Authors and Social Media

Reading books has always been one of the greatest pleasures life has to offer… Amazon is one the the best success stories of e commerce on the internet…. What do these 2 have to do with the use of social media?

Reading is about enjoying a story, when you enjoy a story you want to share it, rave about it, tell your friends how good it is. Amazon did that, based on user’s ratings, they recommend you similar books read by people who read that same title you’re looking for. They rate the title you are looking for too, just brining an age old tradition of sharing to the internet… That’s just being social.. Using social media…

While Amazon is great, I’ll like to point you to the other direction where the books are coming from. Not the publishers, but the authors themselves. They are, after all, sharing a story, and what better way to not only read the story from them in a nicely packaged form, but see and hear what they have to say about it through a video interview or podcast! This article recognizes the increasing use of authors and their social media usage. In India where he claims there’s a lack of an Amazon system, hence the direction of using social media to engage their audience.

I guess this trend is developing. Let me point you to Marley and Me’s author, John Grogan’s blog. We also have famous fantasy writer Terry Goodkind

There are many others reaching out to their readers this way… If you think about it, you can actually cut out the publishers and the brick and mortar stores… Sure we could use Amazon for the hard copies, but to download a soft copy for a fee? Best of all we’re hearing the sales pitch straight from the guy!

Will there come a day when authors take back the control of how their books are gonna be sold thanks to social media? If i was Barnes and Nobles or Boarders, I’ll seriously start taking a look into this….

Or do we still like the ambiance of a brick and mortar store, having a cup of coffee then walking through and finding books based on the store’s recommendations? I hope it’s a convergence of both… What do you guys think? I sure hate to see the bookstores up and vanish…

Great Mobile Podcast

OMG, i found this great website, u can add it to your rss, it’s podtech and has all these great podcasts and video interviews.

Here’s a link to the podcast on mobile markets and i think more should be explored into this! It’s a great podcasts on the challenges of using mobile as a medium and the opportunities that mobile can provide as a medium! Sadly it’s not based on Asian concept, its US…

Man am i geeked out with mobile. I’m gonna stop for a bit now, share with me if u’ll know anything about using mobile!

Oh, this was reccomended to me by Priscilla and I’m heading to boarders to see if i can get it tmr. It’s a book called groundswell and its awesome! I think i did blog about it b4 but i cant remember if i did. But here’s the link, enjoy!

ROI on mobile, the way to go for 2008???

A while back i mentioned on “Are we ever going to be socially mobile in Singapore?”

It was regarding mobile social networking sites and its chances of taking off in Singapore?

That question still remains to be answered… Guess only time can tell. What i want to talk about today is if mobile is really the next medium to look out for this year? We all know that its just a matter of time before mobile becomes a ’super’ medium like the internet, the question is when? This year, next year? Five years from now?

With the Iphone coming in soon, it seems it’s only a matter of time before Apple rocks the world again. I’ll just like to share some articles and numbers to show you the immense potential the mobile market has.

But looking at some numbers, mobile is really huge!

• 4 billion on ads last year on wireless mobile
• The more focused (and cheaper) medium with the looming economic downturn? This report thinks so..

These are just some articles to show the potential of mobile. What’s really interesting for me is that there’re companies measuring the returns of using mobile. One such company is M metrics which was recently purchased by Com Score. But what an interesting way to measure mobile, hell, i sure didn’t know that could be done…

So this is what they have

• MobiLens: An organized monthly online survey that collects overall mobile phone usage, in addition to device information, data usage, media consumption and demographic trends of a representative sample of more than 40,000 mobile device users.
• MeterDirect: The industry’s leading on-device meter that passively measures the mobile Internet activities and media consumption of more than 4,000 existing Smartphone panelists. The M:Metrics metering equipment is compatible with more than 280 device models.
• M:Ad: Is the primary competitive tracking service for mobile advertising that endlessly monitors clickable display advertising from a wide representative set of mobile Web destinations to reveal leading advertisers across a variety of market segments.

I would love to see some examples of them using these measurements to determine the ROI of mobile…

Any1 know any examples?K, this might be a little dry for people not interested in ROI, but hey, its a big market and i wanna know if its gonna work here in Singapore. (No doubts about Asia, our penetration for hp is crazy)

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Corporate Blogging and Facebook Groups

Today marked the last class for my summer term social media class, and what a great class it has been. Learning this new medium has opened my eyes to so many things. I’m excited to learn more about this because i see it as a great way to do an integrated campaign. Think of the “golden age” of TVCs era. Now think of the endless possibilities of Social media and how its gonna be huge in Asia. We’re approaching an era that as marketers or PR personal, it’s gonna be one hell of a ride! Can’t put it in a better than with Calvin and Hobbes on social media.

