day.

Privacy is a different argument and debate and the

thoughts on that is of individual standing and much

beyond the scope of this paper and so I will probably talk

about it later. After really figuring out how I would

respond to an invasion and what is it that I call privacy for

myself.

In short, Visibility comes at the cost of transparency, but it

is a good cost to pay in the long run

5. Advertise, Please Don’t Irritate...

“I want you to advertise what you have but don’t block my way

and tell me what I should buy”

One big pain that many users feel of being transparent is

that they become subjects to the aggressive advertising

tactics of product and service pushers. While we all want




to buy things to support our life in this planet we always

love to be in control. In control of what we should like and

not.

The feeling that we are intelligent enough to make choices

and that a channel to an opinion is all we need and not a

opinion thrust on us every day we walk out of our home

Social Media usage is much like leaving your home for an

evening walk and if you encounter on street solicitation it

is going to kill the fun of the walk. We are ok with the

hoardings on the sidewalks and posters on some buildings

as long as they don’t obstruct our path and be a distraction

to the fun we get out of walking.

We never feel bad about the advertisements that you see

on Google search results on the top and sides. But we

would if google keeps popping advertisements on us and

taking time out of the valuable time we spend in the questfor information. The solution is evident, we should have

advertising that don’t kill the fun of using the social

media.






6. “Show us the Money” - Businesses

“It is profit that matters but in the process of profitingbusinesses change the way we function and many times for the

good”

Advertisements are a key for business and if companies

can’t see a value in Social Media that enables them in branding and bringing actual monetary value on to the

table it will suck. The result is that cash inflow into many

of these social media providers will stop.

Though Social Media started as a place for individuals to

connect it has fast become a choice for businesses to

connect with their prospects, customers and partners.

While advertisement is one way to get their name out to

you the media itself brings a horde of ways for businesses

to leverage the network.

Here is where we need structure to the noise. When

people discuss anything from their dreams to interests to

thoughts and even daily activities and where there are at a




said moment, the real valuable information as businesses

see it gets lost in the commotion.

Businesses are striving hard to find a way to know who all

in this million users are their prospects NOW. They are

also trying to find which in this zillion conversations are

relevant to them. While traditional marketing is meeting

social media marketing at many points, business is not yet

able to hold it from all corners and pick it and put it into

their marketing value proposition blindly.

The business world needs more products and innovative

ideas to use the social media other than irritating every

single user with advertisements

For example Facebook should ask third parties to build

more marketing apps on FB so business can leverage them

on a paid basis

My take is that no system out there is perfect and this is

not a flaw because they are all on a learning path and




evolving. Same is the reason why so many campaigns fall

flat on face than succeed.

And again one successful campaign when repeated does

not give the same success always. But Why?....

7. Culture Is The Culprit

“If you can’t make a head or tail of a behavior then try learning

the culture”

The Social Media creates a culture or a whole bunch of

cultures in which people exist. Each group or fan page has

the power to form a culture.

How this is different from the culture we see in this world

is that in social media people don’t belong to one culture

but to multiple cultures. And above all they knowingly

and unknowingly opt in and out of cultures.

When you start looking at groups as cultures you see

much more into the behavior of the group members and




this will form the base of understanding and drilling

much into what people want.

One another thing for campaigns to fail as I said in the last

section is that people change cultures and allegiance

without knowing. The time in a culture can be as short as

a few hours to as long as the persons social media life. So

your target is changing shape and structure and it is

different from what you campaigned last.

Also cultures overlap and people are members of

contradicting cultures as well. It is a jungle where rules are

made by the day, by the hour.

We have seen people like a particular best interest

campaign but then post or comment positively on a video

that conveys a totally opposite message.

Many of these are not intentional as people respond free ly

and what you see in the social media footprints is what

the user feels then and there at that moment. It is not

calculated, but it is instant served straight from the heart.






effect this change. In the social media world this happens

much instantly.

People enter the social media world as a user who has a

personality that resembles the same as that of the real

person. But once they get active in the social media the

world around them start changing at a much faster pace

than in real world.

