Top Ten Favorite Social Media Tools For Daily Use

There are many online tools I use every single day to manage my social media marketing effectiveness.

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Twitter Buys TweetDeck in $50 million

Microblogging site Twitter has acquired social media client TweetDeck for upto $50 million, says a report. 

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Teen Brains Susceptible to Facebook

Teen Brains Susceptible to Facebook

96% of College students use Facebook... when you think about that statistic, it's amazing, but not surprising since this generation is highly energized by technology. "Well-balanced youth often use these sites to further enhance the positive relationships they already have," according to University of Virginia psychologists. But there's a downside for others...

Teens who have behavioral problems and difficulty making friends, or who are depressed, may be more inclined to use social media in negative and sometimes aggressive ways, or not to use such sites at all.

Teens are spending a lot of time hooked up and average of 6 hours a day, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Parents, researchers and educators are trying to figure out what all these hours plugged in are doing to their brains.

The teenage brain is an unfinished product," explains David Walsh, psychologist and author of Why Do They Act that Way? A Survival Guide to the Adolescent Brain for You and Your Teen In the teenage years, says Walsh, one of the major circuits that's developing is the prefrontal cortex. 'The circuits that are under construction during the teen years have to do with impulse control, management of aggression, emotional regulation, self regulation a lot of executive functions of the brain," he says.

It's also the reason teenagers are famous for having to pull all-nighters, not thinking through the consequences of downloading porn onto mom's computer, or piercing their tongues. That's because the prefrontal cortex also handles planning, reasoning and social skills, says Jordan Grafman, who heads the cognitive neuroscience section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. "It's what makes us human," he says and because it's still developing, "it's very susceptible to trends and changes that happen during the adolescent years."

The amazing infographic below mirrors these findings visually as it reveals Facebook's good and bad impact on high school and college age youth.

Infographic on overall Facebook user stats:


Via: Online Education

HOW TO SHOW SELECTED FRIENDS OR GROUPS ON FACEBOOK YOUR PROFILE

In addition to your general list of friends, you can choose to feature specific friends (e.g., best friends, roommates or coworkers) or groups you're a member of in the left column of your profile.

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HOW TO REMOVE PHOTOS AT TOP OF FACEBOOK PROFILE

To Remove the photos on the top your profile page from appearing , roll over the mouse over photo and click "x" on the right corner of photo which you want to delete or hide. 

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TWITTER REJECTED $10BILLION OFFER FROM GOOGLE

Social networking created a huge amount of money. First Google offer buying to Facebook, Facebook rejected. Now another social networking big giant Twitter rejected Google offer of a huge amount of money $10billion.

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SMALL BUSINESSES GOING TO SOCIAL MEDIA FOR FREE ADVERTISING

Social networking sites creating a huge excitement to small business owners for advertising their small brands in big social marketing world.

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Daily Social MediaTeasers Snag You?

Ever hit a formidable wall once you begin to write? If I’m writing with great inspiration, I’m highly motivated to stick with the topic and further insights seem to keep coming to mind. Writing flows easily.

On the other hand, if I’m writing because I need to, I often begin, but distractions fill my mind, which keep taking me elsewhere. In this highly charged social media era, many tempters like email, Twitter or Facebook tease me to take just a quick peek. Before I realized it I'm snagged for half an hour.  The time slips away!

Piers Steele, University of Calgary psychology professor in the Haskayne School of Business on procrastination explains this phenomenon in a recent interview for The Toronto Star:

We’ve always tended to go for the short-term pleasure instead of something more rewarding but longer term. So we do a lot of things like Facebook or video snacking at the cost of long-term and larger goals. What predicts procrastination is not just who you are, but also your environment — the amount of temptation around you. We now live in a world supersaturated with powerful short-term temptations. Our environment has become motivationally toxic.

Steel, author of The Procrastination Equation (2011), has analyzed why we habitually put things off...  They are:

1. Confidence in your ability to finish a task. The less confident you are, the harder it is to get motivated.
2. Rewards you get as you work on the task. If it’s boring, your mind slides off the task.
3. Rewards not experienced until task is complete.

But that's not all...  he’s researched ways we can train ourselves to choose today over mañana. Steel suggests strategies to help you overcome each temptation that may snare you. Intriguingly, all might overwhelm you at once...

