Tommy Vallier from Kingston, where I lived for almost five months, talks about a great idea of local hashtags to make local tweets even more searchable and relevant:
It’s been hard, though, because while big events have dedicated hashtags, smaller going-ons never do.
Because long hashtags don’t make sense thanks to Twitter’s 140 character limit, and over-general hashtags like #singapore would generate too much noise, Tommy suggested breaking up Kingston the same way Canada Post does, by postal code.
Kingston and Singapore have a lot in common. We’re both very small (although Singapore’s population is something like 45x on the same landmass), and we’re quite easily broken up into zones. The problem with hashtags like #sgtweetup and #smbsg and #openroom is that they can only be found by people who know what they’re looking for. The chance of serendiptous discovery is slim to none.
So what if we added in hyper-local hashtagging? Districts like #amk or #cck are too local (I feel) and too limiting (what’s the hashtag for Simei?). Perhaps the answer is in separating it into 5 parts:
#sgn - north
#sgs - south
#sge - east
#sgw - west
#sgc - central
An extra four characters to keep it short and sweet and easy to add on. Of course this isn’t fullproof (I don’t know where I’d put Sengkang), but if we imagine the rough outline of where the MRT trains go, we could possibly give a close to subjective hashtag to add more relevance to our tweets.
What do the Tweeters in Singapore think? Too troublesome? No one cares about local tweets? Or would it help tell you more about events, traffic, weather, news etc? I want to know what you think.
Ogilvy’s Digital Influence team held another Open Room, titled “Journalism’s from Mars, Social Media’s from Venus” and after tonight, I think it’s clear that the problem they have is the problem everyone (businesses, schools, non-profits, the music industry, etc) is having. They were sitting on a model that was working for the last 50 or so years, have been blind-sided by the sudden tidal wave of social media and not only are they not scrambling to catch up, but they’re actually holding on to the old world for all that it’s worth.
As with panels, I was fully prepared for some of the audience to be un-accepting of some young (and even worse, enemployed) punk telling them what the world is like. And it was no different this time, which is fine with me, it makes life exciting! How awfully boring would it be if everyone just nodded their heads and agreed.
I think it was a really interesting discussion. There was as much uncommon ground as there was common, and it’s painfully obvious both sides have to learn from each other. Monetisation is not a dirty word, but neither is trusting a fellow blogger. I think we have to move away from our normal worldviews that content creating is done for passion (for bloggers) or that the man on the street (or the Tweeter on Tweetdeck) is less reliable and/or credible than the journalist.
Thinking about “journalism” from the point of breaking news and real good opinion pieces is one thing. But I think we need to think about where the money comes from. Thinking about subscription models and what not is fine (even though they won’t work), but as Thomas Crampton brought up, mainstream media has enjoyed the monopoly on reaching people and advertising for a very long time, and companies are just beginning to realise that they can bypass the “middleman” entirely, thus crippling the revenue model. Will it provide them the reach? Probably not. Will it provide them the influence? Barack Obama’s YouTube channel suggests yes (yes yes I know it worked in tandem with traditional media).
As a closing comment: someone said that old habits die hard, referring to the staying power of traditional media and being used to opening that Sunday edition of the paper over a slow and leisurely breakfast. Here’s a thought: my “old” habits from the old world started changing by the time I was thirteen, and many were gone by the time I was seventeen. Radio, once a nightly listen for the dedication show, is an afterthought, so are magazines. TV serves my purposes when I want it to, newspapers have flown out of the window, music exists in the form of mp3s, not cds. The only “old world” habit I maintain is the reading of books.
My point is this: as much as old habits die hard, to the new generation, new habits form at an alarming speed that the world has never seen before. When, if ever, has a generation been influenced so quickly and successively like from the transition to Friendster to Facebook? That’s not just the speed of platform change, but the speed of diffusion from half a world away. When and how fast did we take up texting to replace calling? The speed of change is crazy. Geographical boundaries barely exist anymore. And I would ask people who believe in the “old habits” to take a look at their children, their nephews, their nieces or anyone under 20 and tell me how many of their “old habits” they see replicated in them, and ask how different the world will be in five or ten years, and if now’s the time to think about that change, or cling on to “old habits”.
As everyone knows by now, Singapore has it’s first H1N1 case, a schoolmate of mine from SMU (I don’t know her name or who she is). She came back from a business study mission to New York, and I was on a similar trip two years ago in 2007, and many of my friends were on trips before, during and after that.
So when the media gets hold of information that
a) The H1N1 case is a student from SMU
b) She was on a business study mission to New York
What do they do? Call/email/sms/instant message anyone and everyone they know who has ever gone on the trip, regardless of which year it was. I personally was contacted for information, so too were other friends who were on the previous trips, and not this year’s. They then start asking for the phone number of the professor in charge.
