Social Media Breakfast: Singapore 2 - Blog Coverage I’ve noticed that 62% of my blog traffic actually still comes from people visiting this site instead of my new blog at http://uniquefrequency.com, so I thought I’d post a link here to direct you to what I think is a pretty important post: blog coverage of Social Media Breakfast: Singapore 2. If you couldn’t be there, why not check out what it’s like by reading/watching our experiences? While you’re at it, it would be wonderful if you could update your bookmarks to http://uniquefrequency.com, or subscribe to the new blog instead, the rss feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/uniquefrequency Thank you so much. Unique-Frequency Is Moving! Hi everyone, I’ve moved to http://uniquefrequency.com from tonight. I’m still working out the kinks (many of them) so bear with me while I refrain from updating over the long weekend, and hopefully I’ll be back in business from Tuesday or Wednesday. The rss feed of the new site is http://feeds.feedburner.com/uniquefrequency so it would be great if I could trouble you to exercise 2 clicks and update that on your feed reader. If you don’t know how, here’s a friendly little guide. I should’ve made the switch earlier and everything, but was just held back by a crazy schedule and a bit of inertia, but it’s reached the stage where the incoming linkjuice is too good, and time to move on to a permanent blog before the opportunity cost grows. I’ll definitely look back fondly on this blog as my first foray into serious blogging and the great people who I’ve discovered or discovered me via the blog, and hope we’ll all maintain that community at the new site. Thanks for sticking with me through this blog (un-skinned and all). If you know anyone who does killer skins and/or themes, let me know? Thanks. How Important Is It To “Name” Company Bloggers? I was at an informal meeting today which I quite enjoyed. We had bloggers, client-side people, agency-side people, all of whom were interested in social media. I thought the discussion was generally good, but one question in particular stood out. Someone mentioned that if hotels wanted to blog, why not get the concierge desk to blog as the stories of what goes on on the ground as well as useful information about the city would be useful and relevant to travelers visiting the hotel or deciding where to stay. It was raised that there could be a number of authors running the blog or just one person, but they should be anonymous. Perhaps blogging as “Your friendly concierge at the Hyatt”, for example. Bill and Coleman called him out on this and said companies who blog should have full transparency and name their bloggers. But the very reasonable reason of “one day they’ll leave” surfaced, and I’m having a hard time reconciling the two. On one hand I am a transparency advocate. There are times when anonymity helps (ie when needing to talk about a sensitive issue), but generally for an external blog, I think the public should know who is the person blogging. But I think the person leaving is a real concern. Take Matt Cutts for example, arguably Google’s “face” on the internet. If for some reason he jumps ship to Yahoo! tomorrow, would that be a problem? Thousands of readers may just migrate over. And who would take over that role at Microsoft and Google? How long would it take the new person to re-build a community? Of course, I know, Matt Cutts is hardly the best analogy for concierge staff, but you get the gist. So what would you do if you had to hire a community manager or social media evangelist? Would you be comfortable with them being your company’s Web2.0 “face” online? Would it worry you if they moved on? Would you be confident of replacing them with little to no loss in interest from the community? Why Students Should Blog - Almost Winning A T-Shirt! You might remember my “Why Students Should Blog” post in response to HackCollege’s contest. I finally caught up with episode 26 of the Hack College Podcast today by Chris and Kelly, and was thrilled to find that I made the final four to win a Hack College t-shirt! The segment starts at about 18 minutes and I think the collection of answers are really good. I appear in the episode as a tweet. I know people go on about how social media and blogging and whatnot in North America doesn’t always apply here, but this one does. In any case, I didn’t win that t-shirt, but dammit I’ll keep trying. Failing which I’ll just buy one for myself when I head up there later in the year. (But that’s not an excuse to not let me win, HackCollege!) If you want to discover more, check out “The Case For Student Blogging” by HackCollege, I think it’s pretty good stuff. If you’ve been agonising over the perfect phrasing of your resume since forever, why not take a look at this and find a better way to supplement your case for future employment. By the way, need more case studies on Blogging Yielding Fruit? Look no further than my Social Media Breakfast co-hoster Derrick Kwa who scored one with the one and only Seth Godin, as well as Corvida aka Shegeeks who scored one at ReadWriteWeb. It’s happening people. Stop ignoring it. Blogging Yields Fruit (Like An Internship) Remember why students should blog? Well I’m happy to announce that the third internship worked out and I start on Wednesday. Exact details won’t be posted because of confidentiality issues, but suffice to say it’s social media related. To me the biggest value is to be thrown into the “real world” and see if the stuff I’ve been blogging about makes sense, or am I living in this dream from the outside looking in. Could be a harsh