Share This Too: More Social Media Solutions for PR Professionals

Chapter 31

Quantified Self

Drew Benvie

What's the next Twitter? What's the next Facebook? These are some of the most frequently asked questions in digital communications back offices. The answer is not a site or social network. It is a movement called the Quantified Self.

The Quantified Self movement is a way of applying the social web, apps and consumer technology for personal health and productivity. It enables brands to listen not just to what we say online, but what we do.

Quantified Self manifests itself in the form of systems like Nike+, Sleep Cycle, Fitbit, Lift, Drive to Improve and more.

Quantified Self will allow brands to engage and listen at a whole new level. Whether it's knowing what your customers are doing, as opposed to saying, how to engage a workforce or how to attract people to your brand, it is a movement for digital practitioners to dive into while it is on the rise.

The rapid rise of Quantified Self

We are far more likely to share information about ourselves online now than we were 10 years ago. Social media has done this to us.

For the advocates amongst us, the usefulness of social media far outweighs any negatives that the social media era has brought. That's not to say that security and privacy issues are not important. Speak to the parents of any trashed house after a “Facebook party” and I'm sure they will have a different view to the one being laid out here. But when properly managed, social media has proven to be a powerful force for change and enablement, ...