Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
Lots of awesome stuff this week, let’s get into it:
Social Media For Beginners
I’m always conscious that everyone’s visit to my site could be a first visit. If you’re looking for a great resource for how to dip your toes into social media’s waters, how about 35 tips for getting started with social media? Very beginner friendly.
Online Influencers
No secret, this is a pet topic of mine. Read Write Web says research suggests influencers are alive and well on social media sites. John Bell of Ogilvy also talks about working with word of mouth influencers and the ethics involved.
RSS
RSS adoption at 11%? I wonder if the numbers are accurate. It would seem lower than that, just from my personal friends.
Research
Two interesting articles on the usage patterns of Africans, particularly with respect to mobile. Might be of interest to the Comm215 Wiki at some point in the future, I suspect.
Community Management
Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon and hire a community manager. Consider the job hazards of the community manager as told by Jeremiah Owyang before diving head in.
Finally, for education, The Edublogger asks if you’re making your life easier with Google Calendar. Vastly underutilised tool in classrooms and project groups for collaboration and it’s time you get started! Although my online tools have expanded to include reQall and Remember The Milk, I started with Google Calendar (or GooCal, as I affectionately call it), and it’s a great starting point.
As always, do share interesting links you read about this week with me, you can find me on delicious.com/uniquefrequency or simply leave the link in the comments!
Tags: african mobile usage, blogger outreach, community management, community manager, edublogger, google calendar, jeremiah owyang, job hazards of community manager, john bell, online influencers, read write web, rss, rss adoption, social media for beginners, tips for getting started with social media, wom, word of mouth influencers
Posted in Icio | 2 Comments »
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
Haven’t done this in awhile, but I really wanted to direct you to two resources which I found to be extremely valuable just yesterday.
Word Of Mouth Manual II
Dave Balter who co-authored Grapevine (which I remember reading two years ago) has a new book out called the Word Of Mouth Manual Volume II. Since focusing more and more on social media, I had actually thought in recent weeks about re-visiting the book and seeing what is still relevant today. I first came across the link from Mitch Joel and I don’t want to copy and paste the URL here because it’s a unique URL (excellent for measurement), so head on there if you want to download the book for FREE! (otherwise it costs you $45 on Amazon).
Also, the way the news got out was great, targeting a few key influencers online like John Moore from Brand Autopsy, John Bell from the Digital Influence Mapping Project, Todd Defren at PR Squared and of course Seth Godin among others. Given that these posts appeared in my feeds alone, I’m sure spread out over the targeted blogs, many more people interested in communication and word of mouth would have come across it as well. And appearing numerous times in numerous blogs also sends a strong signal: These many people have found it worth their time, it’s probably worth yours too.
Feedly
As always, Louis Gray brings the best in all things feed-related. I’m not going to just scrape the details from his blog because his write-up is so thorough, there’s probably nothing more I can do but to help spread the word by directing you to his coverage. I’ve just installed Feedly and am finding it a lot to get used to, but I can see certain elements I like.
Tags: brand autopsy, bzzagent, dave balter, digital influence mapping project, feedly, grapevine, john bell, john moore, louis gray, mitch joel, pr squared, seth godin, todd defren, word of mouth manual
Posted in Blogs, Marketing, collaboration, social media | No Comments »
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
One thing I’ve continually questioned is why social media is blooming slowly but not blossoming rapidly in Singapore. I’ve noted that we don’t have problems other countries do, but yet social media is still a very, very small slice of the pie.
Discussions with Michael Netzley, John Bell and Ridz have all resurfaced the same theme: We’re too small. ie the benefits of social media don’t translate as much when you can sms a friend and meet him/her in person in 20 minutes, compared to someone living on the opposite coast in America.
Social media events in North America bring together people who see each other a few times a year. We can see the same people twice in a week at events here!
When we all read the same papers, watch the same news and television and generally consume the same media, does new media still bring additional benefits to the table?
Tracking social media events over the last few months, it does indeed seem like the same people are going for the same events. It’s not a bad thing in itself, but it also means that options to companies are limited. Kami Hyuse’s case study on SeaWorld is an amazing one with great ROI. Attracting 22 roller coaster enthusiasts? That would be hard to replicate here. Obviously I don’t mean for roller coasters (because we have none), but for almost anything in general. It would be easier and simpler (maybe even more cost effective) to put out a print ad than to do a blogger outreach programme, just by impressions alone.
HP did a great blogger outreach programme, but does that value dilute if another company tries something similar and the same bloggers turn up?
I’ve anecdotally heard that 20 million is the magic number for social media to take off. Not in the sense that it’s an automatic qualifier (Indonesia has 25 million but that’s a fraction of it’s population), but it’s an indicator. Given that we’re at something like 4 million total population, does it mean that we’ll never get there?
That said, there is obviously a huge social media interaction on platforms like hardware zone, to some extent Facebook and others, suggesting to me that there is an audience, but we haven’t found a way to properly leverage it yet.
