Loose Tweets Sink Fleets

So today in my eternal quest for knowledge I came across this poster put out by the United States Navy. The idea built on the concept of “loose lips sink ships” from the post WW2 era. This whole idea of “Loose tweets sink fleets” got me thinking…

Social media is a concept that has been around only about a decade now. Prior to that we had ways of communicating however we were in no way as connected as we are now. A friend of mine in one of my other classes is a drama teacher who is bringing digital literacy into the classroom. In real time her class tweeted Hamlet. Each student took on a role and in real time would respond to the comments or ideas of the line of text prior. This idea of real time communication is revolutionary and completely changes the way that we communicate and interact with one another.

So let us now switch our attention back to the difference between sinking ships and going for the entire fleet. As a result of real time wide spread communication we are now able to reach a lot more people much much much quicker. We also now have a larger audience of both personal contacts and complete strangers.

As I have mentioned before I come from a marketing and commerce background. For 4 years I studied the factors and ideas of how to influence people, essentially what caused us to make decisions and form opinions. I learned, and I would love to give a reference; however, it is said that even the most successful and expensive well planned marketing campaign is only on average 14% successful. However, word of mouth and personal suggestions result in a 72% adoption rate. This means, if you truly want a product or concept to be successful don`t just try and sell it, get people talking. Personal recommendations or what is referred to as word of mouth (WOM) marketing is the penultimate goal of those in the sales profession not only is WOM extremely effective, if done properly it can cost next to nothing. In fact a company called www.houseparty.com has taken this idea and just gone with it. The company gives away amazing pre-packaged all inclusive parties for absolutely free, all you have to do is open your house up and invite a few friends.

A long time friend of mine is currently working at a major retail chain. She will tell me stories about peers who have gotten in trouble with management and even been fired for posting a comment on their facebook wall as harmless as ``ugh work again today``. The power of word of mouth advertising is so significant and the power recognized by the companies so much that an employee posting a comment about not wanting to go to work is powerful enough to damage corporate reputation. In the past telling a friend or just venting to a single person was powerful enough to bring down the ship; now because of social networking and the power of the media we are going for the whole fleet.

So what does this mean for literacy? No one can argue the power and vastness of social media. The concepts have penetrated society and the education system has finally stopped to take notice. We as a society communicate in a whole new way. A gradual paradigm has taken us from traditional pen and paper to a real time, instant, everything happens now way of life. This is what literacy is now. Literacy is no longer just being able to read and write, it is our way of communicating. Social media is powerful; it brings together aspects of visual pictures, audio and video sharing with current and ever evolving ideas.

The message we can get out of all this is be careful because you never know when a lose tweet has the power to sink the fleet.