slap of reality, but better now than later. The downside is that it’s only six weeks (because I’ve committed the whole of July and half of August to my previous employer, MTV to work on the MTV Asia Awards held in Malaysia. That is going to be a blast! However, rest assured the blogging here will not be changed in anyway. I definitely won’t be blogging about work unless given express permission, and if I do, it will be fully disclosed. I might end up blogging less than normal because of work hours, but that’s what RSS is for! (Don’t know how to subscribe, here’s my handy guide). Finally, I want to thank everyone who’s been reading, commenting or interacting with this blog in any way. This could be the best blog in the world (it’s not), but if no one was reading it, it would be useful. So thanks for supporting me by reading, talking to someone else about me, attending Social Media Breakfast: Singapore. It’s because of you that I landed this internship. So let me end this post with: thank you for reading Don’t Look Any Further. Social Media = CRM (Customer Relationship Management) I originally meant for this post to show some excerpts from Pat’s blog today, titled “The Holy Trinity Of Blogging“, until I realised she has it so spot on and so easily understood that there really is little else I could add by posting about it. (That said, do check out the link, relevant to individuals and companies alike.) But as I sat down to start writing tonight, I realised there’s a bigger question here: Why, out of the many, many links sent to me and blog posts that I read a day, did I want to particularly highlight Pat’s? Someone who I have never talked to online or in person? Of course because it’s relevant and well-written, but there’s something else. It started with a tweet: This is the second direct message she sent me, the first was even more targeted, saying something like “for the social media junkie” followed by the URL. Let’s go back to CRM, according to Wikipedia, it helps companies understand, as well as anticipate, the needs of current and potential customers. Isn’t that exactly what happened here? Unlike the mass tweets about a “new blog post” (which I don’t mind at all), this really makes me sit up and take notice, because I know it’s a careful, considered move to bring the level of interaction one step closer (from general tweets to a direct message). And the reason why that step would be taken is because she knows that that post would be particularly relevant to me. “So what” you say? Well, what if you could do that for your customers? Companies are obsessed about CRM, about data, interactions, trends and the like. And here they are in front of you. What if you knew Person A particularly likes a biscuit flavour that you happen to be bringing in? A personal email with an invite to be the first to taste it? Or an ad in the newspaper in hopes the general population will pick up on it and drop by? It’s a lot of work, no doubt about it. But hey, people pay money for CRM software and hotels notice how guests shift their furniture so that they can do it for them for future visits. Is this really too much? Especially in Singapore? How Would You Help Lucky Charms? I know there is a percentage of the population who misses Lucky Charms. That cereal with the marshmallows in the shape of four leaf clovers and horseshoes and stuff like that. I know that because when we were in New York over the December holidays, a group of us consumed it like it wasn’t from this earth. I don’t know why, but the cereal mysteriously disappeared years ago, never to be seen again. I don’t know about you, but Froot Loops took the place of my favourite cereal. Guess I just like some colour in my cereal. Interestingly, my girlfriend e-mailed the major retailers in Singapore and couldn’t find the reason why it was stopped, but confirmed the fact that none of them were bringing it in. Until two weeks ago. Jason’s Marketplace at Raffles City is apparently bringing it in, as well as a whole line of cereal from the same brand. So the question is twofold: What would you do if you were the agency tasked to bring Lucky Charms in and generate some sales? After all, unless you’re looking out for it, it would be just one of the 34,632 other cereal boxes on the shelves. And from the other side of the coin, what would you do if you were a consumer wanting your sorely-missed Lucky Charms to reach the shores of Singapore again? Remember, it’s not about whether it would work, it’s about how you’d use social media from either side of the fence. Or maybe… you wouldn’t use social media at all? My Social Media Breakfast: Singapore 2 Challenge The attendee list on the Facebook Event page for Social Media Breakfast: Singapore 2 has been at 40 people for a couple of days now, about 60% were present at the first one. This is good in the sense that we’ll be familiar with each other and really move the conversation forward and talk about the crazy issues that plague all of us who’re trying to figure out the space. However, there’s also something missing. New blood! I talked before about the fishbowl and being insular , and if we want the landscape of social media to change, we have to reach out. To people who are just entering the social media domain, to people who are curious but still on the fence, to people who don’t even know about this world yet! So here’s the challenge: Convince one other person (friend, classmate, colleague, family) that this is worth their while. Let them know it’s newbie friendly, after all, most of us are new to the space anyway! That’s the mission if you choose to accept it, come