Are you in a social media experiment?

We recently found an article by Mark Schaefer, a social media marketing expert that posed the question about whether we’re all in a social media experiment. The answer appears to be YES!

There is no doubt that social media is a part of our lives and our businesses. When you realise how much information is being collected on you and manipulated out of you, it makes you think.

Then again, marketers and big businesses have been manipulating us for years. This is just a modern way of doing it.

Here is a small sample of what companies can now find out about you simply from your public social media stream:

• If your parents were divorced before you were 21 …. based solely on what you like on Facebook (Likes are public information)
• The probability that your current relationship will fail
• How likely you are to quit your job
• The probability that you have lung disease
• If you are likely to experience depression
• If you will get promoted at work
• By simply analyzing the words you use in your tweets, an algorithm can define your location within 200 miles and within 40 miles if you add the entire social graph — even if you never disclose your location.

You can see the full article here!