360DigitalInfluence

We wear a mask that grins and lies
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes
This debt we pay to human guile
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile

- Paul Lawrence Dunbar

It begins when we are children. As Steve Hein of EQI.org points out, “Children start out emotionally honest. They express their true feelings freely and spontaneously. But the training to be emotionally dishonest begins at an early age. The child is told to smile when actually she is sad. She is told to apologize when she feels no regret. She may be told to kiss people good night when she would never do so voluntarily.” In short, she will slowly be influenced to conform to a social structure that attempts to control what feels true.

But what does emotional honesty have to do with WikiLeaks and Digital Influence, you ask?

It’s simple really. We are still struggling – as individuals and as countries - to break down the walls of ‘protection’ that we have been brought up to believe we must build. We have not yet replaced those walls with the bridges necessary to fully transform society.

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From the new Groups functionality to the ability to “see relationships” and the $250 million sFund, the folks at Facebook are telling us one thing: people value their social network, and so should we.

On Oct. 6 at a live press conference, Zuckerberg announced that he’d found the solution to “the biggest problem in social networking.” Thus was born the new age of Facebook Groups, spawned from the idea that we all communicate differently within different social circles. Now, you can communicate differently with your 72-year-old grandparents than with your buddies from college. You can even treat it as a virtual business meeting with the functionality of editing common docs and group chat. This feature also reminds us – users value their friends, and we should too. Facebook isn’t about the “face-value”, right? It’s about growing and sustaining relationships, in their proper places.

On top of the Groups announcement, that same day Facebook developers introduced the Data Download function that allows users to “take home” their data. This reminds us that digital relationships are real. They’re not just an entity found in the digital space. Users can now take their tagged photos and status updates off of the platform. Facebook developers recognized the societal need to feel a relationship and spanned the divide between digital and reality (which is how it started in the first place.) Isn’t that what social media marketing is all about?

The new Facebook profile layout that rolled out on Sunday attests to the fact that Facebook is continually attempting to mimic the natural, in-person relationship.

The new layout highlights photos first. Call me crazy, but isn’t this similar to a real life relationship? Step one: see potential new friend. Step two: get to know friend. Step three: build relationship. Facebook is obviously mimicking the natural way in which humans create, nurture, and sustain relationships. This just shows us that the value placed on the digital relationship is higher than ever.

Now, does this mean that Facebook is the bible of social media? No. Does this mean that Facebook’s trends are the only to follow? Absolutely not. It means that if Facebook finds something important, we should keep our eye on it.

After all, they do have 500 million users.

We are very excited to announce that we are a proud sponsor and participant of an upcoming virtual conference brought to you by our friends at PRWeek next week. With new applications and social media tools emerging every day, staying up to date on the latest trends in social media innovation is critical to our business as PR professionals.

The PRWeek Lab will take place Wednesday, June 2 and Thursday, June 3, 2010 and will provide an online resource for PR professionals on the most recent social media trends, tools, and strategies, thought leadership, and case studies- all without leaving one’s office. The online platform includes live webcast sessions, keynote speakers (such as Jeffrey Hayzlett, CMO of Kodak and Ben Edwards, VP of Digital Strategy and Development, IBM), as well as exhibitor booth environments for follow-up questions, live chats, and material downloads. PRWeek Lab will be a fully interactive experience, with Q&A throughout, as well as polling of all participants on the quality of the content and the future of social media. No other PR event will bring you closer to the action that is driving today’s social media innovation.  Please visit here for additional details.

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Over the last few days Facebook insiders have posted about two major changes coming the Facebook Pages by this summer, probably being officially announced closer to f8 Conference. One of these changes is a subtle but important word change and the other is the creation of a new genus of Facebook Page called a Community Page. More after the jump. continue reading