back and let everyone know how it went by posting in the comments section! Are You Collaborating Enough? Listening to Marketing Over Coffee on the way home, there was a very small section talking about GoogleDocs and how you can activate a form to collect data for you. It also made me think further on the question about how much we’re collaborating (or not collaborating) online. We had to create a wiki for our social media class, and of course, wikis tell you how much (or little) someone edited the final output. It was noted that a handful of people contributed the majority of the content, which made our Professor, Michael Netzley, less than thrilled. I brought up the point that though a few people may have been the actual ones to enter the text, doesn’t mean the whole team did not collaborate together. Both sides are debatable, but that’s not the point. I’m an assistant scout leader for my alma mater’s scout troop and every year around this time we have a camp. As with previous years, the emails pile up, meeting minutes get distributed, camp schedules get sent and changed and re-sent and re-changed until eventually, no one knows what in the world is going on anymore. To solve this, I set up a wiki for the leaders. It’s a private wiki so I’m sorry I can’t share the link. I will however say that we’re using PBwiki, which I find to be superior to Wetpaint in terms of editing as well as help. But that aside, so far it’s been helping us keep track of personnel and manpower, topics of discussion, a couple of things to be noted, schedules, equipment lists and so on. No more losing of minutes on paper, no more “can you send me the latest schedule? I can’t find it”. Everything is up there and updated. To the minute. So why aren’t more of us doing this? Is it the challenge of working alone as Michael brings up? Or an unwillingness to change our styles of working? Does it make sense for us to share our items on Google Reader (my shared items are here)? Or on del.icio.us? How about collaborating on Google Docs in the classroom? In the office? To me the biggest problem is convincing the people you’re working with that it’s worth their while. In my scout case study, I knew the people who were primarily going to enter the data would be the younger adult leaders, while the older leaders would keep and eye on it from time to time. To both of these groups, you gotta speak their language. To my peers, it was the idea of collaboration. To see everything in one place, to have links and for easy reading. To the senior leaders, it was the idea of streamlining information. Not losing paper, not having to distinguish whether schedule(final).doc is the true schedule or schedule(final)THISISTHEREALFINAL.doc is the true schedule. So how’s collaboration working (or not working) for you? Are you using wikis regularly? Online document processors or software based? Is it a challenge convincing your classmates/colleagues to use it as well? Podcast Of The Month: April 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. #336 highlights: Using Twitter/Friendfeed differently for business, conducting proper blogger outreach #337 highlights: Facebook tools that can really help you 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?” Managing the Gray - Manic Mummies episode, great case study on GM and how to do sponsorship in social media. 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. Blogs Worth Reading: April I’ve decided to take a page out of Louis Gray’s book and highlight six blogs (in no order) that have really caught my attention in April, as well as one link that I feel is a recent notable read. 1) Bryan Person - BryanPerson.com, brains of Social Media Breakfast Before heading to an event, study the attendee list - Keep that in mind when coming for Social Media Breakfast: Singapore 2! 2) Dan York - Disruptive Conversations, correspondent for For Immediate Release. When Twitter Goes Down… oh, how we have come to rely on it - A weekend the Twitterverse remembers not so fondly. 3) Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff - Groundswell, authors of Groundswell. Listening with Summize and Tweetscan - All companies should know this by now. 4) Brian Koh - Harmless? Bananas!, Ogilvy PR and co-creator of The Open Room. New marketing, but are we ready? - crap 2.0? 5) Eric Berlin - Online Media Cultist Good traffic, bad traffic, silly traffic, traffic traffic - In case you still think hits is the be all and end all. 6) Tara Hunt- Horsepigcow Tweeting for companies 101 - great case studies, read this if you’re a company. The amount of new blogs I’m subscribing to monthly is decreasing (I suppose there’s only so much information I can process), but if you know any great ones, recommend them in the comments space below! Social Media Breakfast: Singapore 2! 