There are times in your life that you have to engage in self-reflection. You know, that introspective soul searching we occasionally do in order to understand who we really are, what we want out of life, or just to get a bit more happiness or satisfaction out of life. Thankfully, Facebook can help. If you really want to dig deeply into the nooks and crannies of your personality, then consider taking a Facebook quiz or three. Be warned, some revelations may be unsettling.

First off, I wanted to validate my self-esteem and sense of identity, so I took the “What’s your ghetto nickname? quiz and the “What’s your Native American Indian name?” quizzes. Eerily, I found the results to be strikingly similar: “Stank Bug” and “Little Brown Cloud” respectively. Any close friend or family member can vouch for these results, and this told me I was clearly on the right path to a better understanding of me.

Next, I wanted to learn a bit more about my personality, so I took the “Which Harry Potter Character Are You?”, and “Which Tarot Card Are You?” quizzes. From the titles of these, I assumed they would speak to the aspects of my being that sincerely love and respect all things magical and wondrously mysterious about the world. Interestingly, I learned that I’m a forgetful geek like the Potter character “Neville Longbottom”, although I possess the “childish innocence” and “mystical cleverness bereft of reason” characterized by “The Fool”. Truly, I was getting somewhere. So I dove in and took quiz after quiz, popping through them like some ancient pac-man gobbling 8-bit dots.

I could recount all the wonderful and exciting things I learned, but that would take way more time than I want to spend. I’ll just hit some highlights: my hidden superpower is teleportation, my eyes say that I know how to fold a map correctly, I would most likely be arrested for helping a Harvard professor break into his own house, and I should probably move to Dublin.

Some Facebook quizzes don’t provide you with much actionable information. So my lightsaber is green, so what? Does it really matter that I’m not country, I’m as mature as a 15 year old, my emoticon is >=D, or I should get a patriotic pinup tattoo? Probably not. I learned that some of these quizzes are just there for fun. Seriously, I was surprised too, but there it is. Some people use Facebook as some kind of diversion rather than to become fully self-actualized.

So finally, inspired by my wife, I was able to come up with my own Facebook quiz. I thought it was time to give back, to provide something of equal or greater value than what I was able to receive from going through countless other quizzes. I created something that would let us peer deeply into ourselves, and determine how we really see the world. Of course, everyone should take the new “Which Photoreceptor Are You?” quiz today. You’ll be surprised at how similar we all are.

I’ll talk a little about Twitter, since that’s the newest big social kid on the block. Millions of people are on Twitter, tweeting to their heart’s content, and millions of people that don’t tweet wonder what all the fuss is about. If you recall, the same sort of thing happened with Facebook and MySpace before Twitter. And again with Blogging before that. And with email lists, IRC, and web forums before that. All the way back to primitive peoples sharing stories around a crackling fire, there have been those who ask, “What’s the big deal with fire anyway?”

All the way back to primitive peoples sharing stories around a crackling fire, there have been those who ask, “What’s the big deal with fire anyway?”

I’ll tell you what the deal is.

It’s not the technology, it’s us.

All through history, people have had this need to connect, to create community, to share their ideas, thoughts, fears, and hopes with others. We want – we need – those connections, just like we need food and water, and even air to breathe. People are nothing if not social animals, and if you’re surprised that now, in the early 21st century people have discovered new and empowering forms of social media, then you just haven’t been paying attention. We have always found new forms of social media, ever since the dawn or symbolic thought and our ability to share stories and ideas through language. I also suspect that we will always create new ways to do so.

And there will always be those who wonder what all the fuss is about.

So, I believe that social media is much like any other form of community – and you tend to get out of it what you put in. Maybe that’s the only rule, and that’s why people talk about twitter and Facebook karma. If you’re a prick to your neighbors, do they invite you to their big 4th of July cookout? If you play nice in your virtual communities, then maybe you get nice back.

In any event, you have to join in to participate – and that’s just the beginning of the fun.

Obviously YouTube views aren’t really votes, and it’s not really clear how, or even if, they’ll somehow translate into votes. Obama’s success on YouTube does, however, illustrate the fact that Obama, much more than McCain, has an effective strategy to leverage social media sites like YouTube and Facebook to get his message out, and that very well could translate into more votes come election day.

Take, for example, Brian Stelter’s interesting article in the New York Times yesterday about the new media strategy of the Obama campaign:

The campaign’s new-media strategy, inspired by popular social networks like MySpace and Facebook, has revolutionized the use of the Web as a political tool, helping the candidate raise more than two million donations of less than $200 each and swiftly mobilize hundreds of thousands of supporters before various primaries.

The centerpiece of it all is My.BarackObama.com, where supporters can join local groups, create events, sign up for updates and set up personal fund-raising pages. “If we did not have online organizing tools, it would be much harder to be where we are now,” Mr. Hughes said.

What we see here is that the Obama campaign is doing more than just taking the internet seriously. They’re making it an integral part of their media apparatus. They’re staffing their web team with savvy professionals, and funding it as if victory depended on it. If this trend continues, and if the Obama campaign can somehow translate all the social media juice into tangible action in the voting booth, you can expect every future campaign to learn the lesson: Rather than simply a tool for poking your friends or for niche marketing, social media outlets can play a key role in selecting the President of the United States of America. And to me, that prospect is simply amazing.

The Collective Thoughts blog is about Social Media. Social Media to me is about using interactive elements of a website to get your proposed message across. What better way of getting into someones head then to let them see a little bit into your own mind. It is all about how you build your rapport.

Mark then goes on to request readers to imagine their own favorite flower, to reconnect with why it’s their favorite, and to then write a review of his post on stumbleupon. Yeah, I did all that, but what would motivate me to actually take time out of my increasingly busy life to review this guy’s post?

The answer is quite simple – he didn’t just ask for a link. Instead – he gave me something of value first. It might be that his simple effort to actively connect with his readers made me stop and think for a moment: What was my favorite flower?

And there it was – all internet marketing copywriting wisdom rolled up into one simple concept: write something sincere for your readers, and they might do something for you. He wasn’t asking me to buy anything, just imagine my favorite flower – and that’s all it takes to plant the seed in someone’s mind.

BTW, I really like sweet olive blossoms – they’re so tiny but smell amazing.