Social Media for Business, Explained
Lately, we’ve seen the photo that looks at social media for the consumer, and what social network does what. Today, we’ve taken that social graphic and changed it around, and it looks like social media from the point of view of a business. What exactly is a business owner thinking when they put out that tweet?
Now you know!
Laugh along with me in the comments section below or send me a tweet to @albertqian
Some Thoughts on ACTA, SOPA, PIPA
Let me begin by saying that our politicians don’t understand the Internet. Let me also follow that up by saying that it’s okay that people in general don’t understand technology. It’s complicated. Roundabout. Crazy. Time-consuming. In a world of noise, we certainly don’t need more sometimes, especially if we’re a doctor trying to focus or a lawyer trying to get the best trial possible.
Let me also say, that just because you don’t understand the Internet or understand technology, it does not mean that you get to run around and tell the world how the technology ought to be used and try to prohibit when you don’t understand how the landscape works. And that is exactly how ACTA will work, and how SOPA and PIPA intended to work.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past three months, or aren’t in the Internet space, the world’s governments have been busy trying to legislate the Internet. The United States tried to pass SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Online Piracy Act), and since those two failed, the world governments are now trying to pass ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement).
But Albert you say, these sound very noble! They fight against piracy and stealing from others! And while they do seem to follow very noble naming conventions, like the USA Patriot Act (which we all remember so fondly), the reality is hardly seen in the name. The legislation gets pretty shady pretty fast.
I’m speaking out.
The Social Media Effect
As a social media person, I’m speaking out against this because its my career, but also because these very pieces of legislation threaten the very livelihood of technology and the way that people communicate, create and share, critical tenets of social media. The fact that simply sharing content, sharing what others have taught you (without having others pay you), and not being able to upload documents to the cloud (as the shutdown of Megaupload showed) brings a very dark cloud to citizens not any country, but people all over the world who use the Internet.
The problems with this act are simple. Its being negotiated in secret to begin with, and more so it stifles creativity and collaboration between a community of people - most notably the global community. As someone who enjoys coaching people on social media, networking and sharing my strategies, ideas and concepts that I have passed on from others as my own, ACTA would essentially stop me. I could be, under this proposed international law, cited for unlawfully sharing ideas without prior assumed written consent. These very blog posts which you see here, would not be able to be shared among other people because it would be seen as copyright infringement upon my end, and people who view could be arrested under ACTA surveillance.
Think about that for a moment.
The legislators of these laws are people who don’t know how to use the Internet, but are clearly in close quarters with the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), who are the ones most scared of the status quo. These are the same individuals who fought against VHS, who fought against DVDs and who are fighting now because long ago, they sat in their own offices and felt like they should be forcing others to adjust to them, and not the other way around. Steve Jobs helped briefly curb downloading by creating iTunes, but the men in suits are going to have to do a lot better than trying to shut things down.
Furthermore, the acts also seek to shutdown files stored in the cloud. With the aforementioned MegaUpload case occurring, there is no doubt a slippery slope looking to happen. Tumblr no doubt stores tons of images shared across multiple sites, and my blog would effectively go down. Box.net and Dropbox, sites I used to share files, photos and resumes would also in effect, shut down too, giving recruiters tougher access to prospective employees and giving prospective employees a tougher shot atgetting work.
Its overwhelming.
In closing, ACTA SOPA and PIPA are all pieces of legislation that cannot pass. Your career, my career and all of our online lives are at stake. Take a stand. Be heard. Don’t back down.
The future would otherwise, be bleak.
Share your thoughts. Comment below or on Twitter @albertqian.
What is the return on Social Media? Attention Era Media takes a look, using the ubiquitous Hitler parody from Downfall.
“I make time to look at your photos. I comment when I can.”
9 Months, 9 Thoughts on Social Collaboration
In the world of enterprise, social collaboration is becoming a big thing. More companies want to get their employees into the social media game by having them sign up for collaborative platforms such as Salesforce, Cisco Quad, and other homemade platforms. Social collaboration promises employees the benefits of working within a team, being social about what they are getting done, and getting more done, in addition to learning more about the people they work around.
I’ve been in this realm for the last 9 months at the company that I’ve been working at. In the 9 months I’ve been there, I’ve gathered many observations regarding how social collaboration is viewed.
1. Technological fatigue reigns in some spaces
This always seems to be the number one reason people don’t want to collaborate. Facebook and Twitter and YouTube already seem to be a part of people’s lives, and adding collaboration at work seems to be an even bigger headache. For companies where technology changes by the month or even week, employees get tired of technologies being tossed to them, and they just want to get work done.
