IDENTITY ISSUES!

Are you the one your friends think you are, or do you hide your true identity?

As promised, in order to become ‘Liberated’, I have started to ‘pimp’ and use my Facebook profile. First, I needed to accept and add some of my friends to my Facebook page. Second, I needed to add a photo and some personal information such as; relationship, sports, music, movies, education, contact information, religion and political preference. Some of these questions made me wonder how people will fill them in. Do they tell about their ‘real’ religion or their ‘real’ political preference? Can you trust all the information that people fill in? For example; voting for the PVV is quite an ‘issue’ these days, does everyone fill in this information honestly?

Furthermore my profile’s picture, which one did I had to choose? Nobody wants to look ‘ugly’ on his or her Facebook’s profile picture, right? But how many times do you experience that someone looks very 'beautiful' on their social networking profile and when meeting the same person in real life it is a disappointment?

It made me think about the way I want to present and identify myself online. I did not want to pretend to be someone I am not, but I also wanted to present myself in a positive manner.  In class we learned that there are two types of identities in an online setting, namely: ‘Online identity’ and ‘Identity online’. At first you think what is the difference between the two is, but there is a big difference.  The first one ‘Online identity’ refers to conceptualization of the individual’s self-persona.  On websites like 'Second Life' and 'Habbo Hotel' people can develop a persona which is completely different than their offline persona.  Everything is possible; you can even swap gender.

The second ‘Identity online’ is an identification and self-presentation of the individual on the internet. For example; your personal profile on Facebook or Hyves. It has more or less an open character, because people have access to your personal information and photo’s. However, the honesty of these ‘open’ social networking sites is also questionable.

How do you present yourself online and what is your identity; an ‘Online identity’ or an ‘Identity Online’ or do you have both?  

Everybody on Facebook looks reliable because it has an open character, but is this social medium as honest as we all think? I do not know, but what I do know is that it is very popular and a lot of people use it to communicate with their friends. Clearly, people trust Facebook.

On the other hand, what I am I talking about. In offline settings we can also not randomly trust everybody. There are a lot of people who pretend to be something they are not and try to hide their true identity. In some cases we can even experience and enjoy people actually doing this. For example on television there are numerous programs which have as main subject; deception and secrets. I am a huge fan of ‘Wie is de Mol’ and every week, with many others, I try to unmask the true identity of the one who tries to sabotage everything. Furthermore, Net 5 has launched a new program called: ‘Secret Story’, where 15 people in one house try to hide their secrets and true identity for the others.  It is even called; ‘The house of secrets’.

For the ones who do not know these programs, watch these videos:

Who to trust and not to trust, it is very hard in this virtual world. However, I think a person makes up their own mind whether someone is his or her ‘true’ self. Therefore I would say; enjoy all these offline programs, like or dislike Facebook, let’s take life not too serious in this case but make it fun to unmask the ‘dishonest’ ones, for example with an exciting television program like ‘Wie is de mol'.

Talk to you again next week!

Ps. I am very curious to know if you have any ideas or some interesting facts of ‘Wie is de Mol’, because every week I have another main suspect…

TWITTER IT IS!

According to my teacher Social Aspects of New Media, I am Lost. Not that kind of Lost where you do not know where you are or the kind of Lost that you do not know what to do with your life. However, I am lost in a sense that I have a negative attitude towards communication via the internet and the social aspects of building relationships via the internet. This made me think and she was right, at this moment I am definitely Lost. What I also learned during this lecture is that there is hope for me. There is another perspective called Liberated, which is exactly the opposite of the Lost perspective. Therefore, I am fully prepared to become a Liberated person. The first step was already made last week with my first blog and now it is Twitter time!

PREJUDICE

Today, it is about 1,5 week ago that I posted my first Blog and Tweet, and I am amazed how fast things go on Twitter. There are even people who are interested in following my Tweets. However, some of those prejudice feelings I had about Twitter got confirmed. It is remarkable how many Tweets are sent per day, but even more remarkable are the subjects of the Tweets. It was really funny to read some of them. To give you an idea, a short overview of the past days:

For ‘privacy reasons’ I did not mention the name of the person who Tweet the above.

However, what is ‘private’ in this open world, where everything and everyone is findable on the internet.

Furthermore, every company now a day thinks they have to use Twitter, but it is very wise to first consider how and for what purpose they want to use it. When searching the web I found some serious ‘missers’ of big players who have most of the time very good marketing and communication strategies.  For example, some companies forgot to register their company name before others did. Look to a Twitter account called Heineken; (@HeineKen). Someone else was first with registering the name!

One other example that came across was that of KLM (@KLM_NL).  

In order to follow the Tweets of KLM, you have to send a follow request. As a company you want as many followers as possible, or I am wrong?

