This week, I performed an exercise in social media interactivity and privacy that I thought might help you.

I took the time to divide better than 750 people who are my “friends” on Facebook into categories of access by creating three lists — gold, silver and bronze. The categories are easy to define:

• Gold — All access. No change. The person sees everything. This meant the person is probably related to me, is a close friend or that I’ve had multiple person-to-person or online interactions that resulted in something positive in my life.
   
• Silver — A friend or an acquaintance. I’ve probably interacted more than one time with the person, but don’t know them quite well enough to put into the gold category. However, they receive almost all the same access as gold people.
• Bronze — An acquaintance. Someone with whom I have had very little or zero interaction. Someone I know through an online forum, a high school friend with whom I rarely interact or someone who I bumped into at conference. You can’t see my posts and you have access to a limited amount of information.

Once I divided the people into the three lists, I went into the “manage account” tab of and set the permissions using the “customize” tab, selecting those lists. It took some time, but I could specifically customize access to a great many things, including posts and photo albums. The entire event took about three total hours, including writing this article.

In all of the above, the keyword is “interaction.” The litmus test question was a simple one: Do you comment on my posts, photos or other items placed on my wall? How often? What sort of quality? In dividing up people into these lists, I discovered that:

• There are 266 people on the gold list, 464 on the silver and 22 on the bronze.
• I exorcised about 20 people from my friends list. I also deleted about 15 pages that I followed.
• I know every single one of the 752 people on my friends list through an online interaction or a face-to-face meeting. Or, we’re related.

My proclivity is to continue to give people access to my Facebook information. Some would argue that the 266 are really the ones I should keep. The others I should purge. I disagree. All of the people here connected with me or I connected with them for a reason. Plus, networking is networking, regardless of the platform. Further, I don’t friend everyone who requests it of me and I friend a sliver of those “recommended” to me by Facebook. Meanwhile, I’ve created a “fan” page (or what is now a “like” page) for a more specific purpose.

And while this was a good exercise to take note of the level of interactivity I have with people (and that they have with me), my level of privacy is unchanged. That is, I take care of my privacy settings before I reach the keyboard, not after. There’s a whole litany of things I will not publish on any platform, even email. I’ll continue to that standard on my Facebook wall, on my Twitter feed and elsewhere.

For better or worse, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and other social media sites are giant marketing channels. You market yourself. Others market themselves to you. In effect, you become a brand; a product or service that is marketed to hundreds, maybe thousands. In turn, your followers and friends are marketing and branding themselves with you. You do that in physical space with the way you dress, talk, walk, smile, stand and interact at work and at home.

Meanwhile, those social media channels are now used by credit houses, employers and anyone else with access to find out more about you. Couple that with the flood of information sold about mortgages, addresses and so on as found on a site like Spokeo, and it becomes that much more important to safeguard privacy before I reach for the bullhorn and begin to talk.

With this exercise complete, I now need to see how it works and fine tune it. And again, I’ll emphasize: the lists are about interactivity, not privacy. Privacy is solved before I reach the keyboard, not after. I’m sure I’ll move some people from one list to another. However, this is probably the right solution for privacy and interactivity.

As much of a fan that I am of social media connecting one another, I’m a bigger fan of the right human connection. I also believe one leads to the other.

For example, there’s a restaurant I frequent in Garmisch called La Baita. It’s fantastic Italian food and I recommend it. However, the reason I recommend it is because of the wait staff and the management. They make me feel like I should be eating there. And every time I see the owner standing there watching over the dining room, and then going into to shake hands with regulars and say “hello” to new customers, that makes the experience worthwhile.

Now, eating at La Baita didn’t start because of a social media transaction, however my meeting with my friend Jamie did. She’s a writer and someone I met as a fellow member of a writing forum. We chatted through several threads which drew both of our interest. Over time, we figured out that a.) we lived close to one another and b.) it would be nice to meet at some point. That chance came up when Jamie attended a writing forum in Atlanta. At the time, I lived about two hours away and I just happened to be in town (visiting in-laws) that weekend. We met, ate sushi and I’m proud to call her a friend (she and my wife have the same birthday).

There have been other exchanges like this that have led to human interaction, some for the better and some not as good. I could tell you about a spontaneous road trip from Macon, Georgia, to northwest Tennessee to Columbus, Ohio, and back that was a mixture of both. Again, a social channel made the interaction possible.

