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Can Social Media Spread Epidemics?

social media

social mediaDanvers, Massachusetts has a long and, well, unusual history.

Originally known as Salem Village, the mid-sized town (with a population of 26,493 according to a 2010 census) is best known for the Salem witch trials and being the site of one of Massachusetts’ oldest psychiatric hospitals. While rarely appearing in the news otherwise, the town of Danvers got more international publicity that they likely wanted starting in January 2013. That was when about two dozen teenagers at the Essex Agricultural and Technical School in Danvers began reporting bizarre symptoms including “mysterious” hiccups and vocal tics. After the Massachusetts State Health Department ruled out any physical cause for the outbreak, the epidemic gradually subsided over the next few months. Despite speculations that the outbreak may be due to mass psychogenic illness(MPI), the State Health Department has not made any official statement on the cause to date.

While the location of the outbreak seems ironic given Danvers’ legendary history, epidemics of MPI have become increasingly common over the past few years, especially in the United States.   According to New Zealand sociologist and skeptic Robert Bartholomew, the Danvers epidemic resembles other cases that occurred. Bartholomew has studied over 6,000 cases of MPI dating back to the 16th century and argues that social media may be playing a strong role in the recent upsurge of cases.

Formerly known as “mass hysteria”, MPI is defined as “the rapid spread of illness signs and symptoms affecting members of a cohesive group, originating from a nervous system disturbance involving excitation, loss or alteration of function, whereby physical complaints that are exhibited unconsciously have no corresponding organic aetiology.”  Episodes of MPI have occurred around the world and throughout history with common factors including:

  • Symptoms with no known organic basis
  • Symptoms with rapid onset and recovery
  • Symptoms that are typically transient in nature
  • Occurring in a specific group
  • Extreme anxiety
  • Symptoms are spread by word of mouth or through popular media
  • Spreading down the age scale from older to younger victims
  • Predominantly female victims

Symptoms linked to MPI outbreaks can include nausea, headaches, abdominal cramps or pain, fainting, chest pain, vomiting, diarrhea, and anxiety attacks. According to British psychologist, Simon Wessely, MPI can manifest itself as either “mass anxiety hysteria” with episodes of acute anxiety (primarily in schoolchildren), or as “mass motor hysteria” involving abnormal motor behaviour.

Cases of mass anxiety hysteria often begin with a single stress-inducing belief, such as the presence of a noxious smell or toxic influence in the environment though this type of outbreak usually dissipates fairly quickly. Robert Bartholomew estimates that there are hundreds of undocumented outbreaks of mass anxiety hysteria occurring in the United States alone each year.

Cases of mass motor hysteria can be more serious as the outbreak in Danvers demonstrates.    Though usually more common in high-stress environments seen in developing countries, such as factories and refugee camps, they can occur in Western countries as well. “People are repressed, and that’s when you get the motor symptoms,” Bartholomew said. “The twitching, the shaking, the trance-like states…and it builds up, over weeks or months, and it does not go away.” With outbreaks of MPI, the search for answers can lead to incidents of violence such as inattacks on suspected witches  and exorcisms following unexplained death or illness.

While MPI is not included in the DSM-V, a similar syndrome known asconversion disorder can have many of the same characteristics. Originally regarded as a form of hysteria,  conversion disorder is classified as a somatoform disorder involving the “conversion” of emotional distress into physical symptoms. In MPI outbreaks, a single common stressor can lead to similar conversion disorder symptoms in a group of individuals who believe themselves susceptible.  Despite previous research suggesting that people with low IQs or greater suggestibility are more vulnerable to MPI, there is no consistent evidence that this is the case. The greater incidence of MPI among females rather than males is difficult to explain as well.

Along with the new outbreak in Danvers, MPI has also been implicated in a recent epidemic affecting more than four hundred garment workers at a factory in Bangladesh earlier this year. The workers, who were mostly women, blamed their reported symptoms, including vomiting and nausea, on the impure water provided by the factory. Epidemiologists have tested the water and other factory conditions and have since suggested that the reported problems are psychogenic in nature.   The presumed cause of the anxiety that led to the outbreak is assumed to be lingering trauma relating to the April collapse of a garment factory that killed more than 1,000 garment workers.

It is this overlying fear that has been linked to other outbreaks in the region including several schools in Afghanistan in which teenaged girls reported developing symptoms after smelling gas led them to suspect a Taliban attack. In many cases, episodes of MPI are often linked to larger political fears and can be aggravated by news stories of chemical and biological attacks occurring in neighbouring countries.

But why has there been an upsurge of cases in the United States?   An outbreak of MPI occurred In the town of Le Roy, New York,  in 2011 when eighteen teenaged girls  developed bizarre symptoms including uncontrollable twitches and motor spasms with no apparent cause.  Perhaps even more remarkably, the reported victims also included a thirty-six-year-old nurse who was not directly involved with any of the other victims. Though the possibility that the symptoms might be due to toxic waste from Le Roy’s manufacturing plants was raised, that was  ruled out fairly quickly. After extensive medical testing of the victims and environmental factors found no physical basis for the epidemic of symptoms, medical experts concluded that MPI was to blame.