Special thanks to Online Results.

MEXICAN FOOD AND CHILDREN’S SLIDE

As already said I do not want to be Lost anymore.  Instead, I want to become Liberated and believe in online communication and relationships.  Therefore, I motivated myself to explore Twitter in more detail and focus on the positive aspects instead of the negative aspects of the medium.  Step 1 was looking up some more information.  Let’s be honest, it is a little bit shallow to form an opinion about a medium before even knowing what it is.

Let’s start with some interesting and amazing facts I came across during my search. Did you know that people all over the world send over 90 million Tweets per day? That there are over 145 million Twitter users at this moment? That there are people that own and use more than one Twitter account on a frequently base? On average there are 370.000 sign ups per day? That there are sent 750 Tweets per second? But by far most amazing is the start of Twitter. Did you know that it was invented by a company called Odeo, during a daylong brainstorm session in a park while sitting on a children’s slide eating Mexican food? 

Most of you certainly knew all these facts but the Social Media nerd as I am, was honestly amazed and I did not want to withhold them from you.

WOW

Although all the above facts are amazing, I still was not completely convinced about Twitter. The Tweets about ‘I am sitting on the toilet’ and ‘Good morning’ kept ‘flutter’ through my mind. Last week in the lecture of Business Information Technology we talked about Dell; who uses Twitter successfully. This made me wonder and interested in how other big companies use Twitter. Therefore step 2 was searching the internet to find examples of successful use of Twitter for marketing or communication purposes. I was not looking for companies who randomly spread around Tweets, but the success stories of company. 

Who does not know the stories of Donald Duck, Dagobert Duck, Katrien en Gijs Gans? Now all the 35 characters of the popular comic book are on Twitter. Over 3000 people are following the Tweets coming from Duckstad. All the characters on Twitter complement each other; they have a storyline.  Furthermore, the characters also Tweet about what is happening in the news. This was Dagobert Duck first reaction on the ‘falling’ government last year:

 Special thanks to Frank Snijders.

Now you may think, Donald Duck is a comic book for children and children are not using Twitter.  However, research of 'Studentenonderzoek' shows that Donald Duck is one of the most popular comic books by students, 1 out of 10 reads it.

Check it out on @donaldduckNL

Everybody needs coffee on a busy day on the university.  Unfortunately, we cannot get the delicious Frappuccino’s and Caramel Macchiato’s of Starbucks at Tilburg University. However, with its 1.274.153 followers the Twitter account of Starbucks is very popular. In addition, they have a Twitter account called; 'My Starbucks Idea’.  Here you can share ideas, think of other people’s ideas and join the discussion. Starbucks started this concept with the idea that the customers 'you' know better than anyone else what you want to see and drink from Starbucks. With the Tweets coming in via this Twitter account, Starbucks can try to meet the needs and wants of their customers even more. There are almost 20.000 followers; a lot of people have something to say!

Check it out on @starbucks or Tweet your own ‘revolutionary’ idea on @MyStarbucksIdea

If you are interested in more examples, click here to see other companies that Twitter successfully.  

Share. Vote. Discuss. See.

The first step to become Liberated has been made. Maybe Twitter is not that bad in the end… The upcoming days I am going to explore Facebook, in one week time I received a bunch of invitations of people who want to become my Facebook friend. Maybe a good moment to accept them and start ‘pimping’ my account.

I keep you posted.

Welcome

Hi Everybody,

Yes, it is true! You will not believe it, but I am writing my first blog and it will definitely not be my last one.  Furthermore I made a Twitter and Facebook account, of which I always said I would never do. I am not that kind of Social Media person that is ‘into’ all those Media networks. Now, the question that will pop up in your head will be; why are you doing this, if you do not want to? The answer to this question is very simple; I simply have to do so!

Last September I started with the Premaster 'Communicatie en Informatie wetenschappen' at the University of Tilburg, with the specialization 'Bedrijfscommunicatie en Digitale Media'. At this moment the second semester, with a bunch of new courses, has started. For the course ‘Business Information Technology’ we have to write blogs about the courses at the university and the things I have learned from it. I thought, if I have to start writing blogs and promote them via Twitter, I cannot stay behind from the rest of the world. So, this led to me having a Facebook profile. In my case I will not only write about the courses at school, I will also write about me struggling and exploring all those Social Media issues. What, I do not like at all at this moment, but motivated as I am to graduate next year, I am now motivated to use it. Therefore, I would like to take you with me on my Social Media journey.

This is my very first blog and the start of my new Social Media life.  Keep following me and my university experiences and of course my first steps in the Social Media world the upcoming months. Maybe, I am even going to like Twitter, Facebook and Blogging, you never know…

I hope to see you next week!