The class is over, but it felt good to write a blog again, so just on a break from my Negotiation paper, I wanted to share something cool which is recently going on in YouTube.
This is a active online marketing campaign by Skittles, you put down your finger on your screen and watch funny videos while content/story is tied up to your finger somehow. You stop burglar cars or your finger gets licked by a cat (!).
Here's the link to one's who're interested: http://www.youtube.com/skittlespage
I have one gear, go!
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Order in the court! (Week 9)
For my final paper I was planning to focus on vote-exchange by using social media, it is very interesting, people who live in different countries of Europe created this social network where they exchange their votes. Apparently same thing applies to Canada and US too. This way people get to preserve their right to vote for their homeland and territory, according to their political preference.
My lovely (!) embassy (Turkish embassy) directs me to a website which always says "server is too busy" is it their fault to fail using social technologies or does it all come from the top?
From my personal point of view, I don't see governments integrating with social media technologies, they are more mechanic and egocentric organizations which are conflicting with the values of social technologies.
In terms of democracy, we have seen the Egyptian riot and how people used twitter to create conversation in an oppressed system. Information is more transparent, people are more aware of things going around, just like Chinese earthquake and people finding about the irregularities in constructions, forcing government members to resign from their posts. Yes, as much as when in Chine if you type Tienanmen square in Google you get flower picture however, it is a better functioning model in most of the world.
Just like our guest speaker mentioned us in the lecture (I can't remember her name, but she was lively) for governments, it is important to be able to talk to people, supporters and opposer. So In terms of creating an environment for discussion, they should create forums. With good moderation, I am sure people would love to contribute, just like Obama example, when he refused to vote yes for a bill and people started protesting him on his website. He didn't step back, but he acknowledged the voice coming from the people and responded to them, which is I believe the best for of leveraging web 2/0 technologies to meet needs of people.
Related Question: Are social technologies creating a shift towards a better functioning model of democratic involvement? Or is this just an illusion? According to the articles, how can governments best leverage web 2.0 technologies to meet the needs of their communities?
My lovely (!) embassy (Turkish embassy) directs me to a website which always says "server is too busy" is it their fault to fail using social technologies or does it all come from the top?
From my personal point of view, I don't see governments integrating with social media technologies, they are more mechanic and egocentric organizations which are conflicting with the values of social technologies.
In terms of democracy, we have seen the Egyptian riot and how people used twitter to create conversation in an oppressed system. Information is more transparent, people are more aware of things going around, just like Chinese earthquake and people finding about the irregularities in constructions, forcing government members to resign from their posts. Yes, as much as when in Chine if you type Tienanmen square in Google you get flower picture however, it is a better functioning model in most of the world.
Just like our guest speaker mentioned us in the lecture (I can't remember her name, but she was lively) for governments, it is important to be able to talk to people, supporters and opposer. So In terms of creating an environment for discussion, they should create forums. With good moderation, I am sure people would love to contribute, just like Obama example, when he refused to vote yes for a bill and people started protesting him on his website. He didn't step back, but he acknowledged the voice coming from the people and responded to them, which is I believe the best for of leveraging web 2/0 technologies to meet needs of people.
Related Question: Are social technologies creating a shift towards a better functioning model of democratic involvement? Or is this just an illusion? According to the articles, how can governments best leverage web 2.0 technologies to meet the needs of their communities?
I'd like to see you supervisor! (Week 7)
If you build it they will come!
Wait, there is already a built one, you have anything you may need at your disposal. How? You want dynamic websites, done! You want to be cost-incentive, use Google for documents, Tumblr for photos, Facebook for main source of communication, Twitter for promotions, done! You want knowledge and collaboration, setup a wiki, done! You want mobility, blogging on the way, draw cartoons and share them on RSS to your followers, done!
I am kind of exhausted of listing all the good stuff that web 2.0 brings to play in my papers. Above mentioned things may sound geeky but I most certainly believe that "geeky" is the new way of doing business. It is not about conserving employees in cubicles and make them crunch numbers everyday, it is about collaboration, brain storming, creativity, and listening!