Although word of mouth has been implicated in previous MPI cases, the Le Roy case has demonstrated the role that mass media can play in spreading psychogenic symptoms. With increasing media coverage of the outbreak, including a high-profile investigation launched by Erin Brockovitch, the symptoms grew worse despite only affecting teenaged girls. Along with the news reports suggesting that the victims in the case were “faking it”, social media also played a role with recriminations and reports of new symptoms being spread by Facebook and other sources. In the case of Marge Fitzsimmons, the 36-year old nurse who also developed symptoms, almost all of the information she had on what was happening in Le Roy came from Facebook.

While the epidemic in Le Roy subsided, Robert Bartholomew suggests that many of the lessons learned from that outbreak have been quickly forgotten.  In a recent interview with Atlantic magazine, Bartholomew stated that there is “potential for a far greater or global episode, unless we quickly understand how social media is, for the first time, acting as the primary vector or agent of spread for conversion disorder.” Though the prospect of “catching” a disease from Facebook or Twitter seems bizarre, the risk may be very real for those believing they are vulnerable. For many of the Le Roy victims, their symptoms only began after seeing a YouTube video posted by Lori Brownell, a girl with severe tics living in a neighbouring city.

With social media allowing social interaction to a far greater extent than ever before, the sort of MPI contagion that used to depend on face-to-face contact can now happen among people who might never meet in person. Along with spreading symptoms, Facebook messages can also relay the emotional distress that people are experiencing which gives the epidemic an added push.     In a recent paper titled, “Mass psychogenic illness and the social network: is it changing the pattern of outbreaks?”,Bartholomew suggests that social media is changing MPI outbreaks in new and disturbing ways.  In his paper, he writes that “Local priests, who were inevitably summoned to exorcise the ‘demons’, faced a daunting task given the widespread belief in witchcraft, but they were fortunate in one regard: they did not have to contend with mobile phones, Twitter and Facebook.”

For many MPI victims coming to terms with their symptoms, the best solution often involves avoiding social media sites completely, at least until the epidemic passes. Though Facebook, Twitter, and phone texting has brought the world together in new ways, the dangers of interconnectedness have become greater as well. The hysteria that once make old Salem Village famous is already resurfacing and may even be more common than ever. Recognizing the strong link between the mind and the body and that age-old problems such as mass hysteria can be spread by modern communications can help defuse new outbreaks and possibly save lives in the process.

See on www.psychologytoday.com

September 24, 2013by marcus
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social media

How to Effectively Make Your Site Social Media-Friendly

social mediaHaving a website has become something of a necessity for businesses these days, due to the global paradigm shift where more and more people are integrating online activities with their lives. Besides this fundamental reason of going where the market goes, there are also great benefits to having an official site for your business.

Starting a website is much cheaper than building and maintaining a brick-and-mortar store. There is no need to look for a good location, pay the lease, take into account overhead expenses, etc.

You can reach a much wider audience not limited by time or any borders, making market expansion much easier and opening up more room for growth. You also get to showcase your products, as well as important information about your business to customers, establishing your credibility while making it convenient for your target audience.

Social Media as a Conduit
Of course, there are still some truths in promoting an “offline” business that apply to the online world. Merely having a website does not guarantee profitability. You need to be able to show your expertise and uniqueness in the industry, and you need to establish a good relationship with your customers. The best way of pursuing these goals is through leveraging the power of social media.

Creating accounts for your business for social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter is good, but these are just channels to your main website. Social media is simply a way for people to connect to your website to consume your content and eventually make purchases. You just have to make sure that your website has good social media integration.

Here are five ways to seamlessly incorporate both assets:

Killer Content

“Content is king” is a phrase that will never get old because content is exactly what people are looking for online, especially in social media. People are constantly sharing with their huge networks of family and friends all sorts of content that they deem interesting, whether it’s a news article, an opinion piece, a funny picture, or an inspiring video. Their connections, in turn, share it with their own networks, and so on. The number of people you can reach with killer content is astounding.

Therefore, you need to create content that will make the rounds within these social media channels through shares, retweets, pins, etc., and you need to be able to do it in a regular fashion. There is no guaranteed way to achieve this, but the best way is to simply create great content.

Social Content

Social media platforms are built with connecting people in mind, but you can follow their template with your website by allowing for some level of interaction with your website’s visitors. This can be done through a blog with a comments section, a forum where they can discuss your products/services, or a customer review feature where you let people send in their critiques of your business’ offerings. You can even let visitors leave comments on your content using their Facebook accounts for fuller integration.

