Late upload (all my fault) but here is the 6th episode of The GennY Podcast once again with Dorothy and myself talking about things that that happened at Ad:Tech 2009, and our observations.
The show notes:
00:00 – Starting off “live” from Ad:Tech
00:24 – A slight comparison of Ad:Tech 2008 and Ad:Tech 2009 and trends we’ve noticed
00:51 – First trend: The audience still seems to be semi to largely clueless!
01:51 – Is there a trend of inertia of companies not wanting to get their feet wet?
02:52 – Second trend: The idea of strategy vs tools. Shouldn’t this be common sense?
03:20 – There really needs to be a bigger strategy than “collecting followers”
03:32 – Should marketing move up from the tactical level to the strategic level?
04:52 – There should be a budget shift from expensive TVCs that no one is watching, especially when numerous presentations show data that TV isn’t as powerful as it used to be
05:45 – If your digital initiatives aren’t working for you, prove that your traditional media initiatives are
06:36 – Maybe the truth hurts? The blind faith of buying an ad makes you feel better?
07:22 – So how do you deal with intangibles? Maybe you can’t have it both ways?
07:49 – Maybe online interactions have a different angle. Maybe it’s not about sales. Maybe it can be used for feedback?
08:12 – Are advertisers just conning themselves? What does 4.5 million eyeballs even mean?
09:00 – Dorothy sighs in utter exasperation. You’re doing this to her advertisers! You!
09:08 – Maybe we’re just in a stage where we don’t know what the different numbers mean
10:50 – How is employing one person to take care of your social media presence a more expensive investment than producing and buying a TV ad?
11:08 – In the future, advertising should be come “invisible” and woven in
11:52 – There seems to be a universal Generation Y culture
13:27 – Maybe they just want to reach more people, but as Seth Godin says, the world has shifted from the “how many” to the “who”
14:32 – Hopefully we’ll have the rest of the crew back soon and we’re trying to make this regular!
So Dorothy and I were speaking at Ad:Tech Asia yesterday at a youth panel, and there was much discussion at the panel, on Twitter and online about what was said. We decided a quick episode of GennY would be a great way to talk about our thoughts after the panel. You can check out this blog post with lots of details with what was said at the panel.
The show notes
00:00 – Daryl and Dorothy start us off, this is focused on the fallout after the Ad:Tech youth panel, 2009
00:27 – First point: Why this obssession with the distinction between “new” and “traditional” media?
01:55 – Daryl mentions that the tools are all the same and references Brian’s (@litford)’s comments in GennY #4 about the same tools having different usages, with different results. (GennY Podcast episode 004 – 22:34)
02:15 – Dorothy mentions that consistency across the different platforms is the key
02:55 – Is it about distinguishing the differences between them, or about how they can work together?
03:11 – Who do “influencers” really have to be?
05:34 – Down with “faceless” corporations on social media channels!! It’s impersonal and we can’t relate
06:55 – How about spokespeople from companies being the “faces” online?
07:44 – There are “stages” and “levels” in social media and the difficulty ramps up at each stage
08:17 – Perhaps co-ownership is the way to go. As long as there is someone available to listen
09:35 – Final point: Are youth really that different?
10:00 – Do older generations remember banner ads or TV ads?
10:18 – Marketers don’t like to hear that Gen Y doesn’t want to hear from “faceless” corporations, but isn’t it the same as receiving a telemarketer phone call or junk mail asking to sign up for a new credit card?
10:53 – Do the older generations go on websites and think “Wow this banner ad rocks I want to click on it”? Because if they don’t, why do they think we will?
11:10 – At the end of the day, would you be interested/excited about the ad if you were a consumer?
11:40 – Why would you do selective focus groups who may not even be your target group, when you could do it online with your fans and get fast feedback?
00:00 – Yin starts us off – introductions all round
00:36 – The tumbleweed crosses the alamo
01:17 – What do we expect of brands if they are involved in social media?
01:28 – Brian’s expectations are low, he just wants someone to talk to him
03:06 – If brands decide to be online, then they owe it to the customer to interact with them
04:10 – The minimum expectation is at least and acknowledgement or a reply, even if the concern or question isn’t immediately answered.
05:23 – Maybe sometimes brands shouldn’t be on social media?