2. Some just have a lack of desire to collaborate
There are many lone wolves in this world, and in corporations when you are just a number, there is also that lack of desire to collaborate. Some just want to get work done, and there is not much else to say beyond that.
3. There is a great deal of potential
The upside to collaboration is big. People want to use these tools because a central location for everything is absolutely necessary. There is a want to eliminate email clutter and notifications popping up left and right.
4. But there is also a lot of technical downside
Social media in general has yet to get the UI/UX story right. Tumblr is one of the few exceptions, but there are many cases in social collaboration and social media where things simply do not work. Even if its not Facebook, sometimes pages hang and just prevent people from getting more work done.
5. There is also a lot of technical knowledge that needs to be learned
Part of the case of social collaboration is that sometimes, people need to learn how to do a little bit of coding. For those of us who dabble in this often, that’s not a problem. For those who have non-technical backgrounds, this presents more problems because even if they can copy and paste, some just don’t know where to copy and paste to.
6. Will we ever really eliminate Email?
In using collaborative tools, I feel like the need for email actually increases. How do you notify people of where things are? Notify people of recent replies to posts and uploads? Notification systems are key here for any social platform, but I think email is still around here to stay, even if some people detest it completely.
7. Speed still Matters
Gone are the days of 56k dialup, but here are the days of slow loading feature-rich sites. Social media is no doubt a clear and concrete example. Load time for a website still matters, and sometimes loading up a social media page or a collaborative page takes an extreme bit of time. When people want to get things done, give them the opportunity to do so. Don’t create lag.
8. Collaborative ROI is still a phrase I have yet to see
In the consumer based social media world, where Facebook and Twitter reign there is still a lot of debate, but that debate is still heating up on how ROI is to be measured, whether that be in Klout, TwitterCounter, followers, lists or clients closed. In enterprise social collaboration, I have yet to see what matters be hashed out anywhere. Is it the number of members in a community? Is it how many visit a community? Documents uploaded? Posts created for discussion? Time spent? Until these numbers are agreed upon many will still be somewhat wary.
9. Its still a content-driven space
Social collaboration is just like social media. Both are content driven spaces and both require immense about of upkeep and content management in order to thrive and survive. Even though one is internal and the other is external they still share a lot of features.
What do you think are some interesting points about social collaboration? Share with me below in the comments or leave a tweet @albertqian
7 Things I Love About Social Media
Its Valentine’s Day, and I’m doing a post on love. No, I’m not giving tips or telling you about the person I love, but I’m talking social media.
I’ve learned a lot about social media in the past year. Here are 10 things I’ve come to love about it.
1. Follow Friday
One of the best things about social media is Follow Friday. Its the day your Twitter stream gets clogged, but you get to see all the people whom you follow and show your gratitude. Social media is about giving, and Follow Friday is where it starts.
2. Accelerated Conversational Connection
In short, this is just all the people you meet. I have friends in Denver, Milwaukee, Portland, Miami and even further than that because of Twitter. You get greater conversational reach, conversational connection, and it all accelerates outward.
3. Statistical Overdrive
TweetStats. HootSuite. Bit.ly. TwitterCounter. Tweriod. The statistics are all out there, and social media puts it on overdrive. I love swimming in numbers and finding out how engaging I’ve been, and social media helps put it all in perspective.
4. Dynamicism
The industry is always changing. It doesn’t become stagnant and stay that way. With something new every day, it keeps you on your toes. There is never a dull moment.
5. Potential
Never has there ever been something with so much potential. Things can go viral almost immediately, and more people than ever can see your content. Offline marketing can’t beat online marketing in some cases.
6. Nuanced
Social media is still new, in the sense that so many businesses have yet to use the platform, and so many people are still unsure about how to apply social media to their lives. Coaching and business opportunities are plentiful.
7. Genuine and Real
Social media is about being real and genuine. If you can’t be yourself, social media will eat you up alive. Can you afford to be fake? Maybe about 30 years ago…
What do you love about social media this Valentine’s Day? Share in the comments below or send me a tweet @albertqian.