Now, there are plenty of people who are not a fan of the social. And I don’t think I like what the social medium is becoming (a continuous avenue of adverts and some other corporations news; more on that in another post), which means the Internet may slowly be losing its charm as the place to have a private, social conversation that goes uninterrupted. Still, 200 million Facebook users, 20 million Twitter users and millions of others scattered across platforms other than those are discovering that the right conversation can lead to something bigger. And it’s what’s happening right now.

Further, not every human interaction is a winner. For instance, I’d rather not be “sold” at dinner. That’s exactly what happens at almost any chain restaurant whose servers sport 3,179 pieces of flare, crouch down and prepare to sell you a time share in bacon cheddar wedges. If the attempt is to clear the table quickly AND get a good tip, I’ll look around (about clearing quickly) and judge your service (for the tip). Beyond that, keep the coke in my glass filled and cold. I’m sure you can think of others.

As my friend Alan is find of saying, because he’s right, the social should lead the human. For clients and consumers, both experiences should be sterling. Otherwise, why would you buy/rent/ lease or do whatever the transaction calls for? Sure, you must have some things in your life (electricity, insurance), and you’re sometimes forced into a one-vendor solution in your market (cable television, Internet, garbage collection). But why create animosity when it’s unnecessary?

Yes, I know. There’s a whole collection of people who’d prefer not to interact with a human to complete their transaction. In some cases, I’m one of them (ATM). However, there are times when the human interaction enhances the experience ten-fold.

La Baita succeeds at this every time.

Vulgarities are spit like snake venom. Somewhere in between comes a fair share of language many would classify as hate speech. There’s misogyny. There’s making fun of fat guys, fat girls, old people, young people and all of it’s done without the least bit of thought about repercussion. People pay to hear this and some actually enjoy it, despite the fact that within the forum, the language breaks almost every rule set forth by its owners. Where am I talking about?

XBox Live, of course.

Hiding behind garbled nonsense usernames, XBox Live’s 17 million users (by Microsoft’s account) are mostly anonymous. People can’t see one another. IP addresses and locations are mostly masked. Users pay their 50 bucks for a year’s worth of connectivity, sign on and play their games. However, some have chosen to use the connection, which includes live voice chat during games like Halo, Modern Warfare 2 and others, to act out on their inner-most feelings. The one’s that would, in any other setting, get people thrown in jail.

An example: while between games of ‘Modern Warfare 2′ the other night (my gamer tag is ‘BulletSponge869′ ), I overheard a conversation between a man and a woman that went something like this:

• Woman: Great round.
• Man: Sure was, fat girl.
• Woman: What dude?
• Man: I said it was a great round fat girl. You’re a big fat girl aren’t you? I bet you’ll eat a lot.
• Woman: F–k you, loser.
• Man: I wouldn’t f–k you because you’re too fat, fat girl. But it’s all good, you know?

The conversation, which lasted more than two minutes and was not all good, spiraled out of control from there. Almost all of George Carlin’s seven dirty words got dropped in, and so did all the others. She withstood it like a trooper (probably because she’s heard something similar several times before). I’m betting that XBox Live’s predominantly vocal male population makes the gaming experience that much more difficult for her and other woman who like to play games online.

There’s also racism. It’s not uncommon to hear the ‘N’ word.  There are also sharp exchanges based on people’s accents and spoken language (Americans seem to hate French people; everyone seems to hate Americans). if there are gay gamers, they must cringe as well; there’s enough to make the LGBT crowd stay away, or at least not don a headset while they play.

Nothing is off limits really. The anonymity does this. Or, at least, the perceived anonymity. Users can report these things. However, I’d bet most don’t since, like other sports like, baseball, football, soccer and in other place, there are unwritten rules for these kinds of things. Gamers know this. And why should that be any different than any other place in society? Every community has, would could be termed, an undiscussed level of hate, racism and maleficence. Why should XBox Live be any different?

With 17 million people, it’s also a form of social media relatively untapped by the wave of corporations moving into that space.  But they are coming. They know people have conversations and talk about their products there, too. They also know the demographic is young and has some expendible income (esp. considering they have extra money blow on an online video game membership). It’s not the 250 million projected users facebook has, but it matters because it is a rich source of training minds for the products and services of tomorrow’s advertisers — and many for today.