One minute you are put in front of a funny video and next

you see read some sad news and then comes a motivating

quote and finally a long lost friend send you a request. In

a matter of 5 minutes the person becomes 5 different

personalities based on the information he accesses

When he sees the videos and reads the posts he is creating

a virtual connection with two entities. Firstly the person

who created the post or video and secondly with all the

people who see or read the same. A new instance of aculture gets created which is interconnected. May be for a

short period but it does come into existence.




With the ongoing usage of social media these personalities

are born, then some go dormant and some die off. But in

all these places the user connects himself with manythings that his real life does not permit or have access to.

The result is the creation of a different identity. A different

identity but one that has multiple personalities.

This identity can travel in time, exist in multiple places

and take any shape or form, think much differently and is

truly multifaceted. So are the possibilities and

opportunities.

9. Time Travel

“Before we travel to the future let us find a way to travel to the

past.”

Time Travel has always fascinated me, and I am sure manyof you. But as we grow old we learn to know the facts and

realize that seeing that in this life time might be

impossible. Social Media is the nearest I can get to time




travel as I have experienced. But it only allows you to

travel back in time and not into the future.

This might sound weird but be with me a few minutes and

let me explain. Social media connects us with people in

our past in a way that could have never been possible. It

rejuvenates our memory cords and spices them with many

information that we never knew at those times.

A group of old friends who chat and share information

often as they want take us back in time. As we experience

every single social action in the group we experience a

part of our past.

The interesting part is that when someone discusses about

an event in the past that we were not involved with we

still start recreating the past even if we were not physically

present in that place but then through the conversations

and interactions with the groups we become part of it.

I have personally been able to go back in time to my

school days to the very class room I sat and see what




happened in the bench behind me. Though not as often as

I want because I always use to sit in the last bench.

We also realize how much our past has influenced us in

the present and how much our future will be influenced

by this present.

This gives way to a thought that much in life is subject to

influence internal or external

10. Influencing What You Don’t Buy

“I buy what i am influenced, but I don't necessarily influence

what I buy”

The buyer in the real world is a great influencer in the

virtual world, interestingly not for the same products he

or she buys.

This can be a very useful information for businesses and

product evangelists. People buy something because they

like it or they are influenced. People influence someone




else to buy something not for the same reasons that they

buy.

The reason of influence is often in the ability or the power

to influence. This is very true or else you wont have

celebrities become brand ambassadors. And in the social

media world every one is or can be a celebrity.

We all have the power of influence and so we all hold the

responsibility to make the right influence. So personally I

would suggest that we all have a control on what and

whom we can influence.

For businesses it is the buyer they always target, but it isthe influencer who will send their prospect to the store

and make him or her buy. Understanding the influencer in

a social media is much tougher and so now businesses

have a challenge once they figure how to understand the

buyer.

The effort into understanding the social media behavior is

a point where academics and business intersects. Fields of




study in the human behavior have stepped into the social

media scene with behavioral scientists trying to see what

makes people do what they do in the social media

While businesses spend loads of money into researching

having the profit in mind, it also brings lot of benefits to

the users of the media as it is funding the development of

a platform and branch of communication that can be used

for much greater good than just profits

11. The Profits In A Social Change

“The profits in contributing to a social change is the change

itself”

Though I can touch on many topics on how I see social

media, since I have a limited time and bills to pay and

stake holders to make happy, I will end this up with

something that I feel is the one most important use of theSocial media for those using and not using it




Social media is changing the way people think about

things around them. It is changing not just their way of

thinking but also giving every individual the power totake action on what they believe in

Sites such as www.change.org and www.idealist.org are

using the power of social media to make a difference and

everyone who is in these groups are in turn contributing

to the change.

The concept of a change differs among people. Individuals

support different causes, some align with each other while

some are quite opposite. But when totally unknown

people who don’t know each other and come fromcompletely different backgrounds and communicate as

plain human beings, and rally for a change that happens is

definitely for the good.

With Social media the concept of giving back just got morepowerful, bigger and a lot more sexier than before.

*******************

http://www.change.org/

http://www.idealist.org/

http://www.idealist.org/



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The Crazy Social Media, Inside-Lost and Happy