Archive for the ‘facebook’ Category
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
Ignore
Two days ago I posted about people being a big danger of social media marketing because of what they might say on various channels without thinking about the consequences.
But on a more personal (though it can be corporate) level, inaction is equally damning.
When someone adds you (the communication professional of the company) on, say, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, and you wait a week before replying – what does that say about you as an individual, and as a representative as a company?
They add you and you accept it two weeks later – they’re not important.
They ask a question and you never answer it - they’re beneath you.
You ask your community a question but then don’t respond to the answers – you’re disinterested and insincere.
In the above cases you’d be better off not being involved in the social space at all.
I have to admit this is something I struggle with personally. Sometimes people I meet once at conferences want to connect on Facebook and that might be a little too personal for me so I procrastinate and before long it’s a month and by then, accepting the invitation lets the other party know I metaphorically sat on it for a month, thus conveying the message they weren’t important enough to accept within a few days.
There’s no easy answer to this question. Some people will be comfortable accepting every invitation, others will be more selective. It’s not so much the style that matters, but being aware that whichever route you choose to take (or not take) communicates something to that person or group of people.
How do you deal with the many requests you get on social channels? Do you ignore some? Ask them to add you on a less personal channel like Twitter instead of Facebook? I’d love to hear from you.
[image from Spraytint]
Tags: communication, communication professional. twitter, company representative, danger of social media marketing, facebook, inaction, LinkedIn, social channels, social media
Posted in facebook, online identity, social media | No Comments »
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
The Singapore Writers Festival is back and the big news was that they were bringing in Neil Gaiman. After continually hearing about it and repeatedly checking their website, there was no mention of Neil until one day it was all over the social media channels that tickets had run out and were only announced on Twitter (to an audience of 170+) as opposed to their Facebook group (700+) or even their mailing list.
Understandably, this led to confusion, disappointment and outrage all over the Facebook group, Facebook event page and Twitter:
I believe the organisers made one of the biggest mistakes there is to be made in social media: focusing on the tools, platforms and technology. They probably were aware that “Facebook” and “Twitter” were the latest buzzwords in town and decided to use them exclusively instead of their website or even email communications.
And even then, I’d be hard pressed to say they used them well. There’s little to no response to the upset people above on the channels and to put it plainly, it seems like the organisers intend to ignore them.
At the end of the day, we have to realise social channels is to be used in conjunction with existing channels, not instead of. If and when they are brought into the marketing or communications plan, there should be a solid strategy or goal behind it, not just using the tools for the sake of it.
Perhaps the Singapore Writers Festival organisers should have taken a page out of the British Council’s book since they organised it brilliantly when Neil was last down a few years ago.
For a completely different case study, check out Jonathan Wong’s post on Anime Festival Asia
Posted in Events, Poor Practices, Singapore, case studies, facebook, social media | 8 Comments »
Monday, September 14th, 2009
Facebook Logo
The reason is simple: it comes down to demographics.
Last week I was casually looking at the profiles of people who joined Facebook while they were in school, and those who joined Facebook while they were already in the workforce, and one main difference struck me. Keep in mind that this is by no means a scientific method of “research” but casual observation. Remember that Facebook was started out as a social network for college students to share stuff like timetables, and for those of us who started it while in school, it may well have been used for those purposes and connecting with people in the same classes.
The Big Observation
I realise the people who were in school/are currently in school, tend to have much more friends on Facebook than those who were part of the workforce when Facebook appeared. I’m not sure if this is surprising to anyone, but to me, while the number of friends in itself doesn’t necessary say anything explicitly, it does suggest a number of implications:
1) We’re used to this mode of communication
Some days I realise I don’t have someone’s phone number with me, but we’re friends on Facebook. So I whip out my iPhone, log into the Facebook mobile application and I can send them a message and expect a reply back pretty quickly. And not all messages are created equal. The tone and context of a Facebook message is different from that of an SMS or an email, bringing a certain level of flexibility to communications. I think Gen Y will learn to leverage this mode of communication more and more in the future.
2) We’re used to being searched
We know that employers and colleagues screen us on Facebook. We know how to blend our personal and online profiles to get across who we really are on our Facebook profiles. This may differ from people who aren’t used to sharing information about themselves or pictures of their family. I think this enhances our ability to connect and build relationships and networks.
3) We’re used to adding “friends”.
