FINDING SHELTER IN THE STORM

Guest Blog Post By Mark Lupul (Profilze)

Has it ever occurred to you that social media is like a storm?

But storms aren’t all that bad are they? After all, witnessing lightning strikes and the rumbling aftermath can be a beautiful thing.

Take Aaron Gordon, for example, when he mesmerized the world at NBA slam dunk competition or when International Women’s Day saw the internet blow-up with Kim Kardashian’s and Emily Ratajkowski’s selfie.

I’ll guarantee that you’ll witness stuff you want to see and stuff you don’t; and regardless of how desirable this content is, you’ll be overwhelmed by the amount of it. Social networks are in business to feed you information or junk, rather, in all shapes and sizes.

That is until a genius discovers an algorithm that reads your brain that gives you the junk you actually want to see. For now, it’s difficult to get your content so you better open up that UmbrELLO (see that Ello reference?) and embrace the storm.

What Google’s CMO Has To Say About The Storm

The other day I attended a digital marketing conference where I had the pleasure of listening to Fab Dolan, the CMO of Google Canada. He shared some fascinating and candid stories about the digital marketing industry. One particular nugget that stuck out was his assessment of how we go about digesting the web. He shared that he gets a ton complaints about YouTube’s videos.

People are always concerned about the amount of junk and perceivably low-quality content being uploaded. Why would someone use a website that has one good video for every 1000 useless videos? In response, he cleverly pointed out the adage of one man’s trash being another man’s treasure. What is useless to you, may be life-saving for someone else.

Over 300 hours of YouTube videos are uploaded every minute which means you only need to find a fraction of a percent of videos useful to receive value from the site. But how can you make sure you find the right stuff? It may be a surprising to learn that YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine receiving over 3 billion searches a month. It’s difficult to use, though; I mean, searching something and clicking on a result can be tough.

The social media landscape, on the other hand, presents a little bit of a different situation where it is not always easy to navigate. So many sources and networks flood the environment driving us into an information frenzy. Culture is #FOMO; we always want to be in the loop, but this loop can be suffocating.

Embrace The Storm, But Manipulate It

Why did I bring up YouTube? Well, as Donald Trump would say it, I am “very very” smart, and I associate with “many many” smart people like Fab Dolan, so I know what’s best. Here’s reality; the YouTube principle can be and should be used for the entire web.

Unfortunately, it’s not straightforward. Sure Google search is not bad, but you won’t catch trending content like you will on social platforms; this is why we use them so much. The grand issue with social media is useless information. We’re provided with a plethora of junk, and the only way to get around this junk is to pick our sources prudently.

I wish I could tell you about a platform that would break up the ugly storm of content autonomously providing us with updates we actually want to see from every social platform. Unfortunately, however, this only works for news sources right now with platforms like Flipboard or feedly (use these, they’re great!). Many have tried to integrate social media together like the smart people at Samsung who created Social Hub only to see their project fail.

The diagnosis was a critical case of #TMI. It seems nice to have all social media in one place until you actually see it all and realize it’s a big cluster of who knows what. If only facebook’s brilliant new newsfeed algorithm could integrate with all social media. So what we’re stuck with for now are our own heads to get the content we want.

How To Find Refuge In The Storm

Now I’m not attempting to sound pitchy, but I have a little tool that can make a world of difference when it comes to cutting through the junk and getting the stuff you want. Full Disclosure- I’m part of the small team from western Canada, who recently built this app tool; but from a candid and honest perspective, I can tell you that this tool is actually great and has changed the way I go about getting a lot of my content.

This tool is called Profilze, it is an app, and we built it for 2 reasons:

Content delivery is blob from multiple social platforms

Social media is grossly unorganized

Here’s the truth, we all use a ton of social networks which scatters our pages. What Profilze does is simple; we allow you to bring your pages together. Users add their social accounts to their Profilze page, and other users can go access these social pages from one place.

The result is fascinating. You can immediately cut through junk and follow users across every network. Also, discovering their content on different networks allows you to uncover a lot of great material you wouldn’t have otherwise been able to find. Really ponder what the best way to get content is. Would you agree it’s directly from the source? It’s not rocket science;

People provide content, find the right people and you’ll find the right content. For example, if you like fitness, follow fitness people. Once you find your sources, Profilze will do the rest. Profilze acts like a hub letting you know where your information is hanging out and where it’s striking down in the storm. It’s effective and is growing every day so try it out!

How To Get Good Content (The Process)

Lastly, I just wanted to leave you with my current methodology that helps me get the material I want every day. It might seem elementary, but this process can be applied to most every social media platform.

Determine your interests (e.g. cats, fitness, celebrities)

Uncover the best sources to get updates on your interests (e.g. people, news, blogs, organizations)

Identify the sources’ podiums (e.g. social media sites, blogs)

Track them – (e.g. subscribe, list, follow, Flipboard, Profilze)

Set the routine (e.g. make a list of what to check daily)

Meet Mark Lupul

Mark is a young entrepreneur and social media enthusiast. He graduated with a B.S.B.A from Samford University in 2015 having previously studied concentrations in marketing and international business at universities in Paris, France and Vancouver, Canada. In his short since graduating with an honors degree, he’s successfully co-founded two software companies; Profilze and Homefolio.

Mark’s passion guided by his entrepreneurial spirit and visionary outlook is carrying out technology ventures. He has expertise in areas such as business startups, growth hacking, social media and digital marketing. If you ask Mark what his work philosophy is about, he’ll tell you it all begins three principles; to attack the day like a charging a rhinoceros, to build meaningful relationships, and to transform the inadequacy of the status-quo.

Mark is always happy to connect. If you have any thoughts or questions for Mark regarding Profilze, social media or entrepreneurship you can reach him any time!!