One For, One Against

Over the past week I have discovered two new social media trends – one that I applaud, and one that I shake my head at. Last weekend, over 50,000 music fans descended upon the Polo Grounds in Indio, California for the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. A repeat performance of the three-day concert will be held again this weekend due to the overwhelming demand for tickets this year, one of which I was lucky enough to snag (oh yeah!). As my excitement and anticipation have been building for over a month now, I was unable to completely ignore all the hype about the best acts and guest artists from weekend one. So, I caved and tuned into the Coachella YouTube stream, where I was able to watch most of the performances I’m looking forward to. To my delight, I found much more than great music here.

Unbeknownst to me, Coachella and YouTube had formed a special partnership to air the entire festival live over the Internet, free of charge. This was not just a stream however – it was an experience. The site also displayed live-updates of all social media content containing the #CoachellaLive tag, across all platforms. Three separate channels provided viewers with nearly complete access to every act. This. Was. AWESOME! Facebook posts and Tweets were flowing in by the second, as the big artists were about to go on stage. Every message was positive. The ecstasy was palpable, even from behind the computer screen. #CoachellaLive was successful because it provided a meaningful and experiential link between the virtual and the real. After I turned off the lights and put the stream on full-screen, it was almost like I was standing out with the crowd in the desert.

Now to the bad stuff. Huffington Post reports that New York creative agency DDB has developed and launched the first version of an “I Care” Facebook button. "The 'I Care' button seeks to serve as an appropriate complement to the 'Like' button and can be easily leveraged by individuals and organizations alike to exhibit and inspire social activism," says Matt Eastwood, chief creative officer at DDB. What a load of bullshit! The button might as well say, “Don’t do anything at all to support this cause other than clicking here.” This button will be the complete antithesis of effective cause activism via social media. It will put “slacktivism” in the dictionary.

The problem with the “I Care” button is that it promotes non-action. “Caring” about a cause on Facebook does not help raise money, save lives or overturn legislation. Instead, it continues to blind users from the truth about cause involvement – you actually have to get off your ass to accomplish something. What also irks me is the fact that DDB expects their new button to have a significant impact on cause awareness, when all they really did was change a single word. Saying “I Care” instead of “I Like” is not a revolution in digital activism. It’s just stupid.

Towards a New Social Media

One Billion Dollars. Cash. This is the amount of money Facebook laid down to purchase the mobile photo-sharing app Instagram on Monday this week. That’s a lotta dough. It is obvious that this relatively young start-up has immense potential in the eyes of Mark Zuckerberg, who approved Facebook’s single largest acquisition in history. With only 13 staff members in a small office in San Francisco, Instagram has acquired 35 million users in only 18 months, and doubled in size in the past five months. Their release of the Android version of the app last week garnered a million new downloads in a 24 hour period. At its core, Instagram is a community of photographers, sharing the world through their own mobile lens. Users can enhance photos with a variety of artsy filters, and share them with their followers who can “like” or comment on them. Essentially, Instagram is all about what users see.

Now I want to talk about another social media network. It’s called Everest. If you’re scratching your head and wondering why you haven’t heard of this, it’s because it hasn’t debuted yet. Mark my words though, it could be bigger than Instagram, and – gasp – bigger than Facebook (if they don’t buy it first). Why? Because Everest is about what users do. In their own words, Everest’s vision is to, “unlock human potential by inspiring and empowering people to live their dreams.” It’s the first comprehensive social media tool designed for a community of action. Ok, here’s an example. Say you want to run a marathon. Everest helps you plan your steps along the way with timely reminders. It connects you with others working towards the same goal, and provides support from more experienced marathoners who have ran before. You can also capture and share moments along the journey, and revisit them once you have accomplished your dream.

Another amazing feature of Everest involves sponsorship involvement. Partnered sponsors have the ability to create additional “dares” for any challenge users set out to achieve. If a user accepts and completes a dare, they are rewarded with a prize (e.g. 20% off a new pair of running shoes). By incorporating dares, Everest is incentivizing their users to actually follow through with their goals, and get out and DO IT. This is a truly powerful model for translating virtual interactions to real world results.

Now apply Everest’s model to a community of activists who want to change a law instead of climb a mountain. They won’t be able to achieve that goal through sharing an event page and gathering a bunch of followers. Facebook (who you know) , Twitter (what you think) and Instagram (what you see) are communities that are perfectly sustainable in just the virtual realm. Everest is about what you do and how you do it. It depends upon real world results. This is the direction social media needs to take if it wants to more positively affect social causes.