Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Do you know FOMO? That’s not some fancy latte — it’s Fear Of Missing Out, and something that’s become a recognized thing by many social media users these days.

You’re probably familiar with the concept, if not the name. Here’s an example: It’s been a long workweek and you really just want to spend Friday night at home watching a movie. But then that old familiar urge hits, and you can’t resist grabbing your smartphone for a jolty fix of quick-burst information. One friend’s Twitter post mentions an awesome concert. On Facebook, someone else put up photos of a raging house party.

Suddenly, your mellow evening feels entirely inadequate and you wonder what else you’re missing out on. You put the phone down, only to pick it up again and again because you can’t shake the feeling that you’re missing out on finding out just how much you’re missing out on. The vicious cycle continues.

But don’t get too down — you’re not alone with your FOMO. There are other people out there just like you, and they’ve gone public with their problem.

The iPhone and Android app TimeRazor, which finds and suggests fun activities in your area, recently pulled research from studies and articles by JWTIntelligence, comScore and The Wall Street Journal to produce the infographic below. It gives a good snapshot of how much time people spend online and whether it makes them feel like they’re missing out on great experiences. Check it out for the full rundown.

How do you fight FOMO — or is it even an issue for you? Let us know in the comments.

Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, LeoGrand

Guest post by Danna Vetter, VP, Consumer Strategies, ARAMARK – Part 2 in a series

There are no stronger or truer words in the business world: your people are your product. It sounds so simple, yet time and time again, companies make decisions and take action without including the pieces that make them whole. You are the sum of your parts. With the support and influence of your people, you can accomplish anything at a company.

So at a large company like ARAMARK, we knew right away that the first step to successfully becoming a social business was through our people. We created a center-led Social Media team that, among other things, is responsible for developing tools, training, and resources to help our businesses accelerate their social media strategies. But above all else, they are tasked with championing the social media effort for the whole organization and leading a Center of Excellence that empowers our employees to leverage social media into the way they do business.

Unless our people integrate social media into their work lifestyle, we will never become a true social business. We had to work with others from around the company or socializing these concepts would be comparable to shouting in the Grand Canyon, an echo only heard by us.

ARAMARK’s multi-business structure makes for a natural hub-and-spoke model to spread the message and ideas of social media. We created a social delegate team, made up of individuals from each of our businesses and functional groups. Delegates were tabbed as the designated leader for social media in their business area, helping build the social media strategies and manage the communication and activity for the field. Early on in the build, we made sure the team had vertical depth by including functional area delegates, who brought perspectives from groups such as Legal, HR, and Communications.

Social Delegates

At first, we thought that the delegates should be of a certain role or position in the company. Having a certain clout, the thought was, would help drive influence to the late adopters. But what we found out was that it’s really about finding the right people, not level or title. Being a delegate wasn’t a full time job – it was a designation and we needed people to be a part of this beyond their regular roles. If it wasn’t the right people, they weren’t going to find the time to do something that could be considered additional.

Our delegates are a diverse mix of roles and responsibilities across our company – we have marketers that have decades of experience yet limited social exposure, we also have relatively young professionals with maybe five years in the working world that grew up with the explosion of social media. But the common thread among them all is this – an energy and passion for bringing social media to ARAMARK and a willingness to challenge the status quo and embrace change.

We meet live every six weeks, which has been a great forum for the delegates to communicate with peers and share ideas. While we give regular updates on what is happening socially across the organization, we also created teams within the delegates to present information back to everyone about new and relevant social media concepts and ideas. It has gotten people involved and active in the group and helped create the dialogue that breaks down walls in large organizations like ARAMARK. We are also active in trying to bring in external guest speakers to present for the team where applicable (such as Facebook, who recently came in to present to the team).

One of the roles of our team at the center is to make sure the delegates are prepared to manage social media for their business. As this industry evolves into something different each and every day, we don’t want to just get our delegates smart on what social media is – we need them to become subject matter experts that are able to constantly adapt along with this ever-changing field. When that happens, everyone wins. The delegates are able to create more influence and credibility in their role and add to their own professional skills. For us, we are able to drive support at all points across the company.