24th May 2008 As Sham has already reported, SMB:S2 will be happening in three weeks on the 24th of May, 2008. All the details can be found at the Facebook event page. Who should come? Anyone interested and passionate about the social media space, be it blogging, podcasting, social networks, micro blogging etc. What this event is not, however, is a blogger outing that is so popular around Singapore. Read up about the original event and check out the blog coverage if you think you might be interested! ps: The event is open to all so feel free to invite fellow friends to the Facebook event page, hopefully people who can help move the conversation further. There’ll definitely be more news and updates as and when it happens, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, we already have 19 confirmed guests on the Facebook event page, won’t you be one of them too? What would you like to see that this SMB? More structure? A proper format and/or discussions? Let me know and we’ll see how we can factor it in. Twitter Customer Service Case Study: Firefox I’ve only been using Firefox for two months and made the change primarily because of it’s enhanced security and great plugins. Somewhere along the way, being the sometimes-technologically-challenged person I am, I changed a setting that caused my downloaded files to be saved when I wanted them to be opened. So of course, I turned to Twitter: And got a reply back very quickly from @firefox_answers: And I was amazed. Firefox has two things going for it: great product and great customer service. Not going to go into the debate of which is better, but it’s important to have both. Before you start thinking “Sure, great for companies like Firefox or Microsoft whose users are right in front of Twitter”, but what if your company could jump in and respond to these questions? I wonder what’s good on tv tonight Why does my [insert brand] printer keep printing it’s test page? What should I get for mother’s day The list goes on. There’s some commentary on how the vast majority of Twitter users talk about frivolous things. That may annoy some, but to companies, it’s an opportunity to jump in, join the conversation and make a positive difference the same way Firefox did for me today. Are Bloggers Really Influencers? More Thoughts A few more thoughts on the influence issue, part one is here. Once again, I’m exploring this from the consumer’s point of view based on how I surf and am affected (or not) by what the blogs I read say. Case Study 4: Podfire Soft Launch The Podfire soft launch got pretty good coverage on ping.sg. I think that night and the day following, easily 3-4 of the top then most read posts were on blog coverage of the Podfire launch. One thing about influence and popularity is network effects. One person talking about it positively on ping.sg is very different from five people talking positively about it. Again pulling in the “people like me vs bloggers” debate into the picture, I’m thinking someone who knows some or all of the five people talking about it (or any other topic) will probably feel a compelling reason to at least check it out. Will it lead to the complete viewing of a video? Will they be repeat viewers? I don’t know, but by that stage, the product has to speak for itself. But leading them to click is the first step. It’s Not About Reach Or Circulation I read a comment somewhere ridiculing the buzz of the Podfire launch saying some people didn’t hear about it. Completely missing the point. I’m always asked in school whether I saw an article in the newspapers, or a good/bad advertisement on tv last night, and the answer is usually no. So…. people didn’t hear about it via print or tv either and therefore it’s useless? The important thing for Podfire (and how blogs should be approached), is to try to reach the immediate community (small as they may be) and work from there. It’s targeted as opposed to the shotgun approach. Get Help! Su Yuen has a Facebook application called Get Help. It allows users to post out a question and get replies back from friends, acquaintances or maybe strangers. Again, the idea of influence seems relative. Anyone can help on the app, to varying degrees of influence. Would you discount a brilliant idea via Get Help just because a person who replied is a stranger? Even “Weak” Links/Influencers Play A part Case Study 1: Camera Buying When I was deciding which dslr to get, Ingrid recommended a friend to of hers to help me out. I didn’t have any idea who that friend was prior to this, but I did continually go back and ask her what she thought of product A over product B, and bought the final camera based on that advice. Could I have made my decision by reading a professional photographer’s review? Sure. But the fact that I could interact with this person and listen to firsthand experiences made a difference to me. It just happens in this case she isn’t a blogger. But… what if she was? Case Study 2: Iron Man Twitter has been alight with raving, positive Iron Man reviews. I’m reading about people from all over the world (majority of whom I’ve never even met) saying how good it is. The Straits Times gave it three stars. After watching the show, I’m glad I didn’t listen to an “expert” reviewer, because anyone who’s watched the show will know it’s not deserving of three stars. Would you like to listen to an “expert” reviewer and forgo the show? (Assuming three stars is your threshold for “not watching”) Ultimately this issue is still a tough one to tackle. My point here is not to say bloggers are the influencers, but that pointing to the various research without considering the intricacies of it is probably a bad idea. We know about the Long Tail (The ants have megaphones) and about the Wisdom of Crowds and crowdsourcing, and blogging fits squarely into the realm of these phenomena. Are Bloggers Really Influencers? The topic of “influence” has appeared a number of times, generated out of the “Why social media struggles in Singapore” post. I was writing that post from the corporation’s point of view, and questioning whether a certain factor (size) may be a factor that has hindered social media’s growth. But let’s look at this from the point of view of the consumers: Are we really influenced by bloggers? What The Research Says Result summary: People trust “people like themselves” the most, an “bloggers” the least. Okay wait, before you stop reading this right now and say “Okay, let’s cancel our blogger relations initiative”, read on. Are Bloggers Really Trusted The Least? When I saw the findings, my first thought was “But, what if a blogger is someone like me?”