With the omnipresence of social media, it also brings to the forefront the critical issue of transparency. Everything is shared, liked, voted, and forwarded these days! Pictures of your wedding, video journal of your Europe trip last week, footage of your baby’s first steps, declaration of your new job and title, an aerial view of your new house and your neighborhood..the list goes on!

The point I’m trying to make is, we are living in a day and age where our entire profile and lifestyle is available with the click of a button; a Google search or a Bing away. Far flung from the days where you needed a social security number to get detailed information about a person :)!

Today, you have multiple avenues to get to know a person without even meeting him or her physically. The virtual world is packed with all kinds of data and information. It’s easy to learn about a person’s likes/ dislikes, who are his friends? Where does she live? What did he eat last night? What are their holiday plans this Christmas? What are their kids’ names? What are his New Year goals?

As a global community I believe these social media tools have made our world smaller making our connections tighter. If you think about it, we are all connected to each other with perhaps six degrees of separation. However, on the flip side it comes with the threat of great misuse of personal information and photos. We all need to be responsible and draw our own lines when it comes to the question of how much is too much? Are we overindulging with perhaps sharing way too much of our lives online? What about those who like to share every aspect of their daily lives online with others? Tweeting or perhaps wall posting about when I woke up, what appointments I have for the day, how did my meeting go with that client, what do I feel like eating for lunch, where do I plan to meet my friends over dinner. Do you think we are revealing too much of our selves without deliberating on what the implications of that might be?

As much as we enjoy the privileges of these modern tools we all need to be responsible about the usage and exercise caution and more importantly use common sense! Adjust your privacy settings on each of these platforms. Do you want your personal information and photos to be visible to everybody or would you rather give access to only your friends? In the same token, each one of us need to use good judgment when it comes to revealing and sharing parts of our private life online. Agreed, this is not a foolproof method to protect your online identity but at least you are not opening the door wide to welcome complete strangers into your house. You are using some discretion and caution.

Another important point I would like you to think about is the image you project on the different social platforms.  Just the way you’d intend to ‘position’ a product or a service based on your target audience shouldn’t a similar principle apply to your ‘social audience’? Whether you are on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr or YouTube identify and recognize the purpose of that medium and segregate accordingly. As authentic and genuine you need to be across these platforms, make it a point to chalk out a line between these tools as they are meant to serve different purposes.

Remember you are the ‘same person’ but there is a subtle difference in the way you’d interact with your family, friends, co-workers, vendors, future employers or neighbors. Each of these circles may get to see a subtle shade of you, so why not use the same principle when it comes to interacting with the same folks online through these different social mediums! Wouldn’t you think?

Photos by fisserman and tanakawho

I tried to analyze this using Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations Theory. According to Rogers, the diffusion of innovation occurs when the adoption of an idea, practice, or object spreads by communication through a social system. Adoption is similar to diffusion just that it involves the psychological processes an individual goes through, during the decision-making process. Rogers defines several intrinsic characteristics of innovations that influence an individual’s decision to adopt or reject an innovation. This can be compared to give us an insight as to how we are currently adopting the social media.

Similar to adolescent peer pressure do you think as individuals, we feel internally pressurized to join such social media groups? The need to be seen on networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, Orkut, Hi5; choosing from a vast pool of such social media sites. What propels your decision-making process? Is it the fear or insecurity of being left behind? Is it the need to be included as part of the inner clique being able to comment and ‘like’ the Halloween costume photos shared by your friends last night? As an organization, are you concerned about catching up with your competitors doing the social media thing? Or on the flip side is it about wanting to prove yourself and your organization as an early adopter, and be seen as a thought leader amongst your peers. In both cases, there lies an intrinsic need or desire to prove to yourself or others.

Likewise, on the other side of the bank, for those of you staying abreast of the latest trends and updates in social media, managing anywhere from 5 to 11 social handles, how do ‘you’ perceive a laggard? This is an individual who is probably still stuck with his or her hotmail id and has no clue about YouTube, Facebook or what is a tweet? What opinions do you form about this person? Do they automatically get bracketed into your grandparents’ times?

The rate at which we adopt these innovations over time corresponds with some of the intrinsic characteristics of innovations that influence an individual’s decision to adopt or reject an innovation. Relative advantage – relates with, is it better than what we had before? How improved is it from what we had? Leading to the question, does social media help us communicate and network more efficiently in real time? If your answer is yes, you’ve crossed this hurdle.

Compatibility is the second characteristic – questioning whether it is compatible with ones values, beliefs, prior ideas, etc? How easily can it be assimilated into an individual’s current life? If it’s a far stretch and if that person does not see the value of sharing his or her personal photos on FB or giving status updates of his/her current location via the Smartphone, the person is less likely to get on a social platform like Facebook for instance. Complexity is the third and a significant factor in influencing – Is it simple and easy to use?  Simplicity speeds adoption. The easier the app. the higher the likelihood for a person to download it sooner and use it to keep up with his or her social profiles.

Observability is the fourth factor – That corresponds with the extent to which an innovation is visible to others? Can you see it in action? The more people see the effects of the innovation, the higher the chance of it creating a ripple effect with people creating either more positive or negative reactions about it. Food for thought, when it comes to how a YouTube video becomes a viral video creating either positive or negative reactions around it.

Last but not the least, Trialability determines how can we try it before we buy into it?  How much commitment do we have to make in order to use?  How much risk (monetary or emotional) is involved in the adoption? If the answer to these questions is positive, the more conducive it is to be adopted. Creating profiles in almost all of the current social platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Orkut etc. is free and quite simple to use. You can choose to abandon these profiles (without any monetary loss) if at any point you find it too difficult to maintain and manage or just fizzle out.

In light of these factors, what do you think motivates or inspires you to join the bandwagon? Where in the adoption cycle do you stand, for the rest of you?

Photos by Chris Radcliff and Plakboek