Pinterest: Social Branding for Businesses
On Wednesday, I discussed the rise of social scrapbooking and social sharing. Pinterest, and how scrapbooking and sharing is the next level of personal relationships. While Pinterest can be used by individuals, brands can and should definitely take into the phenomenon as well. Why? See my three reasons:
1. Humans are visual
This one is as much obvious. Men and women when looking at another individual judge others by their appearances, above all else. Photos are just as much, and create memories with people and places. Pinterest takes advantage of that and does just that: create a visualized perspective of a brand, from the office to the employees to the events that the company is putting on. If you are Disneyland or a professional sports franchise, or even a college, with upcoming travel seasons, games and needs to recruit new students, there is definitely no hurt in implementing a strategy to put your best visual foot forward.
2. A picturesque experience
The social media experience is of course social, but also very experiential. One of the beauties of Facebook is that it has brought in an extra added flair to being at one place without actually being there. Being able to browse photos of a friend being in a foreign place is great, and Pinterest takes that to the next level. “Wish you were here” takes on a new meaning when you can like, comment and re-pin to another person’s wall, without the fear of seeing your picture going to all of your other friends’ walls by way of Facebook’s EdgeRank system.
3. A social experience
Tweets make it readable. Facebook makes it a relationship, and Pinterest makes it pinnable. Imagine if you were a restaurant and you posted each day’s special to your Pinetrest page. The potential of that is not only tasty, but sociable as well, and if you are a popular restaurant, a re-pinning of each day’s special adds flavor, meaning and fun - no pun intended.
What reasons do you think that businesses should use Pinterest for? Let me know in the comments below or tweet me @albertqian. Let me know how I can help your business become social, using Pinterest, as well!
Pinterest: Social Scrapbooking on Overdrive (Part 1)
The name still barely makes any sense to me, but the concept has hit me in full throttle. Say hello to Pinterest, the social media scrapbooking tool that has taken over the world by storm, and created a new addiction.
Pinterest has been around since late-2011. Boiled down to its simplest parts, the website is a digital scrapbook of photos, laden in everything from infographics to meme-based photos to sites and sounds that people simply want to remember. My Pinterest, seen above, is somewhat underdeveloped, as I am not all too addicted to pinning items, but users who have been on the site for months have boxes and boxes filled with their most memorable and favorite items.
The Pinning Phenomenon
The idea of pinning items to a wall is not new. At its even greater core, its social sharing but with an even greater visual appeal than Facebook. Svpply and Tumblr, both of which has been around longer than Pinterest, have been long used to share, respectively, wishlists of things one wishes to buy and photos/music/video/audio. Pinterest has however, struck a chord and taken it up even further. Even though the tool is in early beta and accessible on by an invite, those who are invited post an immense amount of content (which as you know, is a very important part of social media).
Perhaps what makes Pinterest so addicting is the fact that it takes the scrapbooking activity to the next level. Scrapbooking, long done in books bought from Michael’s and other retailers and held together by love, tape and paper has now been made more efficient, automated and digital, which as people know, is the future of how most technology is done. But even more so, Pinterest takes scrapbook parties to the next level as well. If I, for example, see that a friend’s social media infographics album is worth sharing or taking images from, re-pinning is relatively easy. No need to ask to borrow glue, take or the photo for a photocopy.
In closing, I definitely see Pinterest as something that is here to stay. Its a first mover in the industry and means something to social media in terms of sharing and scrapbooking. It won’t take any other sites down, that is for sure, but if anything, tells a story as much as your Facebook profile does. Join me on Pinterest today, and let’s pin something together.
Coming Friday: How Pinterest can be used for branding.
Pin with me on Pinterest today. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below or send me a tweet @albertqian.
Thoughts on the Facebook IPO
Last week was a big week for Facebook. On Wednesday, they filed their papers for an Initial Public Offering slated for May, and predicted to be one of the biggest technology IPOs ever. On Saturday, the company celebrated 8 years in business.
The story of Facebook is a pretty folksy one, having been told once by founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself, and again in an Oscar-winning film, “The Social Network”. Regardless of whether the tool was born from a rejection by a woman (as the movie seems to take the viewpoint of), the network has gained almost 800 million people, and about half of those log in daily.
The journey here has been a tumultuous one, but also one of great success. When the company started in 2004, MySpace was gaining traction, Friendster and Bebo were on the market, and the term “social media” had yet to be coined. Blogging was the term of the day, and that’s how most companies and people managed to maintain a level of “sociality”. Beyond that, everyone still used email.
The first few years of Facebook were mostly limited. To gain an account, you had to initially have had an email with a college. Then the network opened up to high schoolers, and then eventually to people with a regional affiliation, then to anyone who had an email account. Opening it up to everyone invited the concept of spammers, but in this day and age, if you want to be big, there are some things that you simply have to put aside - spam is one of them, unfortunately.
