What if your wish is for a whole new social network to fill a
gap in your life?
What if there was a way to take the best features of
several social networks to make your own custom network?
You’d likely need a social media fairy godmother to make
this happen and while that may seem like a fantasy there is a way to spread the
word on your social media wishes … The Social Media Wish Factory.
The Wish Factory is a panel that I and two others are
proposing for the SXSW
Interactive event in Austin next year.
The idea behind The Social Media Wish Factory is that it
would be a place where the panelists would kick off a discussion about new
ideas for social media, but very quickly they’d get the audience involved too. If
anyone is looking for new ideas for apps or new ways to leverage existing
social networks this would be a panel to attend.
The panel might try to answer such questions as ….
Why can’t I sort my Linkedin connections
into two, three or four levels of trust based on how well I know them? For
example, there is a big difference between someone I once met at a conference
and someone I worked with for 20 years.
Why isn’t there a simple way to bring all my
social networks together to pay tribute to someone? For example, what
can I do if a person I admire passes away and I want to send a message of
condolence on all my networks or someone I know does something outstanding and
I want to acknowledge that across all my social networks?
What one improvement of a major social platform
would make it 100, or 1,000, percent better? For example, why can’t I
set alerts on some updates and not others on my favorite social networks?
This is a just a small sampling of what will, I hope, be hundreds
of questions and suggestions that spring from this session at SXSW.
The two people I invited to be panelists are smart,
renaissance thinkers about social media and have great ideas about what is still needed in social. They are:
Aaron Strout is a 20+-year marketing veteran who
specializes in the convergence of mobile, social and digital marketing. Aaron
is Managing Director at W2O Group where he helps customers with social and
mobile strategies. In addition, Aaron is on the advisory board of the Social
Media Club and is co-author (with Mike Schneider) of Location-Based
Marketing for Dummies.
Deirdre Breakenridge is the CEO at
Pure Performance Communications and a veteran in PR and marketing. She has counseled
senior level executives at companies such as Hershey’s, JVC, Kraft and
Marketwired and is the author of five
books (her most recent being Social
Media and Public Relations: Eight New Practices for the PR Professional).
Deirdre blogs about PR 2.0 strategies and is the co-founder of #PRStudChat, a
dynamic Twitter discussion scheduled monthly for PR students, educators and PR
pros.
So, there you have it: A panel discussing everything that
still needs to be done with and by social media. Would you help such a panel by
voting for it? I hope so.
To help make your social media dreams come true please
take two minutes to vote here for the The Social Media Wish Factory.
You can also use the comments area here to leave
suggestions for the discussion…. Thank you!