I’m really enjoying 5 Ways Social Media is Changing Our Daily Lives by Soren Gordhamer, which I found via my Google Reader, which was posted to Mashable.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot of late. How I discover, read, share and distribute information has changed in the past two years, and it continues to evolve. As a marketer this energizes me. I then begin to think: How do I capture what I am doing personally, so that I can interpret this for others, namely, my law firm?
In his blog post, Soren identified the following five areas where social media is changing our lives:
- Where we get our news
- How we start and do business
- How we meet and stay in touch with people
- What we reveal
- What we can influence
Here’s how these five categories are impacting me.
Where we get our news: Personally, I start my work day with scanning the major cable news channels (MSNBC, CNN, FOX) as well as some political blogs and a couple news aggregators. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a newspaper. I then hop over to my Google Reader to see what the blogs I follow are reporting on. I have these all categorized: General news, insurance industry news, marketing, legal industry, and more. I want to know what our competitors are saying, so I track their blogs as well.
I then check my Twitter feed where I track more news agencies, reporters, bloggers and the like. I then check to see what my most influential group of leaders, friends and colleagues are saying, posting, retweeting, linking, reading, etc.
I do all of this in about 30 minutes. I then spot check this several times throughout the day.
How we start and do business: I know a lot of companies are turning to social media more and more to redistribute their content, and my firm is no different. While I have “owned” this behavior for The Legal Watercooler, I am now migrating the best practices over to my firm.
How we meet and stay in touch with people: First thing I do every day is check my Facebook and Twitter. I want to see what my friends and close colleagues are up to. Sometimes it’s the fun tidbits of what is happening in their lives, but they are also passing along information, links, and other knowledge-based information that I can use throughout my day.
(as a side note, my Facebook page is limited to my friends, not “friends.” I need to have already established a personal relationship with you before I invite you into that world, or accept your invitation. I have pictures of my kids in there …. I always feel bad ignoring invites, but c’est la vie.)
What we reveal: On the natch, I’m a pretty private person and pretty much anti-social. I prefer to be home reading a book than attending any type of social event. I am amazed at how easy it has been for me to reveal parts of myself via social media and social networking. In turn, I have found that it has softened me in face-to-face interactions, as well. I’m still not 100% comfortable in social situations, but I can fake it really, really well.
What we can influence: This is what amazes me the most. By building a networking and establishing trust, I am able to be heard and influence in a very noisy environment. I track and watch how people find me, retweet my messages, click through a link, or link to my blog. I have developed new relationships, and have found myself well regarded by many. This has been humbling, as all I really wanted to do, when I started this blog, is have a conversation.