We used to have a suggestion box at our high school, we put write the funniest stuff and put them in, but sadly no feedback was given to us. After years, I have logged on to my high school website and they have a forum where students can make suggestions. It is kind of funny to see teachers responding to funny comments made by students. Three parties, students, teachers, alumni (me), they all can collaborate and share the experiences, create the valuable feedback cycle which businesses need a lot.
I used to use a website called "Ihaveacomplaint.com" in Turkey, where people would use the dynamic infrastructure of the website to choose the company from the list and write their complaints about them. In return, companies can respond and add comments such as "this user's complaint has bee resolved"
One of the funniest things, one day I was very pissed at a technomarket in Turkey and tweeted bad comments about them. In a day, they replied my tweet saying "Can we learn why you are unsatisfied with our services?" and that moment I was very impressed. There was a company out there, listening the consumers, "creeping" their facebook or twitter accounts for keywords and respond to their complaints. Well apparently there is a reason why that company is the best selling household electronics retailer in Turkey.
Related Question: What are the potential benefits of web 2.0 social media applications in a business context? How is communicating with customers using social media technologies different from previous customer-oriented communication?
Wait, there is already a built one, you have anything you may need at your disposal. How? You want dynamic websites, done! You want to be cost-incentive, use Google for documents, Tumblr for photos, Facebook for main source of communication, Twitter for promotions, done! You want knowledge and collaboration, setup a wiki, done! You want mobility, blogging on the way, draw cartoons and share them on RSS to your followers, done!
I am kind of exhausted of listing all the good stuff that web 2.0 brings to play in my papers. Above mentioned things may sound geeky but I most certainly believe that "geeky" is the new way of doing business. It is not about conserving employees in cubicles and make them crunch numbers everyday, it is about collaboration, brain storming, creativity, and listening!
We used to have a suggestion box at our high school, we put write the funniest stuff and put them in, but sadly no feedback was given to us. After years, I have logged on to my high school website and they have a forum where students can make suggestions. It is kind of funny to see teachers responding to funny comments made by students. Three parties, students, teachers, alumni (me), they all can collaborate and share the experiences, create the valuable feedback cycle which businesses need a lot.
I used to use a website called "Ihaveacomplaint.com" in Turkey, where people would use the dynamic infrastructure of the website to choose the company from the list and write their complaints about them. In return, companies can respond and add comments such as "this user's complaint has bee resolved"
One of the funniest things, one day I was very pissed at a technomarket in Turkey and tweeted bad comments about them. In a day, they replied my tweet saying "Can we learn why you are unsatisfied with our services?" and that moment I was very impressed. There was a company out there, listening the consumers, "creeping" their facebook or twitter accounts for keywords and respond to their complaints. Well apparently there is a reason why that company is the best selling household electronics retailer in Turkey.
Related Question: What are the potential benefits of web 2.0 social media applications in a business context? How is communicating with customers using social media technologies different from previous customer-oriented communication?
Capture the Flag! (Week 6)
Flexibility is probably the most fascinating aspect of social media plans. Flow of information is so fast, it actually exhausts me sometimes. People tend to do relaxing things when they are exhausted. I like keeping a blog, it clears my mind and gives me a bit of a fresh air. My mom likes playing bejeweled on Facebook, my friend likes to play some flash games online to kill time. I see people playing scrabble on the subway through their Facebook accounts. Well, if these are not captive, I have no idea what is.
Know your audience! Social media is all about the conversation, about the engagement and the appealing vision of yourself on your online profile. When I say yourself, I mean your product, your service, your application, your music, your art and etc.
If I were to give away 5GB of online space for the 50th person who posts the headline for Globe and Mail everyday and promote this on my Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and Yammer profiles, I am pretty sure I would get lots of views on my blog. Or you know what, I will hide secret words in my blog entries and actually make everyone read it. It sounds a bit Machiavellist approach, however still the thrill of winning and playing creates the engagement to my blog, which is my product here in this metaphor.
So, until now, I know my audience, I know what they like, I try to engage them by using fun methods, so that leaves the belonging feel, where contributors can talk to each other and create a community around my product/service/brand. I believe this is the essential part of reaching the satisfactory levels of engagement. After all, greatest ideas mostly come from the consumers, good managers always value feedback, and social media provides the easiest channel of communication.
