Revolution by YouTube and Dating Websites

Revolutionaries in Libya knew that the government and police would be monitoring Facebook and Twitter for signs of any plots against the government through planned demonstrations. In true human spirit, in the face of diversity, the anti-government forces found a way around the eyes that were watching them. By using the most popular dating website in the Middle East, they were able to share information that stirred up the spirit of revolution.

Messages in the form of poetry with opposing opinions, references to Jasmine - for the Jasmine Revolution, and making statements about wanting love (when really meaning wanting liberty), the revolutionaries quickly spread dissent and encouragement throughout the nation. Videos taken at demonstrations proving that Qaddafi's forces are killing innocent protestors have appeared on YouTube. The nation that has been ruled by an iron-fisted despot for over forty years may soon be taken down through a dating website. What has taken decades to accomplish in the past, has taken social networking weeks to accomplish.

Click Here for Amateur YouTube Video

Corporate Offices use Facebook to Connect

As I've stated in previous blogs, I work for Northwestern Mutual. I've noticed how they have started to use their Facebook fan page more to their advantage. Almost every day they are creating a new post. These posts have several ways to engage Facebook users with Northwestern Mutual's fan page. For instance, during the Super Bowl they updated several times with new statuses in regards to cheering for Green Bay. This would attract any Football fans to their page. The evening before the game they even posted this picture:

This image alone had people talking around the office all day! They also have different quizzes that people can take indicating if they are spending their money wisely or if they should be saving more. With 6,961 fans, Northwestern Mutual is definitely heading in the right direction to growing their exposure through the internet. Because Northwestern Mutual operates mainly on a referral basis, as more people suggest that people "like" their page, they will continue to grow and have more name recognition in the social media community.

They also try to engage the younger individuals by posting Youtube videos, such as this one.

Networking for Financial Companies

While reading chapter 7 in the book, "Blogging to Drive Business," I began thinking of my company Facebook page. The Ruhl Financial Group is a branch of the Northwestern Mutual Financial Network working in the financial services industry. A few months ago, we created a fan page in order to draw more family, friends, and other members of the community to our network. We wanted the community to know that we are an organization within the area that are able to help people manage their finances as well as offer paid internships and full-time career opportunities.

We began posting pictures, updating statuses of newly employed financial representatives, and even noticed one person had commented on our page with a testimony. We wanted our clients and coworkers to feel more connected by utilizing this page for updates. If you visit the fan page, you will notice that it was created in July and we have not had regular activity since we started the page.

In our management meetings, we expressed our concerns of updating the page too often, and causing people to have a negative feel for our organization and even "unliking" the page, as stated in the book "Blogging to Drive Business." Recently, we decided to have one main person held responsible for updating our status with news articles and events that the company is involved in. We recently had a softball tournament between all of the local Northwestern Mutual offices and my immediate office won the championship!

If we begin updating our page with current business news, news about the company, and different activities that the office is involved in, I think we can really network through the internet and this will allow us to have higher name recognition within the local community.

Check us out on Facebook! Go ahead and "like" our page!

LinkedIn, Quietly Powerful

It is no secret that MySpace began as a social networking mechanism for younger people and was used mainly by middle schoolers, high schoolers, and their predators and monitors. Facebook began as the college alternative and spread like wildfire. Although Facebook has certainly attracted people of all ages across the world, it is socially a very casual mechanism of sharing.

Professionals now have an alternative, and although they certainly don't make the news much, they are silently growing in unbelievable numbers. Starting in 2003, LinkedIn grew to a million members in 494 days. By 2011, LinkedIn has almost 250 million members across the world adding a million every 12 days. It's like a huge pyramid scheme - without any losers. In a professional, but sometimes casual format, professionals can share ideas, job opportunities, promotions, and events.

Like any social networking site, LinkedIn is an inexpensive way to share information to colleagues, partners, and those who would benefit by receiving it. . . no trips to the copy store, no expensive mailings, no un-received mail. Unemployed? Check out your LinkedIn contacts. Hate your job? Try LinkedIn for ideas. Need a reference? The people who know your work the best are right at your finger tips. . . all without the family and friend drama.

Have you tried LinkedIn? What have your experiences been like?

I recently joined LinkedIn myself and I'm looking to grow my network, feel free to add me: Laura's LinkedIn

Do you Flaunt Him/Her or is it a Secret?

With Valentine’s Day a day away, statistics were taken from Facebook and Myspace users about their love life. Why do some people list their relationship status and some don’t? Are they embarrassed of their significant other? Do they not want their friends and family to know? Or do they keep their life so personal that they don’t want the entire Facebook world to know about their business unless they are close friends with the person?

Some popular answers to these questions were “That is my business,” “He asked me not to,” “Relevant people already know,” and “So when I’m single I don’t have to change it.” For those that answered, “So when I’m single I don’t have to change it,” they should really rethink the reason they’re in a relationship and maybe they’d be better off single.

Many people who are on Facebook and Myspace love to flaunt their significant other, by posting pictures and constantly updating their Facebook status with things like, “Movie night with the boy friend,” or “Walking on the beach with my fiancé.”