I touched Facebook for the first time in the Fall of 2005. It was late September, and I finally snagged an account. I was exploring MySpace at the time, but did not find much of it - my fears mostly came from design-stupid people who would either fill their profiles with mundane items, upload schizophrenic inducing backgrounds or play music when I landed on their page. I instantly fell in love with Facebook at the time because it was simple, sleek and it made sense. I didn’t know that it would become a crucial part of my career some day.
Fast Forward
Fast forward to February 1st, 2012, when Facebook decides to file its IPO papers. The papers claim that the company will try for a $5 billion dollar IPO, and the company is estimated at $94 billion dollars, with 12% of its money coming from Zynga and the majority from advertising.
My initial thoughts are of great interest. I have yet to review the S-1 in great detail, but the world of social media is about to change. From the definitive entrance of Wall Street and shareholders to potentially charging Facebook Page owners to peddle their brands and wares, social media, the tool best known these days for taking down Egypt, perpetuating the Occupy Protests, and being faster than reputable news sites, the nostalgia and the nuances feel to be pretty much over. My account, to a shareholder, is potentially not just another number, but an advertising unit. Someone to deliver advertising to in pushy ways, clouding the experience that was once enjoyed. Though Facebook claims that it will just continue to make products without bending to the pressures and wills of the investors, the pressure will be there. And it will be strong.
In all, however, the IPO shows that social media is now a permanent part of our lives. Zynga and Groupon’s IPOs merely showed us that social potential was gearing up, but Facebook’s addition into that will put a stamp on something that social marketers have always known, and corporate clickies have always feared: social media is here, here to stay, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Businesses, knowing that Facebook has finally decided to go public, will now have to grapple with the fact that engaging with an audience, producing content and being meaningful to customers at all times is not just an optional job you hand to an intern, but a position you give to someone higher in the organization.
In Closing
Another one of my earliest memories of using Facebook for potential was in the Fall of 2008. I was in Hong Kong, a world away from the United States, studying abroad. It was early November, and it was election day. I sat on the floor of my apartment, my laptop to my right and the television tuned to CNN to hear the latest breaking news.
As the clock struck noon local time, all polls had closed out on the West Coast, and my Facebook feed, then a self updating automated feed, went into overdrive. Barack Obama had won the election, and as he was walking up to the podium, my feed exploded with joy, activity, and raw emotion. Nevermind that the Bush era had come to its close, but rather that social media had for me, fulfilled a potential then - a potential to be used as a communications tool far beyond what the Wall Street Journal, the AP, or any newspaper could offer - that even though news sources could provide me news, my friends could provide commentary, beyond the news, and into an era of relationship based marketing and information.
Come May, this all changes, again.
What are your thoughts on the Facebook IPO? Comment below, send me a tweet @albertqian or email me!
The Social Media “Bunny Effect”
A bunny named Brownie has 5,427 likes on Facebook and a conversational reach of 2,421 individuals talking. Can’t believe it? Believe it. Then continue reading.
The State of the Collaboration Union
The State of the Union was last Tuesday. And the more you watched, the more it felt like hope and whatever loose change was left was slipping away. And not for the reasons you think.
I tuned in last Tuesday to the State of the Union. As a voting individual in this great nation, I take interest in the politics and policies enacted by those that I elect to office. The event is usually a festive one in Congress, with the President addressing all elected officials as well as the rest of the country.
Its usually one of the fluffiest things you can watch. The President makes comments about policies and tasks that he’d like to complete for the year, and the rest of the nation watches on.
One of the more disheartening things of course, is the Republican response to each and every one of these declarations. And while the Republicans are not fans of Obama as well, the impression given during speeches like this shows not only a lack of unity as a nation but also a lack of an interest in one of the most important tenets of business and social media - collaboration.
Its often noted that Republican representative Mitch McConnell has said that he will do everything he can, if possible, to prevent Obama from being a successful President, and will block anything and everything possible to make this happen. In the eyes of private and public work, this is the antithesis of collaboration. When one is usually hired in a company, they are brought in to work and help reach organizational goals. In the case of the United States Congress, this seems like the exact opposite - the goal here is to make the President fail.
In general, the consensus of the citizens of the United States is that nothing is getting done, and partially, that’s because of the US government is refusing to collaborate. If anything, the State of the Union showed us that gridlock and a promotion of failure seems to be the way to go. While the nation moves more towards a socialized and collaborative framework with collaborative technology, the government moves the other direction.
What’s your take? Tweet me at @albertqian or comment below.