One final thing, I really don't like the fact that Twitter was actually a side project, it is not fair! People spend months or years, trying to capture audience on their websites, whereas this guy comes on the stage, gives a 6 minute "back from the grave" toned speech. A bit enthusiasm please, life has been treating you well, give that vibe back to your listeners. I believe that talk was the best example how not to engage people. Anyway, not my place to talk I guess.
See you in half an hour.
Related Question: How can we design our social media marketing plans to ensure the engagement of our target audience? What tips can we gain from the readings to help us understand how to engage people from both a social and an entertainment perspective?
Know your audience! Social media is all about the conversation, about the engagement and the appealing vision of yourself on your online profile. When I say yourself, I mean your product, your service, your application, your music, your art and etc.
If I were to give away 5GB of online space for the 50th person who posts the headline for Globe and Mail everyday and promote this on my Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and Yammer profiles, I am pretty sure I would get lots of views on my blog. Or you know what, I will hide secret words in my blog entries and actually make everyone read it. It sounds a bit Machiavellist approach, however still the thrill of winning and playing creates the engagement to my blog, which is my product here in this metaphor.
So, until now, I know my audience, I know what they like, I try to engage them by using fun methods, so that leaves the belonging feel, where contributors can talk to each other and create a community around my product/service/brand. I believe this is the essential part of reaching the satisfactory levels of engagement. After all, greatest ideas mostly come from the consumers, good managers always value feedback, and social media provides the easiest channel of communication.
One final thing, I really don't like the fact that Twitter was actually a side project, it is not fair! People spend months or years, trying to capture audience on their websites, whereas this guy comes on the stage, gives a 6 minute "back from the grave" toned speech. A bit enthusiasm please, life has been treating you well, give that vibe back to your listeners. I believe that talk was the best example how not to engage people. Anyway, not my place to talk I guess.
See you in half an hour.
Related Question: How can we design our social media marketing plans to ensure the engagement of our target audience? What tips can we gain from the readings to help us understand how to engage people from both a social and an entertainment perspective?
Monday, April 11, 2011
How to plan ahead? (Week 5)
Warning, due to time management issues (two interviews, two exams, three papers), this post will be very formal. If you have heart issues or diabetes or if you feel nauseous while reading it, click on the "comments" button below and just type in "Amazing post, it made me cry, as a teacher I am so proud I have a student like you" and all symptoms should go away. Just saying.
After spending hours of research and doing extensive writing for my final paper, I figured I should take a break and write one of my blog entries. I have already messed up the order of weeks, so I will just try to take where I have left.
POST approach, just like peer-to-peer, enables us to get rid of corporates and get what we need from regular internet users. I can use this post to reach my goals by influencing the audience with my content, and I will tweet my post so that I can reach to new people creating new audience. Considering I had a problem with one of my followers about the offensive comments, I would most likely regulate the comments and filter them. And if Jaigris says "Good post!" then I will know my post has reached a certain level of success. If Deniz Can texts me "hey you used my name in your blog post" then I will confirm the reach of my post from Canada to Turkey.
Above mentioned is basically what my "raw" social media strategic plan looks like. To list down what I have planned, I have taken important aspects into consideration. I want to first list POST approach then I will mention the other factors.
People: Know your audience!
The essential part of effectiveness of social media is the competency level of people who use it. Strategically, you have to know what your audience is capable, so that you can address them properly and with correct channels. In addition, you have to hear what they have to say, in order to have a healthy conversation with them. Engaging your audience is a critical part of your success.
Objectives: Mission Accomplished!
An old saying states that, a sailor without a wind can end up anywhere. Main reason for strategic planning is to avoid ambiguity, and to do that, you have to be clear about your goals, if you have no destination, how will you know when you arrive? (Goosebumps)
Strategy: Bishop on E4
Just like the game of chess, to reach a certain objective, a player must have strategies, a pathway to the success, which is more elastic than objective, changeable according to the developments. In terms of social media plan, you have take lots of variables into consideration such as governance and policies.
Technology: Desktop vs laptop?