Look. If you want to do responsible reporting, do responsible reporting. Call the hospital, ask the doctor how she is, ask the ministries if we’re prepared for the flu, whatever. Don’t sensationalise reporting by finding out facts that don’t matter, and don’t harass people who have nothing to do with it!
You know the rules. You want a comment, call the school, not the students.
And for goodness sake, leave the poor girl alone to recover in the hospital. It’s bad enough she has to go through the trauma for having the virus, the last thing she needs are vultures circling around her door, phone and anywhere else to get every juicy tidbit of information that matters.
By the way, Channel News Asia, there’s no point being on Twitter which is meant for instantaneous messaging, if you break the news almost five hours after it’s out.
This is a quick overview of Day One of Youth Connect! which I had the privilege of attending and being a panelist at today, and I had a really good time.
For the first time in a long time, I could listen to people who actually knew their stuff go up there and tell us about their social media efforts, demonstrate some form of ROI, and hold up under scrutiny. I admit I was all ready to roll my eyes in cynicism when a speaker went up and said he was well-versed in digital marketing with an advertising agency, but then he actually knew what he was talking about. Very different from some speakers who just talk a lot, but don’t really say anything.
So my highlight was really speaking at the youth panel with four other people from the other universities, and I have to give Graham Perkins (@grayperks)props for really revving up the crowd even though it was the last session of the day. It was by far the most interactive session I’ve had the chance to speak at, and I think the smaller size of the conference helped people get used to one another and ask questions.
One thing that I “feel” intuitively at this conference, is that people understand more about social media than they did a year ago. The types of questions I had to answer a year ago and the types of questions I had to answer today, were quite different, and basic knowledge of what Facebook is, what Twitter is, what iPhones can do, can be pretty much be assumed, which makes a lot of difference when you’re trying to answer questions without leaving anyone behind.
As always, my favourite topic of newspapers came up again (which I will blog about soon), and I did have to answer one question about the effectiveness of advertising, and whether youth actually notice them. The room gave a slightly audible gasp when I told them Gen Y is pretty much trained to “ignore” interruptive marketing and advertising, but I think it’s not an exaggeration to say that.
When one other attendee asked if anyone of the five of us saw a physical ad (print, tv, outdoor) and went online to do research on that product or service based on the ad, the answer was a resounding no. So there you have it.
Lots of other stuff I want to talk about, a few great case studies that I really enjoyed listening to, I hope to blog them soon. It’s going to be Youth Connect! Week on the blog this week, but I think you’ll enjoy reading about it.
I will say this about the organisers: It’s not a big event, but I think they brought in great speakers. Companies who paid money to attend this (especially in this recession), should be very satisfied with the value they got out of it.
Singapore’s “first ever” Tweetup (#sgtweetup) happened tonight at Geek Terminal, and I say “first ever” because Claudia and Kelvin already had a Tweet Tuesday sometime back, and even though it wasn’t branded as a tweetup, make no mistake, it was.
Even before reaching the event, I got updates via Twitter about models appearing for some Supermodelme tv thing and alarm bells already went off: Is this a social media event or an event gathering social media people with a hidden agenda? Evidently, it was the second, and from the tweets, people didn’t like it.
Also, on the way there, I saw the following tweets with no relevance to the event (but using the #sgtweetup hashtag) from the event venue and one of the organisers. Hashtag hijack?
Hashtag Hijack
Within ten minutes of entering the premises, I had these “models” handing me their namecards, followed by the real world equivalent of “kthxbai” as they moved on in search of the next person to hand out their namecard to.
Let me borrow a picture from Ingrid’s post to illustrate what happened:
Model Namecards
And if you check out their profiles on Twitter, you’ll find that the models have no pictures, no tweets or one tweet, almost as if they were handed their Twitter accounts just prior to the event to capitalise on it.
Model Twitter
Model Twitter
Let me just say that such “shady” event organising really makes social media take a step backwards. In a world where we’re all asking for more transparency and more authenticity, there is no room for hidden agendas to “taint” the impression of such events. As I said on Twitter, it’s not about the models, it’s that having a hidden agenda of using a tweetup to push and broadcast a commercial entity is repulsive.
Just as a closing point, I’ve been feeling for awhile that local social media events need to change. It’s all fine and good that anyone and everyone can organise a tweetup or impromptu meeting, but I think we need to focus on building up events with credibility, where people know what they’re getting into, and can make informed decisions. Events where you appear and have a curveball thrown at you…. not so much.
