Can Social Media Help You Drop Some Pounds?

We've talked about how social media can help you connect with friends, business colleagues, corporations, and even government officials -- but can social media take that connection in a direction that is personal and intimate? In a country that is burdened by obesity in children and adults, can social media become a positive power that changes lives?

Is There a Group For That?
With the advent of Facebook, it seems there's a group for just about everything, including weight loss. The Virtual Weight Loss page has more than 600 fans, with most posting about other weight loss sites or avenues, but a few posting about their own struggles. The page directs users to an application where they can upload a photo of themselves and see how they will look a few pounds thinner. An interesting concept, but is a photo enough motivation to lose the weight?

Weight Watchers stands out with more than 175 thousand fans, many posting before and after pics and words of encouragement to each other.

How To Do Squats, Pushups and Eat Right

YouTube is a great place to check out exercise and nutrition tips. There are videos for nearly every aspect of weight loss, including this one on David Elmore Smith's 400lb+ weight loss:

David Smith's story is an inspirational one, shared not only on YouTube but also various news shows. He now works as a personal trainer to help others lose weight. His story is told in detail on trainer Chris Powell's Stax website.

Support Is Just a Click Away

In addition to the aforementioned Facebook groups, there are support groups created just for people trying to lose weight. Support groups work to help provide, well, support for the weight loss journey. People who otherwise might never have an opportunity to meet or converse suddenly become a critical link to someone who is struggling with an "overeating" day or needs extra motivation to get off the couch. One of these groups is Twit2Fit, a community of Twitter users who tweet about their weight loss and offer or receive encouragement and movitation.

How Many Calories Does Blogging Burn?

A quick search for "weight loss blog" on Google turns up more than 46 million hits. Not all of them are personal blogs, of course, but many are. Hollie's Weight Loss Blog comes up high on the list and features posts by a young woman trying to lose weight. She started blogging in 2008 when she was 333 lbs, and now is around 290. She has also blogged on SparkPeople, one of the most popular community sites with message boards, blogs and tons of great information on nutrition and exercise.

Social Media Can't Do It For You

Although social media obviously has great options for support and instruction, it's important to note that spending a lot of time blogging about weight loss or reading about exercise will defeat the purpose of actually getting up and moving. It's a little too easy to get caught up in talking about something rather than doing something. But of course, there's an app for that, so you can just take it with you while you walk.

Uncle Sam Wants You – To Tweet

When you think about organizations that embrace social media – you know, that newfangled paradigm that encourages two-way communication between enterprises, employees and consumers – the first one that springs to mind is the U.S. Army, right?

What? No?

Actually, yeah. Reversing their tradition of banning military service members from using social sites like Twitter, MySpace and YouTube the Department of Defense officially released their official social media policy, Directive-Type Memorandum 09-026 last month. Since the title doesn’t exactly say it all (the DOD’s directive writer could use a face to face with a social media consultant, I’m just saying), I’ll recap.

As of now, users of NIRPNET (the DOD’s non-classified network) can use any kind of new media they want. So check Flickr for snaps of the Kandahar sunset, and Facebook for hints on what to stow in those care packages you’re still sending to the soldiers. (Right?) I don’t even want to know what we’ll see on YouTube.

(The DOD’s Social Media Page even has a handy graphic with fancy pop-up information on each of the popular social media sites. See?)

If you’ve noticed soldiers blogging, Tweeting and Facebooking before the oh-so-creatively-named Directive-Type Memorandum 09-026 came out, that’s because those soldiers were lucky enough to serve under commanders who allowed social media. The problem lay in the fact that some commanders arbitrarily shut soldiers out of social media sites, even going so far as making them close accounts or shutter blogs. This new policy specifically prohibits any one commander from making those decisions, essentially opening up access to social media to every member of the armed services.

In my opinion, while there are understandable security concerns (like the recent situation when an Israeli soldier posted details of an operation on Facebook), for the most part this can only be good for our armed services. In my opinion troop morale will soar as our fighting folks are able to have more up to date contact with their loved ones. It’s one thing to arrange for a session to talk to little Johnny and Jenny on the satellite phone, but quite another for the troops to read their spouse’s Facebook pages and keep abreast of the little details as life goes on back home in the country they are fighting for.

But it’s not all family, fun and games for our troops. The policy specifically prohibits some of the baser things in life, namely “pornography, gambling and hate-crime related activities.” So while we here at home can look at jiggly bits, lose our fortunes in a ridiculous manner, or start a Facebook group defaming bacon lovers, our men and women in the armed services still have to put up with a few restrictions on their internet usage.

But wait, there’s more! Uncle Sam also wants you to connect with him. Here are the vital details about how you too can Tweet with the U.S. Department of Defense:

Twitter

Facebook

YouTube

Flickr

Now I just have one question. What do you want to say to Uncle Sam?