It has been emphasized that knowing the audience is necessary for the message to go out. In addition to that, a plan should indicate what types of tools will be used. Blogs are very effective, instant messaging is rapid, Facebook is...well Facebook, twitter is common, and etc. The idea is "how" will you communicate with the audience, by using which tools and infrastructures? A plan should include these answers.
In the presentation by Li & Bernoff, it is obvious that different companies use different strategies, and every environment is unique in its own terms, so above mentioned four dimensions of the strategic planning should be evaluated not just for different sectors but also for the same company as well (iteration). Social media environment is a rapid environment and it is important to monitor the indicators and analyze the results to evaluate the success rate of the plan, so that company can align its strategic plan to the changes.
My personal insight on best practices would come from the article "Users of the world, unite!" which highlights the importance of sincerity and friendliness of the conversation in order to reach out to more people and attract new comers. So opening your mind and keeping a close eye on the consumer behaviours, trends and needs would be the best advice for developing a successful strategic plan for companies.
Related question: What does a social media strategic plan look like? Should social media strategic plans be different for different types of organizations? What are best practices when developing a strategic plan for social media adoption?
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
As you are reading these words...(Week 11)
As an experiment influenced by Jason Fried, I will observe and articulate my distractions during creation of this entry. Well, in terms of constraints, I will mention the things that took more than 3 minutes. Anyway, let's give it a go!
Yammer! In definition, it is a free private social network where you can sign up with only your work e-mail address. By doing that you are automatically connected to your colleagues and this creates a new way of communicating your peers. Maybe you're stuck on a web design and need some creative juice, you can start a microblog with your friends at work and communicate.
/* Started as a 15 minute coffee break, turned into a meeting with one of my group mates, finally had to skip class to finish a huge assignment, writing these from my iPhone on streetcar. Lost the whole day */
After a day I will try to complete my entry, but like Jason said, work is like sleep and I will have to get into my creative phase again. Anyway, social media can support internal communications a lot and to list them;
Cities are platforms! This line in Lisa's Ted talk was haunting. There is a huge sea of opportunity if you can get right people to collaborate with each other. This is where social media comes in and not just change but transform what the workplace is.
/* Got an e-mail about a job posting, tweaked my resume and applied for it, lost 25 minutes */
Some companies block websites such as Facebook to keep their employees focused on their work. But what most of the managers fail to realize is distraction may come from anywhere in the workplace. This blog entry has been challenging for me to write at school, because other than those distractions written in bold, I had minor conversations, checked newspaper, etc.
/*Another coffee break */
And I believe this entry has been the proof that it can be challenging to work in places with heavy interactions.
So my suggestion is: No talk Mondays, Tuesdays, Wed...or maybe just cancel school?
Answer to the question: How can social media support internal communications? Define the ways. How is social media changing the nature of the workplace? What are the challenges to this?
- Follow the recent events of colleagues, check photos and create conversation, break the ice so to say.
- Create a platform to freely express your mind, no idea gets smothered
- Generate a brainstorming session online
- Interdisciplinary (marketing, sales, IT, management) connectivity
- Easy file and link sharing
Cities are platforms! This line in Lisa's Ted talk was haunting. There is a huge sea of opportunity if you can get right people to collaborate with each other. This is where social media comes in and not just change but transform what the workplace is.
/* Got an e-mail about a job posting, tweaked my resume and applied for it, lost 25 minutes */
Some companies block websites such as Facebook to keep their employees focused on their work. But what most of the managers fail to realize is distraction may come from anywhere in the workplace. This blog entry has been challenging for me to write at school, because other than those distractions written in bold, I had minor conversations, checked newspaper, etc.
/*Another coffee break */
And I believe this entry has been the proof that it can be challenging to work in places with heavy interactions.
So my suggestion is: No talk Mondays, Tuesdays, Wed...or maybe just cancel school?
Answer to the question: How can social media support internal communications? Define the ways. How is social media changing the nature of the workplace? What are the challenges to this?
Friday, April 1, 2011
The Endless Conversation (Week 10)
Chapter One: Hi! I'm a PC. Hi! Name is Mac, Big Mac.