1. Low confidence - "...Take cues for what is possible by watching what other people do. Inspiration and confidence tend to be contagious. If you hang out with people who are positive and doing things, it’s easier to be infected." 
2. If you hate the task - You can artificially pack some rewards for yourself at the end for completing the work. Or you can mentally reframe it. You don’t like cleaning your house, but you like socializing with friends. So you reframe it: I want an inviting place for my friends. You add extra motivational oomph from seeing the task from a better angle.

Put your mirror neurons to work since as you try using the same tactics as people who inspire you, the doing of rewires your brain as you sleep that night. When you try using the tactic again it becomes much easier for you.  Later you can add your own special touches to it.

Another method you might consider comes from Peter Gollwitzer's "If-Then planning" strategy. For those of us who always slide off course when we list a New Year's resolution, it's often because we make these fairly general. You might say, for instance, you want to exercise more to lose some pounds.

"For starters, it's not nearly specific enough," Heidi Grant Halvorson (Feb. 2011) points out. "You would need to say what exercise you plan to do and how often per week you plan to do it. "The if-then version of this plan spells out exactly what you will do in the critical situation."

Halvorson shows the formula in a way that's easily remembered:

If X happens, then I will do Y.

These plans work so well because they speak the language of your brain: the language of contingencies. Humans are very good at encoding information in "If X, then Y" terms and using this process (often unconsciously) to guide our behavior. Deciding exactly when and where you will act on your goal creates a link in your brain between the situation or cue (the if) and the behavior that should follow (the then).

I've already stayed on track when temptations hit, by saying the If-Then approach to important tasks I want to accomplish. If I picture myself at the end of a work day with a desk piled high with tasks undone and and incomplete To-Do list, I have to work later. Instead I picture myself reading a book I'm enjoying as I enjoy a cup of herbal tea.

Through mental contrasting, people can contrast a “desired future with the reality that impedes its realization…” (Oettingen, 2000). By thinking through these opposing realities, not only do people begin to problem solve what steps need to be taken to make the desired future happen, but also to avoid harsh realities in store when we're snagged by social media tempters.

Thoughts?

Experience Stimulating Conversations?

Rich conversations tickle the mind and challenge us to think in new ways.  Questions prime the well of ideas within the mind. Sharing insights from our knowledge and experience builds on others' contributions, and the bigger picture takes shape. People start considering solutions to a problem differently than when they first joined us.  Or, all of us learn more about why a person thinks as s/he does. 

Challenging exchanges of ideas might be just about life, philosophical in nature, show concern for worldwide issues or concerning latest science and technological innovations. Or it may be meeting new people and listening to what makes them tick.  Have you been engaged in a conversation lately that you hated to end because it was so fascinating?  Stimulation does not come by talking about the weather.

One of the reasons I love collaborating with Dr. Ellen Weber is that conversations we have about ideas keep me thinking and researching for hours.  Ellen has an uncanny ability to turn ideas upside down.  I suggested  that we extend our conversations to more people since they were so stimulating.  She caught that idea and invited many new people to her home.  She began to blog and she went so far as to join Twitter.  When I realized how much she seemed driven to exchange ideas with others, I tried my hand at it.  Nothing can turn me back since I experience the creativity and dopamine that accompanies it.

Social Media Turned the Tide of Conversation - Social media is changing the way we interact with others.  Many folks say they miss the engagement of personal conversation if they mostly engage others online. As a result it's not surprising for them to take a laptop to a cafe so they have an arena for personal and online conversations.  Our whole family is engaged in Facebook for instance and it's full of the latest photos and descriptions of events.  Business leaders find it an easy form to share their work and market their products.  Some can be both addicted to and distracted by these new community worlds.  But people enjoy these new worlds because they are engaging in challenging and powerful interactions with others.

MITA two-footed questions for starters Ellen invented the notion of a two-footed question to help people escape the kind of boring questions that are usually asked.  For instance, if you were to ask, "When it comes to storage, why is less more," the question does not connect to you personally because it is only about the topic.  It concentrates only on knowledge.

Not too surprisingly, if the second foot is inserted, the one that directly connects to you, all of a sudden your ideas are solicited and welcomed.  The question would now be: "When it comes to storage, why can less help you gain more and what difference does that make to you?"  The question now draws from intellect and experience.  You are emotionally attached to your experiences and more easily challenged.

Right and left brain

Ellen Weber notes that two-footed questions work best when you follow the human brain’s natural proclivity to resolve puzzles. The opposite is to stress over problems, and research shows that stressed brains rely more on habits that lock you into ruts, rather than progress with winning innovations.