Now, it’s fair to say that the people responsible for what’s making your ears bleed are but a sliver of the 17 million. But do you think people buying into the XBox Live space would tolerate gobs of teenagers saying these things? Look at all the advertisers who have run from Glenn Beck’s program. Remember how Janet Jackson’s nipple made the FCC and a whole host of CBS advertisers go into cardiac arrest? There’s a reason for that seven second delay.

The answer is: probably not. The eyeballs are what matters, not the ears of the few of us donning voice chat headsets. Besides, the Domino’s ads I’ve seen are on the main menu and play over my speakers, not in my headset. So the voice chat function of XBox Live could go unchecked unless there’s some kind of voice recognition police (no chance) or users do something (even slimmer chance). However, more and more, anonymous Internet users are being squeezed slowly by regulation, corporate interests and the need to monetize the Internet. Look at how Apple closes off its ecosystem, charges programmers for the privilege.

Meanwhile, the venom will continue in my ear piece. Until GLAAD, the NAACP or, better, someone with some teeth who can curb this problem decides to don a headset, join the game and hear what’s going, this form of social media won’t be so social.

I’ve begun trimming fan pages on Facebook. I’m doing this because there are plenty of fan pages that are putting out news that I’m simply not interested in, though I do have an interest in the product, service or organization that is running the page.

My expectation on becoming a fan on one of Facebook’s fan pages is that I will be treated like, well, a fan. Also, that I will meet other fans of the brand. And I will, eventually, socialize and conversate these brands into something more. That may mean a purchase. They may mean attending an event. I could mean a behavioral change, but I’m 40, so that would be a stretch. In any case, my expectations are for me to able to approach these brands on a one-to-one basis, and feel like that they belong to me.

Star Wars, Marvel Comics and many video games tend to do these things well. They are brands that know how to handle fans (and fanboys, for that matter). They give back. They talk to their fans. So, it’s no surprise that as many companies begin this journey into social media, they just don’t know how to have a one-to-one engagement like Star Wars or Marvel does. In particular, the American military brand  is having a hard go in the space. (Disclaimer: I’m a DOD employee; this is my own a opinion and not necessarily that of the DOD)

Right now, there are hundreds of military units clamoring for attention in the social space. You can find a fan page for many military units and government organizations from San Jose, California to the sands of Afghanistan. Some do well. However, the majority seem to see the fan page (and the Twitter feed and other forms of social media) as a means of pushing a news release. No conversation. No questions asked. No two-way engagement. This may be a case of rookie nerves. It may also be a case of simply not knowing the social space. There are a myriad othersreasons I suppose. However, it could also be military people following an age-old paradigm.

It goes something like this: “We have an event we want publicized. Let’s put our news release (choose one: on the fax machine/in email/on the fan page/in the Twitter feed) and send it on its way. We’ll then move onto the next release. The end.” And that’s that. No engagement to encourage publication. No socialization of the issue to create awareness and availability, or to show passion or care on the issue. Simply, here it is, like it or not. We’ll be over here moving onto whatever is next.

I don’t want to be a fan of that. I don’t need your news. I’m a fan of you. I like your unit. I like your drink. I like your book. I like the author. However, I don’t like when you don’t pay me and the other fans the least bit of attention. It makes me want to become a fan of someone else who is more like me and more willing to engage me and my interests in your brand. Now, I know. Fan is short for fanatic. But every fan of any brand has expectations. Fanatics, passers by and other levels of people who want to engage the brand matter. So, too, are the people who aren’t ‘fans’ that you want to have engaged as part of your communcation strategy.

As an author and someone trying to market his own writing, I want to engage my fans. I want them to buy my writing. I want them to buy the next bit of writing as well. And based on the current economic climate and the given information landscape, I’m betting my fellow writer friends want that, too. So, my thoughts on being good to fans might look something like this:

• Give me something on your fan page, blog or Twitter feed that I cannot get anywhere else. John Mayer, the musician, does this brilliantly on his Twitter feed. So does Neil Gaiman and others.
• When you do this, be interesting. The person running your social media stream should understand celebrity, have a personality and meld all that with the company brand and communication strategy. If he or she does that, you’ll be a rock star in all the right places. If he or she does not, bumpkins.
• Engage me. Ask questions. Offer me the opportunity to have input (other than the money out of my wallet going into yours)
• Praise me every once in a while. I’m here for a reason. I’d like a stroke every now and then for no other reason than I’m a fan.
• Tell me what you expect of me as a fan. I’ll give that back to you 10 fold.