Collaboration

While our live meetings are tremendously effective, we can’t truly sustain social media without continuous dialogue with our delegates. To help develop this kind of communication with the team, we leveraged an internal collaboration tool, which is a social network of its own. Our team leads the site in sharing resources and tools, wikis on social media topics, and blogs on the latest news. The blog has been a great area to not just present information, but also create discussion on what new developments mean for the company, our businesses, and even our delegates.

Internal collaboration, like social media, is a whole new idea and business process that many companies struggle to get off the ground. We’re no different. Getting people to share and look for information internally is a cultural shift in itself. But when we do share knowledge and learn from each other, it brings people together and opens up doors into concepts and ideas people might not have even thought their company took part in. And it makes people think of new ideas they should be doing for their own business.

While internal collaboration is always a work in progress, our best moments are when we are able to sit back and watch conversation and ideas go back and forth with our delegates. Sometimes not everyone agrees with a stance someone takes, but that’s what great – everyone is exposed to both sides of a topic and can make decisions for themselves about what works best for them. Productive conflict and challenge makes us smarter as a group and delivers more comprehensive outcomes.

Social media is only going to be as successful at ARAMARK as our people are able to make it. Because, as we mentioned earlier, your people are your products. Which in our case makes for a very powerful opportunity.

ARAMARK is a private, $13 billion global company that provides managed services (food, facilities, uniforms, etc) for clients in several industries, including sport and entertainment, higher education, healthcare, as well as other general business and beyond. This is the second in a series of posts on how the large company is working to integrate social media into the way it does business.

Part 1 – They all laughed

Image credit: Shutterstock

It’s a gorgeous and sunny day as I write this. I would like to be outside, maybe grilling up some steaks and drinking a beer or 12. But I’m working because that’s the plan. I have a short window of time to get a bunch of things done before I hit the road again, and because part of my business is to create media, that means writing and creating information that might be useful to you. Work the plan. That’s the message of the day.

Work the Plan

My media plan says I should be writing one of six types of posts:

• How to
• Vision/Perspective
• Promotion
• Interview
• Do it Better
• Review

In this case, I’ll call this post a “how-to.” It’s not the best I’ve ever written, especially because it’s so self-referential, but it proves the point.

If your goal is to reach into the heads of the people you hope to reach, you’d best have a plan. If your goal is to make money, and this digital strategy is part of the plan, then what are you doing to stick to it?

We Fall Off Plan Easily

The moment things get busy, we throw away those parts of our plan that are the hardest to do, or the ones that take the most thought. We all do this. That’s not just you. But that means we have to work even harder at keeping to our plan.

You know what should be part of every day? A reminder to be courteous and “with our customer.” Have you ever had a frowning busy waitress at a restaurant? She’s not there with you, and as such, you feel less important, less seen, and less cared for. And yet, that’s rarely part of our plan. Nando Caban-Mendez said that his mentor taught him to create what the mentor called “green blocking,” which was actual scheduled time to connect with people and give that personal touch. I love that. Look at how simply that adds this into the plan.

When You Get Off Plan? Get Back On.

One thing I really like about #12in12 is that Jacq built it with a “let’s get right back on plan” mindset. There’s no guilt. There’s no “well, it’s ruined now.” You just start again. Day one. Get back on it.

Plans and What You Write Down and What You Schedule

I don’t care what you use for scheduling and to-dos, but if you don’t have a synergy between what you say your plans are and what’s written into your calendar and your to-dos, then it’s not going to happen. My plan for today said, “Write next week’s newsletter, three blog posts, and then clear up your inbox.” I am ticking those items off one at a time. What’s missing from today’s plan is all the client work, which happens tomorrow, and it’s on that plan. I’m going to add those green blocks (thanks, Nando!). What’s on my schedule is what’s in my plan. Are you doing it?

It’s okay to have room for spontaneity. It’s okay to believe in serendipity. But if you’re looking to “go pro,” that doesn’t happen by chance. Plan it out. Work that plan.

You in?