Some posts I read came up in our class discussions before. I mean we all know the advantages of corporate blogging, greater outreach to stakeholder’s better relationships with them, etc. But I think Walter has presented another side of the fence which can truly deter ppl from using a corporate blog! Now, do we use it cause after weighing the pros and cons? Does a cost/benefit analysis come into play? Why do we even have a corporate blog in the first place? Is it necessary? Think Think…. Gonna measure this up with the right questions soon…

Now here’s a strong advocate of Facebook, SMUG (That’s the name of this blog, for real!), great great reasons for using a facebook group for a business. But i think it really boils down to who’s your target market? What’s them message you want to communicate? Is the qualitative data collected from there worth the effort of keeping a Facebook account? I hate to see another Pfingo group with 7 ppl in it (4 are from the group doing the Pfingo case study)

But i loved the fact that internal comms was covered with one of the uses was for a free intranet, what a cool idea… Hopefully the culture of the company and the people working there can fit into such a casual setting.

I gotta run, quick dinner and finishing up my assignment. Oh, just for those who loved JUST FOR FUN TUESDAYS, thank you! I had quite a few hits spiking up my graph! lol…

Watch for more to come! Especially in a long overdue post I wanna do on online gaming and communications. Kevin did a neat post with WOW( 4th love in my life), see ya’ll!

ROI on Social Media and seeing the light

Today was a day full of “AH-HA”. I finally saw the light on social media and ROI and where is it really brining us to. Is the data we mine really getting us the results we need to improve our business? Will the COO or CFO know what we are talking about?

Today’s lunch with Priscilla shed some light on ROI on social media and some industry standards being used. It’s good to know there’s some kind of industry standard being used for measuring cost savings and returns by using social media. Fascinating to know, that was an “AH-HA!”

I guess I’m so fixed on using the data provided to prove a point…. It might have to do with my previous internship at British American Tobacco and how they kept telling me the importance of “making a story out of numbers” which goes with what I was mentioning earlier… Use the data from social media to make a story on ROI…. Right? NO!!!!!!!! Maybe for a mature industry like the tobacco, but to transfer using one medium of measurement to another, and like Priscilla mentioned, its such a fluid medium, its a subjective measurement just basing on the industry’s current standards.

However, during today’s presentation in class, when we were talking about ROI, i guess I was so fixated on knowing there was a standard, i immediately assumed that was the norm to use… I forgot about my post on Money Talks and ROI for social Media

Which also meant i forgot Michael’s post on Discussing social Media Measurements and its basics!

(I’m linking it back to the same post so I can remind myself….)

OMG, after talking to Michael, it felt like i could see the light! Felt the same way as when Gregor Halff told us the importance of the core idea before jumping into a campaign for creative comms. Like *smack* on the forehead, now i get it! Now here’s the HUGE “AH-HA!”

Boy i dun wanna end up like Calvin when I’m gonna start working. I guess it is time to take one step back and say, “Hey! Do we really need that? Is that really useful? Isn’t there a better way to get that?”

Back to the same 3 steps i posted b4, now that’s gonna change things! Now i see the light, now i get to do the “AH-HA!!”

Here’re some slides from MTV by Ian Steward for a great example on getting the right data and making that switch.

But before that, just scroll down and relax with my JUST FOR FUN TUESDAYS!!

JUST FOR FUN TUESDAY!!!!

Woohooo! The worst day of the week is ovvvveeerrr!! Hahahahaha! Firstly, Let me welcome one and all to my very first JUST FOR FUN TUESDAY!!!

So what do I do here? Basically, I just let my hair down, kick back and relax. Share some personal stuff with you. So for today, we gonna talk about music. Kim and Sherms weren’t too keen on the dude i posted on Just For Fun.

To make up. I’m gonna share some videos of the songs I’ve been listening to. What’s my music background? Nothing really… I’m not in a band, i was never in a choir, I don’t do KTV… All i have is my crappy grade 7 piano cert which was an ordeal getting… God i hated the piano…. So at the age of 13-14 (Yes, those angry days with the baggy jeans, wallet chains…. *cringe*), i picked up hop hop, and trust me, back then, a damn Dre cd costs 40 bucks and it was all about being gangsta (man i miss those days, lol)… So here’s a little NWA which i first heard while chilling at a friend’s place…

I apologize if you find the lyrics offensive, but hey, it was real back then… Don’t know how many of you remember this… lol…. its my msg tone and it irritates the hell out of ppl!