As the writer, I must be part of that engagement team. I must understand how people consume information about the thing I am trying to make money from. I must understand how I can best create the opportunities for people to act upon and monetize the content I create. I must be more than a writer in this regard. It’s hard, but it must be done. Traditional media is transforming faster than Optimus Prime in a Michael Bay film. As an author, I (and the people who would help me with my publicity) must transform, too.

The fan pages that I am pruning this week failed in some or all these regards. They’re easy to find. Will you be trimming your fan page quotient like I did? Tell me if you do and why.

And this is strictly a personal, anecdotal example.

I sat at my desk today and I wanted to hear a tune. I typed “funk” into YouTube. I got a link to Jeffrey Osborne’s old band, LTD, and “Back in Love Again.” I listen to that song (one I love) and then click another LTD song. Great stuff.

Other linked songs on the side of the YouTube page included tunes by a band called The Fatback Band (later, known as simply Fatback). Now, I’ve never heard one single Fatback song in my life (but should have). I clicked the first song I saw, “Do the Bus Stop.” I’m hooked. I clicked another, “Backstroke.” I’m now ready to own Fatback’s “Best Of …” But, does Fatback have a “Best Of …”?

A few hours later, I clicked open the iTunes store and, sure enough, there’s “21 Karat Fatback – The Best of the Fatback Band” for $9.99. I clicked ‘purchase.’ I’m listening to “Bus Stop” as I write this post.

This one example of how social media can move one from bystander to behavioral change (and ultimately make the transaction at the checkout counter) and in a fairly quick amount of time. In my work with the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, it’s clear to me how this same impetus can be carried once we get the correct instruments and people into place. What we’re “selling” isn’t necessarily a ‘one-click purchase.’ It’s difficult, complex, delicate stuff. So the strategy is slightly different, but the methodology is the same if the technology, philosophy and execution are done right. And though much of what the US Defense Department is doing with social media right now doesn’t necessarily have a viable metric (other than followers, views, fans and friends), perhaps the best metric in the amount of can be prevented through education and diplomacy.

On behalf of a grateful nation in service to your country and its allies, thanks Fatback.

From Time.com comes a great example of the need for a change in paradigm vice delivery methods of public communications:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1894646,00.html

And you get a free Quatto quote, too!

“That’s a question for the White House, and I understand that they may be bouncing you back here,” Air Force Lieut. Colonel Tadd Sholtis explained.

Does social media cure this? No.  Better business practices do.  Social media just helps deliver the message, bad or good.

The problem with transparency is that it’s not.  It never is.

“Transparency” is yet another buzz word to put those affected by changing processes at ease.  When some company or governmental entity wants to say upcoming changes to process, policy, rules or procedures will be transparent to the customer, client or whomever is affected by these changes, giggle profusely.  A standard announcement reads something like this:

“The transportation management office will change how it handles all inbound and outbound processing.  This process will be transparent to end user and should result in a more efficient process.” Not that I’m picking on any transportation management office.  One could insert any number of military functions into that position.  Besides, the wording is usually the public affairs staff’s fault.

The result?  It’s never transparent.  Consumers, clients and customers always know when a process gets changes.  They see all the bumps, warts, growths, scrapes, bruises and broken bones it endures along the way.

Sometimes, a different word is encouraged: seamless.  The change from whatever was being done before to whatever will be done now will be seamless.  In the end, however, once again, they usually see every sewn-together, once-tattered edge ripped by someone who had to have a say in how that “transparent, seamless” changeover would go.  There are dozens of them we clients and customers endure along the way.

It is at this point that social media pundits, like me, are crying for government transparency.  Apparently, what we want is for you to be able to see into how government works.  And apparently, from this light shed through new windows, you’ll be able to help government do a better job than it did before not being so see-through.

Really?

The mantra goes something like this: allow all the government peeps to access social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and the lot, and they will, in turn, tell the government’s fantastic story.  And some of that is true, and there are plenty of GREAT stories to be told from the government, especially from my military alma maters, the Air Force and Air Force Reserve.

And then you’ll also get the bitching.  Ever seen a good Digg comment thread?  Ever spent time in an active online forum of any kind?  The praise is there.  In spots.  But the naysayers, flamethrowers and trolls own these places.  Transparency opens the flood gates for all the water, not just some of it.