What do you think about the “first ever” tweetup? Is there a space for social media shilling at events? Are there too many events?
Edit: Because word is going around about the organiser @CarlGriffith not knowing about the models and that the event venue sprung it last minute, I don’t know what went on but 8 hours before the event, Andrew Peters, listed as an administrator for the event, posts the following on Facebook:
Surprise
Now maybe the models weren’t the surprise, or the admins didn’t communicate to each other, I don’t know. But it reads that way to me. I didn’t actually say Carl personally was at fault, the issue is that as a whole the shill leaves a bad impression.
[Full disclosure: I am on the team for Social Media Breakfast | Singapore and obviously being a local social media event organiser and social media enthusiast, I do have a vested interest in how the public perceives and reacts to social media events.]
I’m going to be at the Youth Connect! Conference on the 18th of May as part of a youth panel called “Youth Speak! - What makes Youth Tick?” that aims to “reveal what shapes their lifestyle, spending habits, what’s in & what’s not”.
So I have two questions:
1) To the organisations: What would you want to know?
and
2) To fellow youth, here’s a visual from the conference pamphlet:
Cool vs Socially Conscious
I know what’s my answer, but I’d love to hear from you! The comments are yours.
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.
Last week, Rubin and I made a quick search for shirts that go with a tux (no, we didn’t know previously that they’re different from regular shirts). So we hit three shops in the immediate vicinity, the first two were totally aiming to make the sale. Everything from trying to get you to commit to an order, introducing “premium” materials and lowering prices to make it seem like a “discount”.
The third, we felt was more authentic right off the bat. He showed us the “normal” material and “premium” material and told us to verify for ourselves that there was no discernible difference in texture (there wasn’t), and that the important thing that tailors bring to customers is the service and customisation.
I think this approach is really about customer lifetime value. Do you go in with an affordable, knock-them-off-their-socks product that keeps them coming back for more, or are you concerned about making that one sale, and forgetting about the trust and relationship that can be formed, especially in businesses that are service-oriented?
Very different marketing approaches, but in the long run, I think aiming for retention will get better results than just attracting new customers. More word of mouth, more loyalty and more trust, which money can’t buy.
Awhile back I was talking to a friend who I went to school with, and she was telling me about a social media training session by an “expert” who was teaching them how to use social media to monitor their brand. This apparently covered the usual Google Alerts, as well as some of the more popular forums here in Singapore. So I asked the obvious question: “When’re you going to start participating?”
“Oh. We have to pay more for training for engagement.”
Say what?
I’m definitely not against having training for engagement. It’s way too easy to do the wrong thing when commenting on a blog, using Twitter, using Facebook or just replying on a forum. Not to mention there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for participation, and it’ll have to be customised to fit your company’s needs, which will differ from industry to industry, and even within industries, between companies.
Here’s the thing though. If I were an agency or a self-proclaimed “expert” (a term I really don’t like), I’d love it if a company contacts me and doesn’t include a request for engagement in the “training package”. Great for greed, great for money.
It’s like going to an agency and asking for something “viral” just because it’s the latest buzzword, but not having an inkling what it’s actually about, and when the agency comes back to you with an idea which is far from viral, you won’t know any better and have to take their word for it. Do you really want to take that kind of risk with your money these days?
So I think as a client, do yourself a favour and do some research on what your agency should be offering you and what you should be asking for. And if you don’t know enough and don’t have the time to know about, at least bring someone on board in your company who can tell you when your agency or “expert” is obviously shilling you.
I suppose this isn’t news, but Starhub (one of the three telcos here in Singapore) has brought its presence to the social media scene in the form of a Twitter account, @StarHubCares.
During the first few weeks, there were a few issues like @StarHubCares replying other Twitter users, asking them to direct message (dm) @StarHubCares directly, but because @StarHubCares wasn’t following them on Twitter in the first place, there was no way for a dm to get through.
Thankfully, with some help from the community, this was quickly sorted out and @StarHubCares quickly followed these people (myself included) back, and got down to replying their issues.
Here are a few questions that I do have about the initiative:
1) Should it be more transparent that the person behind @StarHubCares is not actually someone from Starhub, but their agency? Some online feel yes, I’m slightly on the fence.
2) Is Twitter the best (or even a right) channel for them to be on?
3) @StarHubCares seems to do a good job of listening in and replying to questions/problems, but are there actual accounts from them or from the general public about cases being closed, problems being solved?
4) Do regular Starhub employees know about this service, so that maybe when they close a sale at a retail outlet, they can tell customers about this service in addition to the customer helpline?
What do you think? When should a company be on Twitter? Does it fit Starhub? Should they be doing more with it? Less?