By giving your customers a way to express their opinions, you also give them a sense of belonging with your company. They will feel that you care about what your customers think, establishing a stronger relationship in the process.

Eye-Catching Titles and Images

Some truly great content doesn’t reach its full potential, because of poor titles that don’t immediately grab people’s attention when browsing through their feeds. Other great content that tackles technical and/or multiple subjects are not being read, because of the lack of compelling pictures that break up the monotony of text.

• For titles, you want something that addresses a concern while being straight to the point. It has to fix your target audience’s gaze when they’re quickly scanning on their Smartphones or computers.

• For images, you want something that explains your points in a clearer fashion while maintaining the tone of your content, and more importantly, your brand is known for. You can actually just focus on creating content that is purely image-based (e.g. infographics) to simplify complex concepts and highlight important facts.

Social Buttons
Due to the fast-paced nature of today’s Information Age, people now expect a good level of convenience when surfing the Web. They want to be able to share things they like through their multiple social media accounts without having to deal with the relative hassle of opening up new windows or tabs and copying and pasting URLs. Social buttons are the answer to that problem, making it much easier for people to show their interest in a piece of content to the rest of the world.

These social buttons can also work in your favor, because they usually show the number of people who have expressed positive sentiments about particular content. Once these numbers climb, it can be even easier for people to take notice, because they will think the content is worth checking out, attributing it to the number of people who already did.

RSS Feeds
Rich Site Summary or RSS is nothing new, but it is a tool that has found even more use now that there is so much more content being produced and shared throughout the Internet. Use it to syndicate relevant content you have on your main website to microsites targeting more concentrated niches. This way, you don’t have to be publishing the same content on multiple sites.

Conclusion
While an official website serves as a foundation for creating an online presence, social media allows for even wider coverage for your business, and gets you even closer to your target audience. By integrating it with your website, you realize the full potential of doing business online.


Jillyan Scott works as a content strategist for SaleHoo an online community of more than 95,000 online sellers and retailers. Its product range consists of an online selling course, e-commerce software and their flagship product, a wholesale directory.

July 12, 2013by marcus
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social media

Amplifying Your Facebook Content

social mediaFacebook has made a lot of changes to EdgeRank over the last few months. Many marketers say those changes have led to lower-than-average reach with their posted content. This leaves a lot of businesses feeling like Facebook is taking away from the value of the audience they’ve created. In reality, those changes have improved news feed quality, making it a better system for the most engaging content to be visible.

You have the option of promoting your Facebook posts for a set cost if you want to reach more of your fans and their friends. Another tactic that is often overlooked is to amplify your content to a relevant audience outside of your social network.

Content Amplification Versus Promoted Posts

Amplifying your content on Facebook lets you reach any person based on his or her interests. With promoted posts, you will only be able to reach your fans and their friends using demographic filters.

Amplified content can benefit any brand. For example, if a salon offers $15 off any service on a daily deals site and posts it on Facebook, it will be seen by about six to 15 percent of its audience. If the salon amplifies the content, it can be seen by an even larger number of relevant users who are not currently page fans.

When you amplify your content, your target audience will see the post in their news feed rather than the sidebar ads on the right. This placement is much more effective, especially on mobile devices where the news feed items are more prominent.

Why Didn’t You Know About This? 
Marketers have overlooked this feature because there have been so many other changes since the IPO. The more radical features have been getting the most attention. Facebook also hasn’t done much to promote content amplification, its functionality is hidden within Power Editor or the API.

Optimizing Content Amplification

Just like any other form of advertising, you do not want to limit your content to just a single target audience. It is important to test multiple variants to get the most valuable targeting. Try filtering by location, demographic, interests, etc. Test each target set to learn what works the best.

Who Should You Target?
To know who you should be targeting, you need to look at your campaign objectives. Use a data-led approach to identify which users will be the most likely to find your content valuable based on their interest profiles. Using insight tools and social data can help you focus in on the right targets and decrease your cost per engagement while making your content more effective.

How Much Should You Spend on Testing? 
The great thing about content amplification is you can keep your budget flexible. Plan to spend about $20 per variation of each campaign so that you can get a good idea of what is working best.

When to Start

There is no reason to wait to start amplifying content. With such great benefits, it is easy to get an offer or promotion out to your target audience quickly. There will be more engagement with amplified content, so it is one of the best options.

Have you used amplified content on Facebook? What were your results? How do you target fans to increase engagement?


Dawn Pigoni of Be Social Worldwide is a certified social marketing specialist and a social media virtual assistant. Dawn offers superb social networking, social marketing and social bookmarking to WAHMs, small business owners, Internet marketers, affiliate marketers, and coaches who desire to bring stunning Internet presence through social networking to their businesses. Get Dawn’s free report, Social Networking today and see how she can assist you with being social worldwide.

June 12, 2013by marcus
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