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It’s a fun ecosystem which will help alleviate the stress from a phobia voted more fearful than death!

I’ve read much of the ‘How not to do social media’, ‘Social media: The Don’ts’ and ‘Why does noone like my avatar?’ advice out there. Most of it is common sense, but the really useful stuff is the social network specific advice. Which makes sense, because not all social media is the same.

I am put in mind of my latest social pet peev: The blanket inclusion of sharing buttons to blogs and websites, regardless of their content, nor any consideration of their readers or the users of the various social media to which they are offering the chance to share.

Why, on a blog or news and opinion site that only displays a small and unimaginative image to accompany the story, would you offer your readers the option to pin it to Pinterest? 

I saw this this morning on a creative industries site that I actually really admire, so I was disappointed to find such an indiscriminate use of sharing buttons without any forethought as to how readers might want to share that content. 

A Pinterest button is a no brainer for a photography blog, retail fashion online, or a travel destinations guide; all, one would imagine, if they’re doing it right, contenders for seriously beautiful visuals, probably large too. This is exactly the kind of content that pinners want to share. NOT an opinion piece on creative freelancers accompanied by a tiny, uninspired stock photograph of generic individuals in suits.

I mean, what’s next? Should I post an essay to Instagram, put it in a frame and apply the Sierra filter?

Having looked around, I’m now seeing this everywhere. The irony is that it’s marketing websites and social media gurus that are doing it. The very people that purport to be experts in this field, who use their blogs to critique the failures of brands or agencies in such and such a marketing exercise or creative campaign, basing their poor review on a blatent ‘one size fits all’ attitude, when their dose of truth hits a little closer to home than they might have imagined.

Here at All about the Idea HQ, we say one size does not fit all, a square peg will not fit into a round hole and an idea is only as great as the problem it solves. So, marketers, commentators, people with opinions; c’mon. Think about the fundamentals of your content, then ask yourselves ‘WHERE do my readers want to share this?’ 

Image by Brooke Shaden, Flickr.

September’s Social Media Week, powered by Nokia, will be the biggest, most diverse and expansive to-date, with 14 cities hosting, including London, Glasgow, Torino, Barcelona, Berlin, Doha, Jeddah, Hong Kong, Seoul, São Paulo, Bogotá, Chicago, Los Angeles and Vancouver.

Fancy jetting overseas to one of these exotic climes? Well, all you have to do is:

1. Take a picture: Using any smartphone device, take a photo that captures the uniqueness and heart of one of the 14 host cities. (Note: To qualify for the grand prize, photos must be taken with a smartphone and must be of one of the 14 participating cities.)

2. Add a filter: Using Instagram, or other filter apps such as Hipstamatic, StreamZoo, or Lightbox, make your photo stand out. While a filter isn’t necessary to enter, it does make it more fun!

3. Tag & Share: Using #InstagramYourCity, share on Twitter with the city you’re capturing. For example, “Just submitted my entry to @SocialMediaWeek’s #InstagramYourCity for Berlin!”

The deadline for submissions is June 29. There’s no limit to the number of entries you can submit, so get creative!

As experts in big ideas and harnessing emotion to motivate your audience, we have a special interest in feel good transmitter dopamine and the factors that induce the release of this chemical. Music is a sure fire way to illicit an emotional response, but it looks like something much newer is also having a similar effect on our brains.

A new study indicates that social media like Twitter has the same close link to our neurological make up. When we tweet about something we’ve seen, what we’re up to, or where we’re going, our brains experience a rush of pleasure, much like when we get money or eat food.

Behaviourally, this may not be ground breaking; after all, we love to talk about ourselves and social media allows us to exercise this narcissism to the extreme.

It’s an interesting development to have this narcissism evidenced neurologically, though…

Researchers at Harvard conducted a study examining our brains on a cell and synapse level to work out why 40% of our daily speech is centered around telling others what we think and feel. The reason? It feels good.

Researchers visualised dozens of volunteers’ brain activity using MRI machines, to see which parts were activated when they talked about themselves. In one experiment, about a quarter of volunteers chose to talk about themselves over being paid to talk about others.

The study resulted in an illucidation of how, when we engage in self-disclosure, the meso-limbic dopamine system of our brain is activated, which is associated with that same feel good feeling as listening to music.

So remember, next time you feel you should resist a Facebook status update, we’re wired to want to share. Check out the video above to see what could happen in a society without our beloved social networks… Tune in next time for more big ideas in neuro-science!

We came across this recently by the big ideas guys at Breakfast in Brooklyn. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you… Instaprint.

Instaprint is a neat little contraption that taps into pictoral social sensation Instagram and makes its creations a reality by printing them out, polaroid style, in front of your eyes.

A small, location based photobooth that can be set up almost anywhere, any Wifi enabled cameraphone can connect to Instaprint, making the transition from ‘click’ to print seamless. Truly minimalist, Instaprint requires no ink cartridges and instead draws the colour from the photographic paper itself.

Unfortunately, the guys didn’t reach their investment target via Kickstarter, but you’ll be pleased to hear that there are some Instaprints available to hire via their website. Click here for more details. We can’t wait for an excuse to use them – watch this space!