Social Media Primer (Part 1a): What is Your SMQ (Social Media Quotient)?

As I indicated in part 1 of this primer, my intent was to move on to “social media realities” as the subject of part 2. But a question from a member of the SMinOrgs LI group, Elene Cafasso, made me realize I should talk about the SMQ quiz before moving forward. Her request for the “answer key” reminded me that it’s not enough for the quiz to reveal what folks do/don’t know about certain social media platforms – it should also help them learn.

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this entry to access the condensed version of this post on SlideShare.

Here's a link to the Social Media Quotient (SMQ) Quiz

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UPDATE: Book Coming Soon...

Rather than continuing to develop the Primer in parts, I've decided to concentrate my efforts on creating a book (click here for details). In addition to writing new material, I plan to consolidate and edit the existing Primer parts, as well as other related posts (e.g., this piece on Twitter “worst practices” and this piece on Social Screening). To stay current about the book’s development and release later this year, please join SMinOrgs on one of its platforms (see links in the left column), subscribe to the blog, and/or add your name to the mailing list (see links in the right column).

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Background on the SMQ Quiz

I created this “fast and fun” quiz last fall to incorporate into the presentations I give about the opportunities and challenges social media presents. Asking people to take the quiz at the beginning of a presentation serves as both an icebreaker and an introduction to the subject. There is invariably a lot of chatter and laughter as people try to discern what the logos represent – and it’s always interesting to see how intimidated accomplished professionals can be by these innocuous-looking, cartoonish symbols with the silly-sounding names. But that intimidation speaks volumes, and is a powerful indicator that in spite of all the hype, and all the shouting by devotees from their cyber rooftops about social media being the “next big thing,” the vast majority of people have not only barely begun to climb their individual social media learning curves, many haven’t even put a foot on them! 

Just as the quiz itself isn’t scientific, neither are the results I’ve gathered – but they’re compelling nonetheless. The average score, out of a possible total of 56, has been around 11. And even though people could get at least a 4 or 5 with the “gimmies” (e.g., the LinkedIn logo includes its name), there are a number of scores below that. One man, in fact, refused to even take the quiz, declaring his score would be zero so there was no need to bother with it. I always give a token gift to the people with the highest scores, which are usually in the 30s, and most people assume the “winners” will always be the youngest folks in the group (i.e., the “digital natives”). In reality, most of the high scorers have been members of the Gen X and Boomer generations.

The SMQ Quiz Answer Key

After I administer the quiz, I show a slide like the one below. Each of the symbols is hyperlinked to its respective home page, and there's also a link to Wikipedia to learn a bit more about each platform’s functionality and history. Click here to access the interactive slide.*

I've also created a table (in Word) that contains the names of each platform as well as hyperlinks to their respective home pages and Wikipedia entries. Click here to access the table.*

*After you click on the link to access the file, save it and then open it using PowerPoint or Word. To activate the hyperlinks on the PowerPoint slide, you need to view it in presentation or slide show mode. After you follow a hyperlink from either the slide or the document, minimize your browser window to return to the file. Please email me if you're having trouble with the hyperlinks.

 

 

 

 

Should There be a “Real” SMQ Test?

When I started working on this blog entry, I realized exactly how unscientific the original version of the SMQ really is! In creating it last fall, I generally selected the most popular/representative sites based on usage statistics that were available at the time. It’s important to note, however, that the selection of sites is not truly representative of the social media software universe. Certain types of sites (e.g., social bookmarking) are over-represented, and other types of social media platforms (e.g., knowledge/project management) and related tools (e.g., aggregators) are completely absent. The selection is also over-weighted toward personal applications rather than professional applications, and it has a US bias due to the absence of platforms (e.g., Bebo, Orkut) that are more well-known in other parts of the world. In other words, my “fast and fun” quiz is also a bit “quick and dirty.”

Realizing the limitations of the quiz started me thinking about whether there should be a “real” SMQ test, so I began developing a list of pros and cons and fleshing out some ideas about what a measure should look like. I decided to save that assessment for a future post; but for now I'd like to share two thoughts that are valuable for everyone to keep in mind:

People don’t know what they don’t know – but they think they do! In the conversations I’ve been having recently, I’ve noticed that some familiarity with social media may be causing people to overestimate their social media sophistication. Specifically, they seem to think that a basic understanding and (often limited) usage of social networking platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter demonstrates that they “get it” and are on the leading edge of the social media movement. But when the conversation gets a little deeper, the limitations of their experience and understanding become clear. I’ve noticed a similar tendency on the SMinOrgs social media training survey, where almost 40% of the respondents have identified themselves as sophisticates. I share these observations not to be critical, but because I think it’s important to recognize that social media is far larger and will have a far greater impact than the popularly-discussed applications that are receiving so much attention today - and I don't think most people realize that.

We need to know what people really know! As we begin to seriously consider the intra-organizational implications of social media, it’s important to get an accurate sense of people’s knowledge and understanding. If we only rely on self-reported measures of social media sophistication, it will be difficult for organizational leaders to take appropriate action with respect to strategy, training, policy development, etc. A reliable, comprehensive measure would provide a much better starting point for both organizations and individuals.

If you know of a measure of social media sophistication and/or have any initial thoughts about whether one should be developed and what it should include, please email me or add a comment below. Thanks!

Courtney Hunt

 

Social Media Primer Part 1a - from the SMinOrgs S.M.A.R.T. Blog

View more presentations from Courtney Hunt.

 

Comments

[M. Metzger]

Dear Courtney,
I was intrigued by your insights and agree that developing a quiz to test social media knowledge for the US professional would be beneficial. Assessing awareness, proficiency and even expert levels across an organization might be precursors to assessing readiness for virtual collaboration or relevant remote team development. In the meanwhile, your quick and dirty quiz works for me. So can send me the answers?
Marie Metzger

[Courtney Hunt]

Thanks for your feedback, Marie! I'm sorry I wasn't clear about how to find the answers. I've fixed the post, which I hope will make it more clear. Thanks again.

[Courtney Hunt]

This quiz has been pretty popular. I've used it a lot in my own presentations, and it's always well received. Many other folks have downloaded it for their own use as well. Since much has changed in the 18 months since I created it, it needs to be updated. What social media icons would you add? Which would you delete? Thanks in advance for your help!

[Courtney Hunt]

The SMQ Quiz is now being revised! Here's a link to a post that provides an overview of recent changes and solicits feedback on the revised quiz. All input is welcome!

http://www.sminorgs.net/2011/07/whats-your-smq-social-media-quotient-updating-the-quiz.html

[Courtney Hunt]

If you want to access the quiz directly, here's a link to it: http://tiny.cc/SMinOrgsSMQ2d. Also, I thought it might be fun for folks to respond to a LinkedIn poll indicating what they think their SMQ is and see how it compares to the quiz results. Here's a link to the poll: http://linkd.in/rgSLAO. Thanks again!