And if we’re talking about the government, then just how transparent will senators, representatives, their aides, the political action committees, the lobbying groups and everyone else inside the Beltway with a stake in federal government be with that transparency?  They like the way they handle their business right now, thank you very much.  What exactly do they want exposed in an online venue?  They’ll let you know.

One time-tested phrase can always be inserted here, too: the way government business gets done is a lot like how sausage is made.  In either case, you never actually want to watch it done.

Part of the reason many of the social media pundits are crying out to give access to military people for Facebook and Twitter is simple: we’re running out of places to tell our stories.  Newspapers are dying and could be dead in another three to five years.  So, since we can’t be on your doorstep every morning, it’s time for military public affairs people to get into your blogs, your Fan pages and post links on your profiles.

Transparency is a two-way street.  You see us.  We see you.  However, don’t expect anything new.  We’re going to tell you the same things we’ve always told you.  We’re just placing it into a new medium.  And we’ll have governmental ways of responding to naysayers, flamers, trolls and all the rest.  Heck, as Wired’s Danger Room blog proved, we already do.

The migration from newspapers and “old media” to Internet and “now media” simply means we’re delivering our message through a new venue.  And don’t blast me with the interactivity argument.  Newspapers have had letters to the editor for as long as they have been printed.  They had email channels after that.  TV and radio stations something similar — called “ratings.”  Sweeps weeks anyone?

Interactivity in media and government (especially during elections), however, is always a house bet swayed to the side of the house (the media or government), usually about 70-30 or, more likely, 80-20.  In other words, we can interact with ESPN, but its mission and vision aren’t going to change because of a few comments someone made on one of its stories.  But always figure the house is going to win.  You’re the consumer.  You’re the citizen.  They know you better than you think.

As another aside, a good friend and colleague remarked on his blog how recent activity in Moldova got organized via Twitter and how it proved … something … about social media.  OK.  So, they wouldn’t have used a mass email before that?  An online forum before that?  A bulletin board before that?  Pirate radio?  CB radio?  HAM radio?  Countless uprisings composed of millions of people were created before Twitter gained a boost in publicity.  Tienanmen Square, anyone?  The Boston Tea Party anyone?  In any of those cases, stop praising the distribution channel and start praising the people who built the uprising.

See, the problem with transparency is that it is not.  In 20-plus years of experience, no change is ever transparent or seamless.  Ever.  No transparency of process is ever as vaunted as those who are most eagerly seeking that transparency (and to somehow profit from it).

Instead of focusing on shifting distribution, maybe we could focus on shifting the communication paradigm.  What do consumers and citizens want in their media, and are we already giving it them.  Moving into new distribution channels doesn’t conjure up any seachange to how the government could do a better job communicating on every front.  Hardly.

Merely, it’s a switch from  AM to FM; from cassette to CD; from CD to MP3; black and white to color TV; cathrode ray tube to flat panel.

The music sounds different, but the artist is playing the same tune.

Since I own an iPod touch, this article interested me.  I think it also advances the thought of social media/now media to a new level.  If we issued soldiers across the spectrum iPods, does that mean we can instantly deliver to them news, alerts, security updates, orders, new policy and more?  I think so.  The iPod might not be the right delivery tool right now, but it’s probably the best thing we have now.

Not a wholly unoriginal idea. Our PA shop had the notion of issuing every Airmen a beeper back in 1995.  And it was bounced around again at Air Force News Agency — some sort of cel phone/beeper for every Airman to receive instant updates.  So, the genesis, as usual, is slow.

Here’s the link to the Newsweek piece:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/194623

Some lessons on selling social media, now media or whatever you want to call the next generation of distribution channels for information:

http://adage.com/digitalnext/article?article_id=136016

Disclaimer: I’ve known this guy for a while, and he’s one of the big-brained people in the Air Force.  Very smart.  And this struck a chord for me today, cutting through what social media’s bedrock claim to fame emphasizes:

What is meaningful about social networking is the ability of small groups of like-minded people to form over national and global distances. The proper analogy even for the most popular bloggers is not the blogger as charismatic leader of a populist revolution (or a counter-revolution) but the blogger as center of an insular revolutionary cell or intellectual salon with worldwide reach. These cells and salons, though their members may number in the thousands or even millions, are small by global standards. Seen in this light, blogging is preaching to the converted before beginning the difficult, compromising work involved in mass proselytizing. Blogging is what comes before the revolution.

Of course, I recommend the rest of the post, here.  He’s also on my blogroll, to the right.