Social Media and The Church

Have you ever tweeted in church? Have you ever texted in church? Some of you may have at inappropriate times, but at Mt. Bethel UMC in Marietta, GA that is exactly what you are encouraged to do. Yes in some churches, communication has come a long way from your "grandma's church". Most churches only use front lawn, letter changing signs, or weekly bulletins printed on unexciting white paper. But there are many churches that have opened their doors and embraced social media.

Bandwagon or Reason?

I was quite sceptical when the social media aspect was brought up within my own congregation at Mt. Bethel UMC. I wanted to make sure that we, as a body of believers, were using social media for the right reason and not just to be "cool." I soon found that the idea of adding social media to the service was a great idea. During the sermon the congregation is encouraged to text or tweet comments or questions they would like the pastor to address. The congregation response has been overwhelming. When asked why the response has been so overwhelming, Pastor Jody Ray responded, "in such a big corporate worship service it is hard to have an open forum, and being able to speak up through text messages or tweeting give people an opportunity to express concerns and ask questions that they may not normally be able to voice." The only negative to adding the media aspect Ray says, is the amount of texts they get on a Sunday morning verses the amount of time they have to answer. They only have time to answer a few questions so not everyone gets heard, but all in all this has been a very effective tool for ministry.

The ROI for a Church

In the business world social media is uses to elevate the ROI, Return on Investment, this is also true for a church. Instead of looking at the ROI in quantitative terms the church looks at it in qualitative terms. Most churches ask the question, "is the social media in question going to help the quality of church ministry?" "Is the use of a particular media going to further the cause of

Kingdom work?" In most cases, the answer is a resounding YES! Social Media in the church not only enhances communication, it allows for a connection that many people in a mega-church like Mt. Bethel UMC with 10,000 members, may not have had. It also is a way to place a "call to action." A Christian's number one concern is to live for Christ and also to disciple, and social media helps accomplish both by using many different outlets:

1. Podcast of sermons

2. Daily Bible study Tweets and blog postings

3. Posting to Facebook, You Tube, and iTunes worship songs and videos

4. Allowing your members to stay connected to ministry staff through e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, and Linkedin.

I am sure there are many other ways social media can be used in the Church. I am not sure if all the possibilities have been tapped into as of yet, but I believe to stay connected and relevant, churches must make use of social media.

Will Twitter Elect the Next President?

Watching the coverage of President Obama’s State of the Union address last week, I was struck by the attention given by major news stations to Tweets and Facebook posts, as well as blog comments. CNN kept a running image of the country, showing the divisions between red and blue as the social media updates came in, and providing a Twitter analysis of the speech. Even the White House jumped into the media pool, launching a free iphone app days before the speech. The app enables users to stream live events from the White House newsroom, as well as “get up-to-date information directly from the Obama Administration right to your iphone,” so users could conveniently view the speech right from their phone.

Of course, this type of strategy is to be expected from the tech-savvy Obama administration. And, as expected, the White House web site also features the first official White House blog, with frequent updates, mostly by White House staffers, but periodically by cabinet members and others in the administration. Maybe the president himself will blog someday.

The 2008 Presidential Election

All the attention given to the social media aspect of the State of the Union address was reminiscent of the 2008 election season. On November 5, 2008, an article on BusinessWeek.com titled “The Vote: A Victory for Social Media, Too," referred to the 2008 election as the "first social media election," and discussed the unprecedented effect all forms of social media had on the election. According to the article, Facebook kept a running tally of users who checked a box indicating they had voted -- and the number had exceeded 4 million by around 10pm. Facebook users could also send each other virtual Obama or McCain buttons, and many wrote on friends' walls showing support for a candidate.

YouTube also came into play in a big way during the campaign season. PBS teamed up with YouTube to ask American citizens to "Video Your Vote," a campaign for people to shoot videos of their voting experience and then upload them to a special section of YouTube.

Not to be left out, Twitter provided another non-partisan voting tool, the Twitter Vote Report, a collaboration of volunteer software developers, designers and others who teamed up with blog techPresident to allow voters to share problems with their voting experience.



As reported on the techPresident blog, Nina Keim and Jessica Clark of American University's Center for Social Media compiled a report describing the project and its results:

"...Developed in less than a month, the project generated more than 12,545 submissions, marshaled more than 7,500 contributors, and involved nearly 20 highly skilled volunteers and partners."

Where Will It Take Us?

We know that the Obama campaign led the numbers in social media, in terms of friends on MySpace and Facebook, and being first out of the gate to use Twitter. The McCain campaign jumped on the bandwagon, but never managed to amass the number of online supporters. However, both camps were heavily dependent on social media by the time election day rolled around. As the use of social media continues to grow and its importance to our culture expands, future candidates will have an unprecedented opportunity to use this free avenue to reach mass numbers of people with targeted messages without dipping into their advertising budgets. Clearly, social media influenced the 2008 election -- what will be its influence on the coming elections in November for Congress -- and what will be its effect on the next presidential election? Will social media become the most important tool in a candidate's arsenal?