06:12 – Yin suggests there’s a difference between big brands and smaller brands in terms of the scale of reaching out and interacting with customers
07:01 – Yinqi says with the resources that big brands have, she feels they should experiment more
07:29 – Brian mentions the flip side, which is that big brands have more to lose in terms of reputation online, despite the relative ease to get involved
09:17 – Brian clanks his beer bottle against the table leg for effect, before saying that brands don’t own brands, customers own brands
10:53 – Daryl brings up the local example of Starhub on Twitter and whether it opens up the opportunity to solve minor issues
11:54 – Brian brings up the reverse of that to announce anticipation of minor issues in advance so that at least consumers know
13:08 – Kris says one to one relationships aren’t always possible, especially with many consumers
16:13 – The issue really is about being painfully aware that your actions online (if you choose to be online) is broadcast to everyone
16:54 – The customer is now empowered to keep brands in check
20:59 – Yin wonders why brands still repeat mistakes, despite many opportunities for them to learn
22:04 – The tools are of equal access to everyone, it’s how your choose to wield the tools
22:24 – Brian says “nerfed”
22:56 – Daryl has the expectation (realistic or not) that brands should know the general “rules” of the platform they choose to engage consumers in
23:58 – What about companes’ expectations of consumers?
26:41 – Maybe companies need to make it clear what to expect from their online engagements
27:00 – Brian tells his Zappos story as an example of positive engagement
29:20 – Yin calls for feedback and questions and more interaction!
If you’d like us to talk about anything and hear Gen Y’s perspective, leave a comment and we’ll definitely record it if it’s within our collective sphere of knowledge.
Yin and Dorothy take a break from this episode, but here to join us in their place is Brian! The regular cast of Yinqi and Krisandro are around as well.
The show notes
Total running time: 19:43
00:00 – Yin starts us off – introductions all round
00:14 – Brian aka @litford finally joins the team!
01:02 – Is Gen Y voyeuristic?
02:36 – When is it too much information that is being posted up on Facebook or anywhere on the Web?
03:59 – Kris suggests that “too much” lies in the “eye of the beholder”, aka the person viewing the content
04:47 – Daryl introduces the “Grandma test”
05:25 – Is it reaching the stage where everything you do is broadcast online?
06:04 – Kris hammers home the point that it’s really about the person who is reading it and their levels of acceptance. Of course he uses a porn star as an example.
07:26 – Brian is in favour of “what I do is my business”
08:30 – If employers feel strongly about employees’ conduct online, it should be made crystal clear upfront
09:57 – Daryl says 7 “likes” in 20 seconds and sounds a little bimbotic
10:27 – But maybe people do it for attention!
11:52 – Kris makes it a hattrick by bringing it back to filtering by the reader
13:00 – The availbility of platforms just allows us to tap into the desire to broadcast our lives that has been there all along
13:23 – Brian takes the opportunity to tell us he has about 800 friends on Facebook
13:38 – Brian then tells us about this comic he read while he was “working” earlier in the afternoon
13:52 – The “comic” blows all our minds. We’re now accepting submissions for a graphical depiction.
15:14 – Daryl blames prior drinks for incoherence
15:57 – Brian decides to add in some academic value by telling us the theory of the media spike
17:27 – Brian tries to direct the group back to voyeurism
18:22 – Yinqi tries to find the point of the night
19:03 – Not to be outdone during his first recording session, Brian provides the key takeaway
If you’d like us to talk about anything and hear Gen Y’s perspective, leave a comment and we’ll definitely record it if it’s within our collective sphere of knowledge.
It’s been three weeks but the next episode of The GennY Podcast is finally here! Full disclosure: This was actually our first recording, but we felt that the episode we released first was better suited to be our first, introductory podcast. Coincidentally, some topics actually touch on what was said at Social Media Breakfast | Singapore 6, but in slightly more detail.
Once again, this episode was brought to you by the same people behind episode 1 (Krisandro, myself, Dorothy, Yin and Yinqi), but we hope to shake that up for subsequent episodes.
GennY Episode 2 Team
The show notes:
00:00 – Daryl starts us off – introductions all round
00:55 – Yin starts us off on the topic: How can we get traditional companies to start slowly on the social media path?
01:35 – Social media allows you to know what your consumer wants, what trends they’re picking up, and hence customise your communications/marketing
03:02 – Why don’t companies go where their audience is?
05:42 – Is there a perceived credibility problem with social media?
06:48 – How well received would brands be on Plurk?
07:50 – Maybe if they talked about things other than just selling, they might be better received.
08:31 – No messages from unknown faces please!
11:46 – Should employees reach out from their own identity, or create one aligned with a company?