Loyalty, one of my strengths I'd like to use it during interviews. It's catchy, and it has lots of good qualities associated with it. What does that mean, let me expand upon it; I didn't change apartments for 10 years, I never cheated on my girlfriend, I always prefer McDonald's over Burger King (some don't understand why, I simply answer "BK don't have Big Mac") I have worked with several bands from the beginning to their end. I watched "Lost" to the end despite it got crappier and crappier. I am a proud PC owner, and don't intend to change it.
Let's not sidetrack, can you see the pattern here? Small hints; McDonald's, PC, Lost, etc. These are things we consume, choices we intentionally make over their competitors BK, Mac, Heroes(?!!). These connect us, bind us, and create a sympathy for the others that make the same choices we make. Given proper platform, we choose to converse with the ones that are like us. Oh wait, I think we found the secret to the popularity of Facebook "Like" button. Meh, I'm sure someone already knew it anyway. However in terms of being more formal, I believe brand communities are people who intentionally make consumption choices and find the comfort around the people who make the same choice. It is in other words it is people's selective perception of brands and others who has the same perception.
Chapter Two: Lords of Kobol
The origins of the word, tribe, goes back to first people. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs a person being needs safety as they find the survival conditions. That safety comes from being a society, physically being together against mammoth attacks, wolf packs, dinosaurs or other tribes. Well besides the fact that they just found a new tribe in Amazon untouched by humanity and technology, the existence of tribe concept is shifting towards more civilized means. More technological means.
Similar to brand communities, tribes are set of people gathered around something because they share the same interest, same desire, same passion, same hate, same contribution. The main difference from the brand community is that there may not necessarily be a product they choose to support or buy or talk about. It can be an earthquake (this example is gonna go on and on and on) or a music band, or a TV show, as long as it is common with the group.In addition another difference I see between brand communities and tribes is tribes are more interconnected, have more common grounds and more to interact.
As mentioned in both of the TED talks, what is essential is a leader, for a tribe to survive, to compete, to accomplish things. On the other hand, a brand community is driven by the management and marketing departments of companies, people are attracted to the brand image, and it is one-to many communication. However tribes have many-to many communication which is regulated but encouraged by the leader.
Chapter Three: OK what was I gonna say?
I love giving presentations, it is another strength of me, I can say confidently. I am good at preparing slides, I like talking a lot, and being on the spotlight comes natural to me.
But you know what I am not good at, remembering things. This is why I need to keep the conversation going, extract meanings out of the context. If I keep silent, I forget. And so does the community.
In my presentation about NPOs, I kept repeating the importance of young population and how they are eager to keep online conversation going. In the example of Greenpeace and their catchy slogan used in Turkey "How many inches is yours?" reached out to many people about the illegal fishing in Mediterranean Sea. This is a great strategy by Greenpeace because they realized the potential in young Facebook and Twitter users. They saw how rapid the social fire catches on, and how quickly messages rotate.
Another example from Turkey would be a very recent event, about a book. This book was against the government and trying to expose dirty stuff that has been made in years. Government started a witch hunt and intruded printing houses, newspapers, houses, anything that can be tied to that book.
Just like China, the firewall cannot protect the attacks coming from the inside, a Turkish group created a website, put a clock counter on it and announced that the book will be available on that website in 3 days.
Eventually the book became available, they shut down servers, other websites popped up, e-mails started rotating, Twitter got filled with links for the book from people's personal websites. They created the spark, but "we", people with freewill, networking tools and interest spread the fire.
This is the clear demonstration of how non-profit-organizations can use the same potential and online networking channels to influence someone and spread their message to the people.
They can listen, assess the interests of their communities, setting up a facebook fan page would not suffice, they should put content and start a conversation. They should use realistic indicators other than how many friends do they have, but instead how many retweets they got or how many people posted something on the organization's wall on Facebook.
There is a huge potential for NPOs in the online social platform, with proper analysis and evaluation, and most importantly proper strategy, they "will" be able to be heard and raise donations.
Above entry is related to the question: What is a brand community? What are tribes? How can not-for-profit organizations use web 2.0 social media tools to build brand communities? According to the assigned readings and short videos, what other benefits are there to not-for-profit organizations that choose to use social media?