. This is something lacking in the research, and is brought up by Jason Mical and Jeremiah in the comments: [By Jason]I believe about marketing and the direction it’s going in the digital space, and you have a proven record of posting insightful things that I find useful in thinking about this as well. So I would classify you as ’someone with my interests’ before I would classify you as a blogger in this regard. [By Jeremiah]I agree, I wish I had more insight to how the questions about “do you trust blogs” were done. We need to see the context, as it could be broken down to: “do you trust bloggers with similar opinions, that you read frequently” or “do you trust random blogs you stumble across” Perhaps the questions could even be posed a different way: “do you trust the opinions of bloggers?” I don’t think the lines between “people like me” and bloggers are as far apart as the research shows. And I definitely do not think the results are as disparate as the research claims. I have a couple of case studies I thought of off the top of my head, tell me if they make sense to you, and keep in mind this is written from the point of view of a consumer. Case Study 1: Xiaxue I don’t read her, definitely don’t identify with her, to me she’s a “blogger”. But how about the 20 thousand people who read her blog daily? Does she have no influence over them? From the amount of comments generated in her defense whenever someone slams her, I’d say she has considerable influence over them. Case Study 2: Kenny Sia I had the privilege of meeting Kenny at the IDC Conference and he blogged about it, linking me. That one post generated almost 1,500 traffic to my blog, the next closest being tomorrow.sg with about 500. I’m not sure how you want to classify tomorrow.sg, but looking at the data, clearly 1,500 people think Kenny is not “just a blogger” but someone who influences them and makes them think “I identify with Kenny, he thinks Daryl is worth putting a link to, so that might probably be interesting to me too”, and hence the clicks. I can’t speak for everyone, but that’s definitely my personal thought process when browsing blogs. Case Study 3: FriendFeed FriendFeed is growing in popularity in North America. The level of activity after it opened from beta is exponentially higher than the level of activity before. Let’s look at the other categories from the research. Review on tv? Review on retailer site? I don’t think so. Friendfeed was spread via word of mouth online from people who follow the early adopters and advocates like Louis Gray. Certainly I don’t know Louis personally (though we’re mutual readers of each others’ blog), but neither is he some anonymous blogger online. He’s someone I know covers a great niche in the social media space on rss aggregation, and I’m interested in all things social media, hence I definitely trust and believe his opinions. In fact I also signed up for LinkRiver, AssetBar and Yokway based on his recommendations. Admittedly I only use LinkRiver with any frequency, but I think that’s attributed to the product rather than the medium (Louis). This post has gone on a little longer than I thought it would and I have a few more thoughts on reach as well as “weak” links or influences which I’ll try to post this evening. In the meantime, what do you think? As clear cut as the research suggests? Or are there intricacies at work that are unexplored? Do you classify bloggers in the same category as “people like me”? Or are they clear and distinctly separated? Why Students Should Blog - A Few Pointers Hack College posted an article on the Case for Student Blogging and @KellySutton posted the same question on Twitter as part as a competition to win a Hack College t-shirt. I’ve been wanting to write about this for some time, so it seems like a good time as any. I’m going to write a few segments: Whether you already have a blog How it can get you an internship/job My personal experience Other intangible benefits Whether blogging restricted just to people like me, ie those interested in social meda. But I Already Have A Blog! Actually, no, you probably don’t. Having a Meepok Blog (ie one where you talk about the meepok you had over lunch) is not a blog. It is a blog in that you’re capturing down your thoughts, but it’s not a blog where you’re adding value. And that’s the kind of blog you need to have if you’re in school, especially a university looking for an internship and/or employment. Seriously? A Blog Helping Me Find A Job? Yes. An article got featured in the New York Times about Christopher Penn’s (from Marketing Over Coffee) social media resume about the same time that Seth Godin questioned the need for a resume at all. ie: Your blog should speak for itself. Granted, we’re early days into this line of thinking, but if you’re just entering university now, a lot can change in the four years till you graduate and join the workforce. In fact, I just saw a social media internship today saying that including a blog and/or Twitter stream would be helpful. My Personal Experience I started this blog with no expectations except to contribute to the community. However through it I’ve gotten an invitation to advise a company on internal/external blogging, to be a panelist at a conference that costs $680 to attend and three internships. (Full disclosure: I couldn’t take up two of them, the third has yet to be confirmed). Ultimately it doesn’t matter whether or not it works