The right brain leaps to solve puzzles and challenges since it is primed through curiosity.  On the other hand there are a few people who like to show off their knowledge and they are driven by trivia questions and TV shows such as, "Who Wants to Be a Billionaire?"  The left brain penetrates the knowledge.  The combination of both the right and left brain is the powerhouse available for you to test.

How might you engage in new conversations by asking two-footed questions at your dinner table tonight?  One might be, "How did you use your right and left brain today at work or school?"  Thoughts?

Infographics : Social Media Strategy

Author: Advanced Human Technologies Group

Social Networking Tops

Punkt - Croatian Geolocation Mobile App

Punkt.com.hr - Zagreb, - As a result of partnership between croatian microblogging specialist Five Minutes Ltd. and digital publisher Europe Digital ( EPH )
My account: @zec

Here's how it looks on iPhone:

Social Media Growth - April 2010

Facebook - YoY growth = 30 % ( 6,4 times more than twitter )
Twitter - YoY growth = 10 %

Your Brain on Trust

People take more action when you take more interest. #notrust Chris Brogan

Hmmm...  as I read Chris's statement, the following thoughts bulldozed through my head about "no trust":

• more money spent on software to keep hackers away
• car insurer notice to cancel policy because hubby had two minor accidents in snow, though they sell policy in snow belt
• high pressure telephone marketers wanting to move money from my pocket to theirs through manipulative talk
• e-mail pfishing
• social media account theft - viral crooks
• identity theft
• politicians who sit in Albany and Washington with more of their interests in mind than the people's they represent

Jim, a friend with a business start-up, encountered a slick businessman who kept his fee to himself until after a session explaining how he could market and double profitability.  Immediately after the session, the businessman promptly sent Jim a bill for $2,000, payable in 30 days.  Business friend advised Jim not to pay, when he took his problem to them.  He held tight.  Unbelievably, he was sent a notice to appear in court for non-payment.  Jim was advised this time to go to court and take what evidence he had.  Jim held firm, went to court, and the judge dismissed the case, and ordered the businessman to pay the court fees.  I wonder how many in Jim's shoes pay up because of fear.

A lot of folks take interest in our ability to get ahead and make money, but who's interest do they have in mind?  As you can see, I've developed a level of skepticism...  and I'd like to tackle that.

Are you curious as to how how trust is formed in people's brains.  Are people rewired for less trust because there appears to be more "snake oil" salesmen out there than there used to be? 

Two regions of the brain affect trust: the amygdala, which processes fear, danger and possibly risk of social betrayal; and an area of the striatum, part of the circuity that guides and adjusts future behavior based on reward feedback.  Swiss scientists found that oxytocin affects people's responses positively specifically related to trust.  Since our brains have great plasticity and can be rewired, I hope to rewire mine to be more open, yet careful, too. 

Our brains wire more easily for negative connections and these are harder to overcome, while positive connections are harder to create and tend to leave faster.  Why is this true?  Ellen Weber shows that

Fear tactics or stress over-stimulate the amygdala and excite the brain’s circuitry. Threats, for instance, increase dangerous cortisol chemicals and lower levels of serotonin, the adrenalin for well-being.

Not too surprisingly, first impressions count when you want to build a lasting trust, according to researcher Robert Lount.  He suggests a person forms a first impression and sticks to it, looking for future cues that are consistent with this first impression. 

In a recent study of people from 29 Asian countries shows that individuals with high levels of trust in the mass media tend to be healthier.  

These findings align with Steve Rubel's assessment that "trust in experts rises - social media and PR still win."  At the same time, however, trust in peers surprisingly dropped from 47% to 27%.

Rubel adds:

Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, you name it are by far the fastest and most effective ways for an any individual or a company to build a thought leadership footprint... All it means that we'll have to work harder to build credibility through online thought leadership. If you're doing this with scale, you will win.

The punchline:  All this means is less fluff and more substance.  And that's a good thing.

You can rewire your brain for more trust, though in these times it takes conscious focus and effort. Global companies see trust as a major focus today.   Are you working to establish trust as you take interest in others? 

I will listen to hear what others say and contemplate it...   You? 

How Does Writing Make Things Possible?

Writing a blog opened the world of others' ideas, leading me to reflect, sharpen, and place "two-bits" in a shining, moving and expanding Social Media galaxy.


Writing makes things possible.

Thoughts?

Community Wisdom - A Mosaic!

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. Woodrow Wilson

Thanks Twitter Followers for sharing your wisdom.

Get your twitter mosaic here.