Loyalty, one of my strengths I'd like to use it during interviews. It's catchy, and it has lots of good qualities associated with it. What does that mean, let me expand upon it; I didn't change apartments for 10 years, I never cheated on my girlfriend, I always prefer McDonald's over Burger King (some don't understand why, I simply answer "BK don't have Big Mac") I have worked with several bands from the beginning to their end. I watched "Lost" to the end despite it got crappier and crappier. I am a proud PC owner, and don't intend to change it.
Let's not sidetrack, can you see the pattern here? Small hints; McDonald's, PC, Lost, etc. These are things we consume, choices we intentionally make over their competitors BK, Mac, Heroes(?!!). These connect us, bind us, and create a sympathy for the others that make the same choices we make. Given proper platform, we choose to converse with the ones that are like us. Oh wait, I think we found the secret to the popularity of Facebook "Like" button. Meh, I'm sure someone already knew it anyway. However in terms of being more formal, I believe brand communities are people who intentionally make consumption choices and find the comfort around the people who make the same choice. It is in other words it is people's selective perception of brands and others who has the same perception.
Chapter Two: Lords of Kobol
The origins of the word, tribe, goes back to first people. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs a person being needs safety as they find the survival conditions. That safety comes from being a society, physically being together against mammoth attacks, wolf packs, dinosaurs or other tribes. Well besides the fact that they just found a new tribe in Amazon untouched by humanity and technology, the existence of tribe concept is shifting towards more civilized means. More technological means.
Similar to brand communities, tribes are set of people gathered around something because they share the same interest, same desire, same passion, same hate, same contribution. The main difference from the brand community is that there may not necessarily be a product they choose to support or buy or talk about. It can be an earthquake (this example is gonna go on and on and on) or a music band, or a TV show, as long as it is common with the group.In addition another difference I see between brand communities and tribes is tribes are more interconnected, have more common grounds and more to interact.
As mentioned in both of the TED talks, what is essential is a leader, for a tribe to survive, to compete, to accomplish things. On the other hand, a brand community is driven by the management and marketing departments of companies, people are attracted to the brand image, and it is one-to many communication. However tribes have many-to many communication which is regulated but encouraged by the leader.
Chapter Three: OK what was I gonna say?
I love giving presentations, it is another strength of me, I can say confidently. I am good at preparing slides, I like talking a lot, and being on the spotlight comes natural to me.
But you know what I am not good at, remembering things. This is why I need to keep the conversation going, extract meanings out of the context. If I keep silent, I forget. And so does the community.
In my presentation about NPOs, I kept repeating the importance of young population and how they are eager to keep online conversation going. In the example of Greenpeace and their catchy slogan used in Turkey "How many inches is yours?" reached out to many people about the illegal fishing in Mediterranean Sea. This is a great strategy by Greenpeace because they realized the potential in young Facebook and Twitter users. They saw how rapid the social fire catches on, and how quickly messages rotate.
Another example from Turkey would be a very recent event, about a book. This book was against the government and trying to expose dirty stuff that has been made in years. Government started a witch hunt and intruded printing houses, newspapers, houses, anything that can be tied to that book.
Just like China, the firewall cannot protect the attacks coming from the inside, a Turkish group created a website, put a clock counter on it and announced that the book will be available on that website in 3 days.
Eventually the book became available, they shut down servers, other websites popped up, e-mails started rotating, Twitter got filled with links for the book from people's personal websites. They created the spark, but "we", people with freewill, networking tools and interest spread the fire.
This is the clear demonstration of how non-profit-organizations can use the same potential and online networking channels to influence someone and spread their message to the people.
They can listen, assess the interests of their communities, setting up a facebook fan page would not suffice, they should put content and start a conversation. They should use realistic indicators other than how many friends do they have, but instead how many retweets they got or how many people posted something on the organization's wall on Facebook.
There is a huge potential for NPOs in the online social platform, with proper analysis and evaluation, and most importantly proper strategy, they "will" be able to be heard and raise donations.
Above entry is related to the question: What is a brand community? What are tribes? How can not-for-profit organizations use web 2.0 social media tools to build brand communities? According to the assigned readings and short videos, what other benefits are there to not-for-profit organizations that choose to use social media?
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