out. The point here is: When was the last time you heard of offers coming your way just via a blog? No formal submission of resume, no cover letter? It’s a whole new world that frankly, surprised me as well.This can happen to you. But you have to start right now. Other Intangible Benefits As the world progresses, more and more of our lives are going to be lived online. Blogging/Tweeting/Podcasting etc creates and online presence and reputation for you. When your prospective employer Googles your name (and believe me, they will), you don’t want the first thing they see to be a story of you drunk at a club via your friend’s blog. You want them to see a thoughtful article you’ve written. Online reputation for your personal brand is priceless, and the difference between a good or bad one is how much effort you put in to develop it. Another intangible that I’ve found particularly for me, is that it helps me write better and faster. I take an average of 20-30 mins to punch out a blog post. That translates to my school work where I’m writing papers and it takes me 45 minutes to get two pages out and send it for editing. Lightning fast. Final point on intangibles, the great thing about everything being online is relationships. Whatever you blog about, the chances that someone will pick it up is always there, someone may be scanning Twitter for keywords that you mention in your blog, or simply Googling randomly or using StumbleUpon. Why not provide them an opportunity to connect to you? But I Don’t Blog About Social Media! It doesn’t matter. Your blog can be on anything. Drawings/sketches if you’re looking to be a creative in advertising. Commentary on the sub-prime crisis if you’re in finance. What changes in interest rates mean if you’re studying economics. Anything that you can point your future employer to and say “Look, I’ve been on top of this stuff for awhile now, and that makes me more valuable to hire than the other person who just submitted a resume with his grades.” So what do you think? Are you reading this right now and thinking “Bullshit”, or are you thinking of what to name your blog? Let me know. If you’re thinking of starting a blog but you’re unsure of what to do/how to get about doing it, feel free to drop me a comment as well. I don’t claim to be an expert, but I’d like to help if I can. Why Social Media Struggles In Singapore 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. 7 Things You Didn’t Know About My Social Media Journey Jasmine from my social media class tagged me for a meme for “7 Useless Facts About Myself” and I thought this would be pretty cool to do, but I’d tweak it to fit the theme of the blog. So here we go: I had my first “blog” (well it was called a website then) in 1997 (when I was 13). Links and archives weren’t the norm back then, so basically each time I added in new info the page grew longer and longer and longer. Before blogging “seriously” at this blog, I’ve covered everything from comic books, music, movies, books, food, you name it. I used to be a guest writer for Fanboy planet (one article here) back in 2002 The first friend I made online is also my closest. We met in a chat room. I was always very proud of my ICQ number having only 7 digits (early adopters rule!) Until I moved here, I blogged by manually tweaking html codes. ie manually inserting dates, links, pictures, etc by typing out the html codes. Despite being a very heavy web user from 1997, I’ve never made any money from it. There you have it. I won’t tag anyone, but feel free to replicate this on your blog and share something fun about you and your passion! Event Coverage: Podfire’s Soft Launch At Geek Terminal! 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!) Stephen King’s Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born “The man in black fled across the desert…. and the gunslinger followed” With these words I first entered the first book of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger. I picked it up last year partially because I knew Marvel was doing a graphic novel and partially because apparently a lot of the Lost mythology is inspired by the Dark Tower. I was curious. Of the seven books I’ve read three. And today I finished the graphic novel by Marvel called The Gunslinger Born, essentially a prequel to The Dark Tower, showing the early life of Roland the Gunslinger which is referenced in the books. I have to say it’s one thing reading about his battle with Cort in the novels and actually seeing it unfold in the graphic novel. Jae Lee totally outdid himself here together with Richard Isanove’s colouring. One thing I appreciated was the plot. It’s intricate yet simple, with compelling, distinct characters that it’s never hard to tell them apart. Of course Jae Lee’s designs helped here too. I’m sure even someone who’s never been introduced to The Dark Tower before would be able to read it and not be lost. It was nice seeing Susan Delgado who’s referenced in the books as well as Alain and Cuthbert who don’t appear in the books at all. One thing you’ll probably need to get used to, which I had a problem with in the novels, is certain speaking patterns like Sai for sir, ka for fate/destiny, kennit for understand and what certain phrases like “you have forgotten your father’s face” mean. Although I must say it was much clearer in the graphic novel. Final verdict: Great book, great art. I think it’s only out in hardcover now, but it’s definitely worth the cash. If not you can probably wait a couple of months for the softcover. Also, the second series is in the works right now too. Great book. Read it. Do ya kennit? How Was Your Read And Comment Day? What Read And Comment Day? Yesterday was Read and Comment day, where you have to make an active effort to comment on blogs and join the conversation. It was suggested by Chris Brogan, and true to form, he even left a comment here as well. Read and Comment day also inspired me to encourage people to strengthen their links to people on Twitter, especially the weaker links. My Report I put aside an hour last night to really go through my Google Reader (learnt how to use it yet?) and properly digest blog posts and comment. