Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web

Chapter 8. The New Media University: Social Media 302

If there's one thing we're learning in the new world of socialized media, it's that our need for higher, modern education will always exist as technology advances and human behavior adjusts to accommodate the continuing rotation of pervasive applications. It's not only the study of the new tools and networks, and the intelligence that powers them, it's also the ongoing survey of the social sciences that reveal true cultures and behavior.

As our journey advances, we learn the value of aggregation and conversational threading in activity feeds and lifestreams as well as microblogs and microcommunities.

ACTIVITY FEEDS/LIFESTREAMS

If social media is powered by listening, user-generated content (UGC), and engagement, as time passes, our digital footprint is further scattered in bits and pieces all over the Web. If you, for a moment, assume the role of a follower, you can understand just how difficult it might be to keep up with active brands.

The content we share and the updates and information we publish is broadcasted within individual networks. Without an aggregated social media dashboard, we find ourselves projecting fragmented pieces of our brand persona. Staying in sync with contacts, either as a producer or follower, has become tedious and unrewarding.

Activity feeds and lifestreams represent a new publishing medium, usually supported by a corresponding community that enables the publishing of "byte-sized" and channeled updates ...