Guess what? The comments are fresh! 44 mins ago, haha…. Ppl still love this song!

Now, moving on, one of my fav rappers of all time, Tupac Shakur, he was a rapper, social activist, poet and industry mover. This video was after the time he got shot and started the whole East-West thingy, one of the best team ups, Snoop and Pac…

RIP Pac, we miss u….

Then we have the guy who took hip hop mainstream, some claimed him the next Pac but he never did want to be associated with that kindda fame. Good thing too cause he’s a class of his own… Yeah yeah, i’m a fan of that 8 mile show, go Marshall!

That was the best concert, wish i was there… So what’s the future like? I don’t know… I appreciate the new acts like Akon and T-Pain etc… But I’m just a sentimental guy who likes to reminisce in the past…

So now you’re wondering why am i doing a blog dedicated to social media and web 2.0? Especially when i like old school hip hop?

I don’t wanna get left behind, its a new medium which any PR or Marketing guy MUST know…. Keep up or get shot down!

I hope you enjoyed this week’s segment of JUST FOR FUN TUESDAY!! I sure had fun doing this, let’s do it again next week!

New MONDAY Weekly Updates & Just for Fun TUESDAYS

i just ate a whole tub of Ben’s and Jerry’s ice cream, the damn strawberry and cheesecake one, ugghhh, i dun really like the flavour but as long as it’s ice cream, it’s all good.

So I’ve spent the last hour prior to my indulgence, trying to figure out how to add a Technorati and RSS feed button to my website…. I felt guilty as hell when Michael was mentioning this but I hate the whole coding language thing and I’ve been trying to avoid it. I told myself when this blog hits 500 views, I’ll do it, and now it has! Thank you all of you who’ve been coming to my humble site! Now, i gotta get down to it, I’ll ask Sherm’s who managed to figure it out after an ordeal. plz help me…. See that wierd line out of my sidebar, damn i suck at this. Somehow the oldskool blog of HT,L was easier than that! lol….

But that’s another problem for tmr. I decided I’m gonna include 2 new segments in this blog.

So every Monday will be WEEKLY UPDATES. It’ll be a summary of all the entires I’ve done over the past week and if i come across any new articles or blogs that support my way of thinking!

AND

Tuesday will be “JUST FOR FUN” day. Now based on the number of reads i get, you ppl are suckers for videos and entertainment. So, Let me Entertain you!

Basically I’ll be sharing with you a more personal side to myself and adding a bit of fun to some viewers who might not be so concerned about Social media happenings or want to know the fun stuff social media has to offer. Its social after all, so of course its fun!

So if you haven’t RSS feed to my site, gimme 2 days to figure it out and i ought to have the RSS button and the Technorati button up. And if you really wanna a quick update of my site, just come on Mondays and Tuesdays, but you’ll regret missing the great stuff i have during the rest of the week!

It’s one here so next monday will be double the updates for 2 weeks, lol… Gotta get to work at 9! Sides, tmr will be the one that will be more interesting. Why Tuesdays for entertainment? As many of my friends will know, I always say Tuesday is the worst day of the week. Its neither the start, nor the middle , nor the end… So to brighten all of us up after a horrible day, I’ll do my best to help us out there!

Hmmm, when I figure out those 2, I’ll do Friendfeed too, and podcasts and vlooging and more twitter and more Digg.. Damn, I need to catch up!

Testing

<a href=”http://technorati.com/claim/srjew2vap9″ rel=”me”>Technorati Profile</a>

Money Talks! ROI for Social Media

So with all the uproar and struggles to leverage on social media by PR and Marketers to build consumer relationship and to reach and understand them on a community level , how do we tell the finance guys we need more money for our next big campaign? How do we tell them its worthwhile to even maintain the current soclal media tools? Big questions which would justify why we do what we do!

If any of you guys read the Marketing magazine, this month’s issue provides a great cover on measurements for traditional media such as posters, TVCs etc. They also do online and social media measurements and alternative marketing on sports marketing and its measurements on returns. The latter sections mentioned were highly insightful and i would advice any1 interested to grab a copy. That opens up a whole new reason to use the Sports 2.0 i was promoting on the last post.