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of when I first started blogging in January when Prof. Netley advised us that we should comment twice as much as we post to establish a presence and drive traffic. I’m a little embarrassed to say that I forgot that along the way, but Read and Comment day really reminded me how important it is not just to create my own content by blogging, but to add value to others’ content as well. How About You? Have you found yourself commenting less than usual? Something holding you back from joining the conversation? Go post a couple of comments today. You’ll feel great! My Conversations CC Chapman had a Twitter story I could totally relate to. Chanced upon how to get placement on blogs with a great example by Jason Falls. Read this before pitching a blogger please. Frederic talks about how bloggers are filters but not gatekeepers Found a great blog by Deirdre Breakenridge and a great post called the Twitter addiction Decided to follow Louis Gray’s social media consumption workflow for a day, and was pretty happy with it. Slotting in FriendFeed last makes sense. Finally, Steven Hodson’s post on the danger of social media falling in on itself. All great topics, especially if you’re into social media. Why not read and comment on them (or right here) yourself? Follow Up: Ogilvy’s Open Room - Too Harsh On The Companies? Going through the name cards I exchanged from tonight’s event, I count four from Ogilvy, one from SMU and Nadia’s. (Note: no companies) Looking around the blogosphere on ping.sg, there are four posts from Jean, Ian, Ridz and Plaktoz (for now). Now I don’t mean to go back to flogging a dead horse, but there is little to no brand coverage. The blog posts are either on the fellow bloggers they met, or the stuff in the goodie bags. I don’t know about you, but I think there are bigger and better products to get people excited about and posting images (and generating media about) than collaterals in goodie bags. I don’t mean to be critical or harsh on companies. But I think if you’re paying money to engage an agency to do your PR/marketing/advertising/whatever, and they do something like this (certainly with people like John Bell and Brian and Tania who know what they’re doing), then you really need to make the most out of it and bring some value back to the office. Report: The Open Room Launches! 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! Do You Really Know Who You’re Following On Twitter? I’m in the midst of revising my Twitter guides and got a little inspired by Chris Brogan’s “Reading and Commenting” day (which is tomorrow, by the way). How many people do you follow on Twitter? How many of them do you actually know? Do you know what their interests, passions and niches are? When was the last time you sent them something meaningful or of value, instead of the usual noise? So here’s what I’m proposing: This week during your small pockets of time, go through the list of people you’re following and figure out how you can add value as a Twitter friend. Maybe it’s commenting on their blog, subscribing to their blog, or sending them a link relevant to them. Because really, at the end of the day it’s not how many people you follow, but your relationships with them. Quoted In Today Newspaper On Twitter! The article’s out today! I thought it’s pretty good. Hopefully more people will read it and get onto Twitter. That said, I’m going to be a little cautious about Twitter. Steven Hodson blogged about some of Twitter’s troubles, financially, bringing us back to harsh reality that you can have the best product in the world in the Web2.0 space, but you better have a monetisation plan. Frederic from The Last Podcast updated us a couple of days ago about how Twitter has rolled out ads in Japan (which makes sense since they are so big in Japan) All the financial worries plus the recent downtime over the weekend and Twitter’s lead architect leaving makes for a slightly worrying future for Twitter. Here’s hoping they can pull their act together soon. Follow me on Twitter: @uniquefrequency Updating Blogroll: Who’re My RSS Readers? I noticed that after I posted how to use RSS, the number of people subscribed to the blog increased by a decent amount (up around 50%). My blogroll has been sorely neglected since I first put up the blog, so if you’re someone subscribed to the blog and want to be added to the blogroll, let me know who you are either via email (uniquefrequency[AT]gmail{DOT}com) or comment below. Maybe tell me a little more about yourself and what you’re into. That way if I stumble across information that may be relevant to you, I can pass it along. If you’re not a subscriber, not to worry. If you’re involved in this niche of social media, community marketing, web2.0 etc, I’d be happy to add you to the blogroll too. Drop me an email or comment and leave some similar information. At the end of the day, I really want to know who the readers are and who this community is made up of. So make yourself heard! Blogger-Journalist Relationships Done Right After