Statistics show that 14% of people who are single, 18% of people that are dating, and 17% of people that are engaged, do not show a relationship status. 35% of people who are in a relationship, and do not list their status, is really high! I would think that those in a relationship would want to show it off and let it be known. I think the 14% of people who are single and don’t reveal it, just don’t want to publicize that they are single and “looking,” maybe they just want to “play the game” and keep guys/girls wondering what’s the story behind them.

According to the movie “The Social Network,” Mark Zuckerberg knew he needed to add one more thing to Facebook before he could launch it…. a relationship status! Everyone wants to know whether their friends and crushes are single or taken. Many people search Facebook daily just waiting for the one they love to break up with their significant other so they can swoop in and snatch them up. So what kind of person are you…. Do you list your relationship status? Whether single or taken? Or do you leave it up to everyone else to play the game and figure it out?

Keeping Your Private Information, "Private"

Have you ever wanted to add an old teacher on Facebook? How about a coworker? Or even your boss? How about adding your mom?! Many people steer clear of adding these people because they want their personal lives to be kept private... not necessarily because they are doing anything "wrong" or "bad" but because they deserve to live their own lives and not have everyone hovering over their shoulders and examining their every move (that's usually a mom thing).

In one of my past blogs I explained how annoyed and aggravated I am with Facebook's invasion of privacy. Well, I came across this article that tells you the 10 settings you need to know about in order to remain private.

One of them explains how you can create "Lists" and this allows you to customize all of your settings to each list. For instance, if I create a list named "Work Friends" I can then go in and block my coworkers from viewing certain photos or other information. You can even block friends from viewing and commenting on your Wall.

Now, all of this is great if you don't want to offend someone by "ignoring" their add request just because you don't want them to see certain pictures of you (on those crazy Friday nights out), but some people can take the lists to an extreme. I had a coworker who friend requested me and then blocked me from viewing EVERYTHING on his Facebook! I couldn't even see which friends we had in common... the only thing I saw was his profile picture. What's the point in adding someone as a friend if you can't even connect with him? And the funny thing is, it's only been a few weeks and he is already trying to friend request me again!

Facebook is meant to be a good way to connect with friends, family, teachers, and coworkers. If you are using your privacy settings in a limited manor then I don't see anything wrong with it, but you don't want to block people out so much where they can't even comment or write on your wall. Those are all of the positive things about Facebook, everyone loves to see "Sally Sue wrote on your wall" or "Brad Smith commented on your photo." We all love the attention. If you have a Facebook, use it for the purpose it was created for... connecting with people!

Blogging to Keep Families Connected

Just decades ago, the internet wasn’t even a thought. Now, the internet is the most common means of communication. When loved ones were in the military and stationed overseas, the only way they were able to keep in touch with family and friends was to hand write letters. For someone with a big family, writing individual letters to each family member could be tedious and time consuming. Now, within minutes, they can type up a letter and with one click of a button, the message is sent to all family and friends.

My brother went to the United States Naval Academy and when he graduated, he was stationed in Japan for two years, then the Gulf, and is now in South Korea. Phone calls are very costly and would reach only one or two at a time; and with the major time difference it makes it very difficult to keep in touch. So my brother decided to open his own blog. He wrote about the many sites he got to see while he was in other countries. At least once a week, he gave us an update on his life and the things that were going really well for him and the things that he had concerns about. We really got to experience his heart instead of what he could have shared in a 2 minute conversation from a bad connection in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The whole family was able to read his blog and feel as if we were right there with him, experiencing all of it together. He took a trip to Nikko and posted this picture:

It looks like a gorgeous place. My brother's blog created a way of central communication between him and the family. We were able to comment on the things that he wrote and discuss it with the rest of the family. Without my brother's blog, we may have had to wait long periods of time for a phone call, that we would risk missing if we were not home at the time he called. We wouldn't have had such a great way to keep in touch with his new experiences in a new place.

Has the "Social Network" Destroyed MySpace?

Today, News Corp announced that they will be selling one of the social media websites, MySpace. I was one of the original users of MySpace many years ago. I remember getting so excited when receiving friend requests, updating statuses, and moods with the many different types of smiley faces. MySpace was a mixture of Facebook and blogging. Your friends could comment on your page as well as read about your life and what was on your mind.

It has changed so much since then. MySpace became a world of spam, harassing friend requests, music fan pages, and advertisements everywhere. It became a very unpleasant place to visit each day. I decided to discontinue the use of social media networks, although I did not terminate by account with MySpace, I was just an inactive user. While writing this blog, I decided to take a look at my account. I signed in and it looked completely different then the last time I had used it! I didn't even know where to start exploring! There were music video advertisements and the tabs at the top, which allowed you to access your page to make changes, add friends, etc., were very small. I decided to cancel my account and it took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to cancel it!

Freshmen year of college, I decided to try Facebook... I loved it! It was nothing like MySpace. Although Facebook has many things I dislike about it today, there are rarely any pestering friend requests from "creepy" guys that you have never met and the users of Facebook are genuinely there to reconnect with friends.

I believe that Facebook has done everything right to keep the users they currently have and to draw in new users each day. Many users of Facebook are actually addicted to visiting the site! They cannot go one week, one day, even one hour without checking to see if their friends have commented on their page or what everyone else is doing at that moment.

MySpace has big shoes to fill, even with these upcoming renovations, I find it hard to believe that they will ever become a large social media network again.