13:02 – “Dear All” = Fail
15:03 – How about Facebook Groups?
15:39 – Facebook Groups more as personality “labels” rather than a communication channel
16:40 – Maybe Facebook Groups would work if the creators made an effort to communicate to the group
16:47 – But this can be overdone too
18:20 – Is this an intrinsic problem because Facebook Groups have no RSS?
If you’ve been following me on Twitter or Plurk, you may have gathered hints about a podcast coming your way.
Well, it’s here! It’s called Genny (pronounced Jenny – you have Krisandro to thank for the name) and the deal behind the podcast is that we decided to just get a handful of people from Generation Y in Singapore, and just really talk about what’s going on. Sometimes it’ll be about social media, sometimes it won’t be.
First, let me introduce the people in this podcast:
GennY Episode 1 Team
Krisandro, myself, Dorothy, Yin and Yinqi make up the people behind this episode, but it’s a revolving team and the voices will change from time to time, depending on who’s available to record the show. (Big thanks to Ingrid for putting together the graphic!)
As our first episode goes, this is pretty raw because we just sat in a room and talked into a laptop (Anyone wants to sponsor us proper podcast equipment?), but I hope you enjoy it anyway. It can only get better.
The show notes:
00:00 – Krisandro starts us off – introductions all round
00:53 – The topic: How is Gen Y different in the work force?
01:28 – Will Gen Y mindset change during the recession?
02:26 – Gen Y has no qualms with changing jobs, even in a recession
03:39 – Perhaps Gen Y feels there isn’t enough recognition at work
05:08 – Did the media influence Gen Y’s outlook on life?
07:56 – How is Gen Y different outside the workspace in peer-to-peer interactions?
09:57 – How does online interaction affect offline interaction?
10:51 – Krisandro claims he’s 19
11:01 – Are there different norms that apply online and offline?
11:58 – Maybe it’s easier for us to verify if people are weirdos online
15:10 – Blooper!
Please check out the podcast here and give us your feedback! If you’d like us to cover a certain topic, just drop a message in the comments. Thanks for your support!
I wanted to blog about this last week but in the hassle of packing and flying it slipped my mind until I was listening to a Jaffe Juice podcast while wandering around New York today:
Blogging is not about planting magic beans and expecting beanstalks to sprout up. Your blogs are probably not going to affect activation on a large scale for weeks or months! You’ve got to work at this. You’ve really got to work at this. So if you’re not planting those seeds right now, and you don’t have a plan to grow and promote and nurture and join a bigger conversation, then really what are you doing?
I first thought of this while walking past the Raffles Place train station and saw the Xbox/Sheylara poster I’ve been hearing about over the last week. Think about it: to move from a social media channel (a blog) to getting paid mainstream media publicity at one of – if not the most – heavily trafficked train station in Singapore. How does this happen?
With lots of hard work and patience, that’s how.
And that’s the one thing you should keep in mind when you’re blogging or dabbling in social media, be it as a company or brand or individual. You’re not going to make a hit overnight, but if you stick with your passion, you just might.
The earliest archives I can see on Sheylara’s website is December, 2005, but I have no idea if she was blogging before that. In other words, at the very least it took almost two years to really get established in the Singaporean blogosphere and established enough to be picked up by a big company like Microsoft.
There are probably many more reasons, but I can think of at least three that have contributed to this success outside of just “working at it”.
1) Being relatively focused on a niche.
Be it posing with guitars, talking about the latest Xbox games, pictures of she and her friends playing Rock Band and Gamer Girl Fridays, there’s no doubt that Sheylara is one gamer girl. Heck, when I was trying to tell a friend that at least one person in Singapore is playing Rock Band, I showed him her website. She doesn’t blog only about games, but there is a consistency in it that is hard to ignore.
2) Reaching out beyond offline interactions
I also previously blogged about Sheylara “cold e-mailing” to offer her help when we first started Social Media Breakfast | Singapore. I don’t think that got her the Xbox Xpert role per se, but it probably helped people sit up and notice that this is someone to be taken credibly in the local blogosphere. And as we all know, credibility is everything.
3) Being absolutely professional
Unlike certain other female bloggers I shall not mention by name, Sheylara always deals with her detractors with a touch of humour. In fact, I think more often her community are the ones who fight fire with fire. (The company parallel here is letting your antibodies work for you) Again in the social media space, there’s little to no tolerance for bitchfits. Either you can work things out like adults, or you prove to the world you never mentally graduated from kindergarten.