It’s not at all uncommon to attend an event one night and be tagged in a Facebook photo the next day and become friends soon after. The old definition of “friend” becomes looser all the time and these loose links may actually turn out to be the most valuable of all, so there’s a lower barrier to adding these aquaintances. (Caveat: it doesn’t work when you’re obviously a pushy marketer out to collect friends rather than build relationships)
In addition to these three points, obviously with time, more people we know will get on Facebook from friends to family to co-workers to business partners to casual connections online, and that will only enhance the network effect and that will be a big factor in keeping Facebook “sticky” because people simply won’t switch to another social networking site unless most of their network does too. And when “most of their network” translates to easily 500 friends, it’s no easy task to induce a switch.
So why two years?
Simple, that’s the time it would have taken for all the people who joined Facebook in the first few years of its’ existence, to have graduated out of school and enter the workforce and start using it as a real social connector and virtual rolodex. I’m pretty sure this will lead to reversals of decisions to unblock Facebook and perhaps really solidify the wave for social media marketing via social networking channels by people who understand them the most.
This of course is my possibly skewed view. What do you think? Do we use Facebook any differently than people even slightly older than us? Is there a greater propensity for us to connect or is it a level playing field? The comments are yours.
Tags: definition of friend, employers screen facebook, facebook, facebook application, facebook demographics, facebook friends, facebook mobile, facebook popularity, facebook profile, facebook search, facebook searches, Gen Y, generation y, loose links, social media marketing, social networking channels, used to facebook communication
Posted in Gen Y, facebook, social media | 1 Comment »
Saturday, August 29th, 2009
Entirely tongue-in-cheek post. While familiarising myself with some Google tools earlier in the week I curiously checked out what the trends are here in Singapore in terms of search volume.
Fact #1: searches for Facebook have been on the up starting 2008, but are rising exponentially in 2009.
Fact #2: Singaporeans are too lazy to facebook.com and login, prefering to instead search “Facebook login” on Google, and brought to the login page directly, as shown by this screenshot, capturing two of the top three rising searches in the last three months:
Singapore Rising Searches
Make of it what you will!
Tags: facebook login page, google tools, search volume, searching for facebook, Singapore, singaporeans are lazy
Posted in Fun, Singapore, facebook, social media | Comments Off
Friday, November 21st, 2008
I was in Media & Popular Culture class tonight and we were talking about examples where not having a particular product and/or service, naturally excludes you from participating in an event.
Examples were not being able to vote on a TV programme (eg American Idol) if you don’t have a handphone and one that really struck me:
“If you’re not on Facebook, you don’t get invited to parties anymore”
This is definitely true for me, especially for student-run events and personal parties.
How true is that for you, and do you think it says something about society?
Tags: american idol, facebook, media and popular culture, parties, pop culture
Posted in Gen Y, facebook | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
I wanted to talk about this post by Hutch Carpenter awhile back. The basic idea that he says is that Facebook is getting his attention again because of the increased interaction in his network.
The same applies for me. Previously I spent maybe ten minutes a day on Facebook, logging in just to check message or development in groups, now when I use Facebook, it’s open almost the whole time I’m online so I can check for new status updates, photos, posted items and the like. It’s brought much more value to me than the old Facebook where I see whose egg hatched into a dinosaur.
I read somewhere about Facebook applications talk about losing a lot of traffic literally overnight, which I suppose is inevitable since interaction seems to be the new focus of Facebook, not applications. That said, I believe that if you have a truly fun application, people will still visit it regardless. I still go to Visual Bookshelf and Premier League Picks, for example.
When I first started using Twitter, I tried to explain to people that it was like updating your Facebook status, and now with Facebook’s ability to comment on status updates, I think they’ve really grasped the Twitter concept and made it into a very powerful one. Hutch gives examples of how much more interaction he has on Facebook compared to Twitter for the same update. On many levels it makes a lot of sense. Would I bring my friends over to Twitter if there’s a powerful equivalent on Facebook where my friends already are?
i guess it’s easy for the social media types like us to appreciate the new Facebook, but I really want to hear from the average users. Those who used to use Facebook to throw sheep or rate friends. How does the new Facebook work for you? Does the increased interaction make a difference? Please comment!
Tags: facebook status updates, hatching eggs, hutch carpenter, increased facebook interaction, new facebook, new facebook layout, premier league picks, twitter, visual bookshelf
Posted in community, facebook | 6 Comments »