There are a lot of instances when I wish companies would engage the social media participants. But let’s think about it, if 5,000 people talk about your brand in a year (and I’m already stretching it), would you hire a person to monitor that and engage? Or is it easier to close an eye to that miniscule number, and focus on other things? Let’s face it, most companies aren’t Dell with hundreds of thousands of customers complaining. It’s a real question where companies only have a limited amount of resources, and have to prioritise.
Do you think our size is the biggest limiting factor? Do you have other thoughts on why social media’s influence is still limited in Singapore? Most importantly, do you see it changing? In how many years? Or will this being small turn on its head and be a strength? I want to hear from you.
Tags: blogger outreach singapore, john bell, michael netzley, ridz85, singapore's population, singapore's size, social media benefits, social media in singapore
Posted in Singapore, social media | 18 Comments »
Monday, April 28th, 2008
The Open Room was held today at Ogilvy with the tagline “where brands and bloggers connect”. I was one of the privileged bloggers to be invited, and I have to say I had a blast.
John Bell (who I had the honour of talking to for awhile) kicked it off with 12 points on the Code of Ethics for blogger outreach. Needless to say with my recent issues with journalist-blogger relations, this struck a chord with me and I have to say I think Ogilvy has got it spot on.
The Open Room was a great event for me as a blogger. I got to meet people I met previously from Social Media Breakfast: Singapore like Sheylara, Supriya, Jean, Ridz, Rinaz, Nicholas, Michael Netzley and Aaron, as well as some bloggers I know of online but never really met in person like the Tech 65 crew, Ian on the red dot, Sabrina, Plaktoz and Nadia, as well as a ton of people from Ogilvy. (I’m sure I’ve missed people out, let me know so I can add your link!)
The one thing that I felt was replicated from the IDC Conference was that the companies involved seemed a little unsure about what to do when meeting bloggers. We were identified clearly by our magenta tags (they had green), but yet the two groups never really mingled. I don’t think this is the “fault” of anyone in particular, just that this new social media space and community marketing concept are something corporations are just figuring out right now. I definitely hope this changes soon. I don’t want to be pitched by companies at events like these, but it would be nice to talk to them and find out more about them.
Y’know, start a conversation, have a relationship. Like real people.
For example, I was checking out the new Canon models (because my sister took my camera), but there wasn’t really anyone there I could talk to about it. In fact, most of the “green tags” were gone by 6:30pm. (Probably considered as overtime for them).
I think the issue here is simple: Bloggers have taken a step forward. Companies like Ogilvy have taken a very important step forward by organising something like The Open Room. Now the companies, the very people who the bloggers and agencies are trying to help and engage, need to take that step forward and be a part of the conversation, part of the community too.
After all, at the end of the day, for the bloggers it’s a blogger social event, but the companies should at least go back with something to show for it, be it a new blogger relation or a referral. Because otherwise, the time was wasted wasn’t it?
Edit: Forgot to insert the picture, but we got some swag from the event! Nice touch I must say. Anyone needs the PSP case? I don’t have one so feel free to ask for it. Don’t even think about the Nokia N-gage thumbdrive though!
Big thanks to Brian and Tania for inviting me, looking to future events!
Tags: aaron koh, code of ethics blogger outreach, john bell, journalist blogger relations, michael netzley, nadnut, ogilvy pr, plaktoz, pr blogger pitches, ridz84, rinaz, sheylara, simplyjean, tech 65, the open room
Posted in Blogs, Fun, Marketing, Media, Singapore, social media | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008
A regular feature on this blog, here are the other blogs I subscribed to in March which I feel should be shared with the community:
A VC – I have no interest in VC, but every now and then there’s interesting stuff on social media that I read and enjoy.
Socialmedia.biz is a great site keeping up with social media in the business setting.
I like Student Blog Project because the notion of using web2.0 in education is a curiosity of mine and I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon it on ping.sg early in the month.
Inside PR is one of the many podcasts that I’ve added to my Ipod (soon to be Ipod touch) this month. I think it’s a great listen to keep up with what’s happening in the PR scene in Canada. Their recent episode talks about interns not wanting to do admin work (?!). Dave & Terry: I will be in Canada later in the year and will be happy to do admin work on top of whatever else you require.
Pamela, who I also follow on Twitter has a great blog, and us PR/social media students have to stick together!
I also added:
bub.blicio.us and PR 2.0 by Brian Solis
Digital Influence Mapping Project by John Bell
Andy Wibbels
Influential Marketing Blog by Rohit Bhargava
Ubernoggin by Intellagirl aka Sarah Robbins.
Winextra by Steven Hodson
PR and Comms Network
As always, if you have a blog you think I should be subscribing to, please feel free to leave it in the comments section. I’m currently a little overwhelmed by my feeds, but anything that adds value will still be greatly welcome.
Tomorrow: Blogs I’m Subscribed To: Singaporean edition. Lots of good stuff, I promise.
Tags: andy wibbels, blog subscriptions, brian solis, bubblicious, canada, david jones, digital influence mapping project, influential marketing blog, inside pr, intellagirl, john bell, pr 2.0, pr and comms network, pr2.0, rohit bhargava, rss, sarah robbins, social media, steven hodson, student blog project, terry fallis, ubernoggin, vc, web2.0 in education, winextra
Posted in Blogs | 6 Comments »