On the flip side, I give absolute credit to Microsoft and their agency for what they have done in this space. One, for moving into the space at all. Two, for selecting a good choice, and three, for taking time to determine that this choice is the best for them. I don’t think the Xbox Xpert happened overnight, but it was a relationship and mutual effort that was slowly worked on and cultivated, as I mentioned in a previous post. Let’s note also that the three points about Sheylara’s efforts online easily extend to a company like Microsoft too.
Again I emphasise that this is an effort that literally can take years to work. I’ve been blogging seriously for about eight months and still haven’t passed the 100 subscriber mark. You just gotta keep telling yourself you’ll reach it some day.
Maybe I should blog about something else for a year and get some company endorsement deal eh? Just kidding, I probably couldn’t tear myself away from this blog if I tried. Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with a picture that can act as a metaphor for whatever your brand, company, or individual blog is trying to achieve.
(Full disclosure: Sheylara is a friend of mine and we work together on Social Media Breakfast | Singapore. I also do not know the exact details of the Xbox Xpert deal, but am commenting on the process as an observer of the social media space)
It was really nice to see yesterday that of the 10 most popular posts on ping.sg, three were about SMB:S2, even though it was three days after the event!
As always, I think it’s great to have a central “collection” point for all the media generated around the event, so here’s the rundown:
Video: Social Media Breakfast 2.0 by Miccheng (ps another video on Geek Goddess TV should be out June 4th!)
Without doubt the podcast of the month for April goes to For Immediate Release which I usually have problems keeping up with (it’s released twice a week, one hour each), but the content for April was excellent and I found myself listening to it first among my podcasts.
Live call in show #5 highlights: How should companies reach out in social media without offending the people in it? Great analogy of standing at a party table and interjecting about insurance while they’re talking about something else.
#338 highlights: Kami Hyuse Seaworld case study and talk of the virtual internet
#339 highlights: Dan York & Sallie Goetsch take over. Lots of Twitter news and I have a comment left via Twitter!
I have to say, hands down, if you’re doing anything in the digital/social media space, you need to be listening to this podcast.
Other notable listens this month:
Inside PR #106 - Live episode with a great question “Who owns the social media space?”
Marketing Over Coffee – “Captcha and Turk“, lots of stuff on startups as well as a whole slew of Wordpress plugins I never knew about.
Shill #6 meandered a little this month, but still a worthwhile discussion about whether there’s any value in re-posting news.
Six Pixels Of Separation #98 (interview with Collin Douma), #99 (very interesting, almost counter-intuitive information regarding online reviews) and #100 (long conversation between Mitch, Brian Eisenberg and Avinash Kaushik).
Did you listen to any of these podcasts? Are you listening to different podcasts? I’m always on the lookout for great social media related podcasts, recommendations always welcome.
Second social media event in two days (the other being The Open Room by Ogilvy), is none other than Podfire’s soft launch at Geek Terminal. I came armed with my camera because Michael says I don’t post pictures!
What Is Podfire?
Podfire is a network for local podcasters/videocasters to come together and basically run their shows. Issues with hardware? No problem. Just come with time and a remarkable idea, Podfire will do the rest. The first two shows to be launched are Blogger’s Treats, a show featuring blogger’s favourite food haunts (featuring Sabrina and Daphne) and The Geek Goddess show, centered around web and tech happenings in Asia (featuring Estee and Peter).
How Were The Episodes?
I must say the episodes definitely impressed me in terms of quality and post-production. Having dabbled in videos myself, believe me when I say it’s hard work. Pacing was a little iffy, but hey, we’re bloggers, not TV hosts!
The Event
The event itself was pretty good. As usual I met a ton of people. Shannon for the first time ever, the aforementioned Daphne, Claudia, and Nicole for the first time in person and people who are by now “regulars” like Nadia, Michael Cheng, Jean and Ridz. As a new blogger, it’s all about meeting new people and forming new relationships for me.
The Aftermath
I gotta say I’m giving serious thought to entering the podcasting world with Podfire. My biggest issue is that my niche is covered so well in North America that it would be a great challenge to differentiate. Gonna have to think about it over the next week or so.
The second thought I have is that I’m getting closer to cementing my thoughts that social media may not be primed to work in Singapore despite our great infrastructure, lack of a language barrier, high internet penetration rate etc. I’ll probably blog about that tomorrow.
Thanks for reading and before you go, check out the two inaugural episodes! (As usual, Wordpress is giving me issues with Vimeo videos, so click on the links at the top of the page!)