Michael posted useful guides when gathering data. The 3 important steps of

1. Asking the right question
2. Getting the right data
3. How to get the data

These are really good steps to take when doing PR or marketing. The info overload sometimes might be too much for us to handle and we need to see which data best fits our needs

Click through rates and frequency counts are pretty secondary. The gold that we want to find is their surfing patterns which Goggle Analytics can account for. (Still trying to figure out how to use this on my blog). Finding that allows us to know what our target market is like and how they behave. Makes us wonder why if that consumer behavior course we took should really consider including this in?? (Hint hint SMU)

I think this was an excellent entry for companies who are clueless about starting a blog. For those still sitting on the fence wondering the benefits and the detrimental effects of setting up a blog for company, this article by Forrester is for you. Just for a start, here are some examples of how ‘fun’ some companies blogs can be! Now imagine what that would do for your company if you were listed here…. Not only that, now consider if there was a reputation issue u need to manage, and u already have such a great blog up, who’re consumers gonna turn to for information now? Traditional press or your blog? I wonder…

This article might provide a clue as to why we’re struggling with integrated marketing. If one of the main barriers is lack of a budget, I hope this short post of mine will encourage companies to be more accepting of social media, especially in Singapore and Asia. More Asian case studies need to be done to further strengthen the cause of using social media across a business. Check out the Pfingo case study done by my group and I, that will be one great local example.

Till then, check out Nike’s Nikeplus. Now, that’s a company that really understand their consumers, the tracking of runs is so simple yet so beneficial to runners. Damn that IPPT coming up, time to use that service now, lol….

And I’ll put together a list of mobile social networking articles, its just growing and growing! Is that the trend heading towards Asia or does the behavioral difference on a mobile and PC differ so much that open social is gonna pave another path?

Sports and Web2.0= Sports 2.0, Should Asia Embrace it?

Sports, the one thing that really binds this world together. Its like a language we all understand and an emotion we’re all able to empathize with. Sports is an incredible and I am really glad to know that when I did sports marketing, it is such a huge market! I was under John Davis, and he’ll have a book titled “The Olympics Effect” which is gonna be really interesting for marketers, espeically in this part of the world where brands don’t really own a sport in consumers minds. Right now all i can think of is HSBC=Golf and StandChart= Maraton, basically align your brand values such that it is reflected in the sport.

Its sad to see that sports being pulled into politics, the whole Tibet- China issue should have been left out. Sports is after all sharing and coming together. Forming groups with people who share a similar passion in sports.

Take that idea and we realize that Web2.0 isn’t all that new, it’s really still about people. But when you combine these 2 ideas, for a marketing or PR purpose, it really seems like you can reach out to your consumers, on an emotionally level which is hard to explain. Why do we want Man Utd to win (or loose) when we don’t even stay in the city?

Check out this post on Football and Web2.0. The possibilities on using sports marketing and social media tools are endless.

Let’s swing by social networking sites. The class discussion today was probing on the possible future of open social and how it might or might not take off. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if Google is trying to take away Facebook’s competitive advantage of cool apps, we have to look forward and realize that social networking sites are going to have to go back to basics of distinguishing themselves.

What do i mean? There are different social networking sites for different communities. When you bring in a sports social networking site, a community that can communicate cross geographical, cultural and language barriers, its amazing!Check this social networking site called fansport, now thats a community and a unique selling point for u!

Next, we have blogs, there are quite a few around actually. This is more American based, Sports Blogs, tthe People’s Sports Network, but it shows the number of blogs devoted to individual teams. We haven’t even gone into individual sportsman blogs. Youtube videos being uploaded, podcasts being made, twitter groups, man the list goes on and we know there is a huge potential here….

So my main question now is, why hasn’t this taken off in Asia? Going by how Michael was a little annoyed at how brain dead the class was, we’ll go with the issues, stakeholders, objective (OMG, it was kindda funny to see how we forgot the basics!)

Objective: To reach out to target stakeholders with sports2.0

Staleholders: The sports teams/players, their agents, the fans/users, traditional media be involved?

Issues:

1. Are our sports appealing enough in Asia to garner enough attention? ( Think cricket in India and basketball in China).
2. Are the sports being discussed on web2.0 more local or foreign?
3. Where is our local social networking sports site? (I don’t know if we have any, other than those in China and Inda, would appreciate it if someone enlightened me on this)
4. Should we even consider using this as one of the tools to reach out to our target stakeholders in Asia?

So at the end of the day, the big question is

“Is sports 2.0 the way to go for Asia? Is it one of the paths web2.o is gonna head towards?”

Man I hope so. I’ll be honest here, i just played football at turf city at their astro turf pitch, omg, its awesome. For those who have played at Kallang, Fico or East Coast cages, just imagine this is twice the size of one cage. It’s fun! Well, its been a long long day, can’t wait for Social Media breakfast this Saturday! See ya’ll there!