what happened last week, I was quite pleasantly surprised to get a very considerate sms from a reporter this morning, saying he was concerned about disrupting me and asking for a good time for him to contact me. A few things done right: He knew who I was, definitely had read my blog and referenced things I said in context both on my blog, Twitter and at the IDC Conference. He had clear questions and obviously had done research on the topic. He did not seem to just want to hear a quotable soundbyte, but just asked questions and answered. (Note: It doesn’t matter to me if he got off the phone thinking I utterly wasted his 5 minutes and didn’t give him a good soundbye, the point is that doesn’t come across to me) He offered to send me a draft of what his phrasing of what I said would be via email Again, it’s not that I’m some big shot in the space, it’s just the other party being nice and well…. a human. Not just someone digging for information or a soundbyte. Unlike the previous two reporters, if this particular journalist asks me in future to recommend him a blogger in a different niche, say food or technology, I will definitely be more than happy to do so because I know he will treat that person with courtesy and respect that I think anyone should get. Here’s hoping more journalists learn from these experiences. Facebook Chat: First Impressions Looks like most of us got Facebook Chat today. I see people like Brian on it (and Twittering about it from @litford), Kean Hean and Estee the Geek Goddess as well. Here’s a little screen shot of how it looks (click for larger image): I was excited to get on Facebook chat because the number of people on Facebook means it’s a great way to stay connected and get to know some people who’re your “Facebook friends” a little better. One thing sorely missing is the ability to add multiple people into a conversation. I feel it’s a shame that I can see everyone who’s online right now on the right hand side, but can’t add two or more people into the same chat room so we can catch up together. If that function gets rolled out soon, I can definitely see my time on Facebook increasing dramatically. If you want to find me on Facebook, search for Daryl Tay. I’m the one from SMU (obviously!) What Would Life Be Without Twitter? I’m a huge fan of Twitter, but it’s been wonky since Saturday and today it just got too much. I was happy to take it as random downtime, and wait for it to get back to normal by tomorrow. Until I read something from Bryan Person: My friend Jack Hodgson is convinced that Twitter’s death is coming, and that we should start preparing for it now. It’s nights like tonight that I really think he’s onto something. What? Twitter’s death? Life without Twitter? No way! Death or no death, people around the blogosphere are beginning to notice. Dan York also weighs in on how we have come to rely on Twitter, while Frederic and Paris Lemon approach the issue the same way I do. For the tool that enables conversation and for people to stay connected, Twitter sure isn’t communicating much about what is going wrong. It does make you think how this affects organisations who have invested time into Twitter like @downingstreet (for the British Prime Minister’s office) and @deltaairlines as a means of keeping in touch with the public? A loss of faith in Twitter? Migration to another platform? If Twitter does go down, who will you turn to? Scoble thinks it’s FriendFeed. I’d go for Facebook Chat, if only they’d implement it for me already. Which Companies Should Be Interested In Social Media? Final point from my post-IDC Conference thoughts: Are companies interested in social media? If yes, are there some companies who are better suited than others to be involved in social media? Maybe the bigger question is: Can companies afford not to be involved in social media? I mentioned a couple of days ago that for some companies (eg NTUC, Singapore’s Target) can probably afford not to because, well, that’s not where their target demographic is. If you are interested in social media, are you suited for it? If you do have a product and it’s good, the benefits are there. Favourable reviews on Google that money can’t buy, brand advocates and a permanent presence on the internet. I only own a printer by HP. But by their blogger outreach programme as well as my positive Snapfish experiences, I’ll keep that brand in mind the next time I’m in the market for a PC. The question these days doesn’t seem to be “how to” (ie how to use social media) because companies have been hearing a lot about that. Rather the question is “who has”? Who’s taken this big jump into the social media landscape? Have they benefited from it? I don’t know a lot of case studies locally, but I’m relatively surprised from the few that I do. When first learning about social media, I thought it would favour the smaller players: not a whole not of specialised knowledge required, can be done with a relatively small budget, less concerns over control etc. But we’re seeing with HP and Starbucks and Microsoft and GM (who will spend 1.5 billion on online advertising, a different story. Wayne commented that it seems to be happening around the B2C businesses involved in technological products and it also seems to me that it favours the companies with the bigger pockets. Does that mean that the other industries or smaller companies are left out? Absolutely not. I’d like to hear a little bit more on the case studies you may know of (locally or not) of companies who are actively using social media and what kind of companies they are. Who do you think is a fit? Who’s not? Let me know.