In April, KIND Snacks launched a video on YouTube about “The Social Media Bubble.”
While some of us may still receive a newspaper on our doorstep, most of us now find our news on our phones and tablets. Whether we go to the sites we trust or click on links our friends share on Facebook and Twitter, we generally read only the news we agree and dismiss the news we don't.
The Social Media Bubble is our own world of searching for the news we want to read about from the people who we trust. Go ahead sign in and see ...
who you like …
follow … and,
what you share.
Chances are, you will find more people LIKE you, reading content that interests you, and articles that you believe are true.
Your bubble is your own world, full of people just like you. Outsiders are mocked, dismissed or scorned on social media, if their views don’t mesh with yours or mine.
Do you think you are in a social media bubble?
Try to scroll through the people you are following and see if you disagree with anyone …
Do the same on Facebook.
These are the same people we are watching to see what is trending on line.
Today, Facebook and Twitter have replaced our morning paper. It is the first thing that many of us check in the morning or while we wait in line.
Not only is it becoming the primary source of news, the news is following the President’s 140-character Tweets to drive the news cycle.
Why? According to a recent article in The New York Times, “When journalists see a story getting big on Twitter, they consider it a kind of responsibility to cover it, even if the story may be an alternate frame or a conspiracy theory.”
Farhad Manjoo from The New York Times recently wrote about how Twitter is being used to feed misinformation. In fact, in the past month, we saw a news agency that was hacked causing a global crisis with Qatar and bogus report on former FBI Director Corey amplified by a Tweet.
In business, all we have is our reputation, so what happens when somebody is spreading misinformation about you, but you don’t know about it since you are in your bubble.
It’s time you let me burst your bubble and help find people who are different than you.
In today’s social media-driven world, we need to monitor what is being said about you, your business and your industry. Google Alerts work but there are other tools and resources that need to work harder.
In addition to monitoring the media (digital and traditional), it is now important to tell stories, to help the truth stick. Upworthy’s Jennifer Lindenauer, recently spoke in Detroit at Sustainable Brands. There she said, “facts fade, stories stick.”
But the stories that will stick will soon be pushed to you now that Apple recently announced its Apple News will be updated to show top stories that are more relevant to you. In fact, Siri already learns what’s important to you and suggests stories you might like.
At the same conference in Detroit, Annie Longsworth of the Siren Agency, spoke of how she watches news outlets showing both sides. At the Detroit event she said, “I think it’s really, really important that we understand lots of issues from lots of different perspectives. And it makes me understand that people who have a different set of beliefs than I do, feel as passionately about them as I do.”
It is time we build bridges through social media and connect with people who may be different than you or I -- Not build walls. We need to start to follow and read what others are saying, even if we disagree with them. If we don’t we will miss an opportunity to catch any misinformation that will lead to a bad decision or ultimately affect your reputation.
