Another case of social media - its scary practicality

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/what-is-buzzing/amy-cheong-vacant-job-posted-career-094026501.html

This is a case that recently happened just on Monday, two days ago in Singapore. It is indeed scary how social media can bring an individual down overnight, when used incorrectly.

Social media strategies for Organisations

Hello people!

So it's all about the social media strategies for organisation this week!

I guess before Organisations even think about developing the social media strategies they intend to deploy for the company, they need to ask themselves certain questions. I have retrieve these following questions from Social Media Today:
"
 First, start with your customer. Ask questions like:

• Do you know how they decide to buy and use your product or service?
• Are you familiar with their questions and challenges?
• Are they using social media? If so, which platforms?
• How do they consume content?

Next, think about your employees:

• Are they aware of company promotions and offers?
• Do they see the communications delivered to your customers?
• Do they know how to answer customer questions? If not, do they know where to direct those questions?
• Do you regularly ask for their input? This is especially true for staff who are in regular contact with customers.
• Do they use social media?

For leaders:

• What kind of customer experience does your organization value?
• Have you mapped all customer touch points?
• What have you done to foster an atmosphere of collaboration?
• Have you visited your web site from a smart phone? Have you browsed and looked for information, or tried to purchase?
• How will social media fit within the context of the overall marketing mix?

"

Only by understanding your organisation's needs to the above questions, only then I suppose, would you be able to develop the social media strategies for your organisation.

Here are some more commonly used strategies I have found on the world wide web:
1) Creating a Facebook Fanpage for your organisation
-- This will help to promote the reputation of the organisation, it could also very possibly be the subject topic amongst people's daily conversations

2) Signing up on Google Plus

3) Join Twitter
- If the CEO of an organisation that I am working for has Twitter, I would want to follow, just to know the casual side of the big boss of the organisation That would be quite nice, wouldn't it be?

4) Connect with others on LinkedIn
- Creating conversations by sharing interesting photos, videos, links, etc.

5) Blogging
- Just like Twitter, it would be quite nice and interesting to know what the top Management has been up to, and what they normally do on their day to day job, be it whether it's a coffee break(even), etc.

Does anyone of you know of any organisations that encourage, or even blog? Would be nice to hear from you!

Interesting links I have found:
Social Media Today
Top 5 Social Media Strategies for Small Businesses
Social Media for Small Businesses : 6 Effective Strategies

Wiki Strategies

Hello people!

Has anyone heard of Wiki strategies? I, for one, have not.
I am opinionated that Wikipedia is just wikipedia - (yet another) platform/database of information(obviously). How could there even be the different types of strategies for that channel? It does not make any sense to me at all.

So, out of curiosity, and in order to try to prove everyone else wrong(or RIGHT), I went around doing some research on the different types of Wiki Strategies.

Here is what I have found:

Okie, I have to admit I do not even know the definition of a wiki, apart from the common term of 'wikipedia'. So, Wiki is defined as 'A wiki s a website which allows its users to add, modify, or delete its content via a web browser usually using a simplified markup language or a rich-text editor'.
Pardon me! How more un-original can I be, other than finding the authentic definition from its original website eh! ;)



















Some of the common uses of wiki by the organisations are:

1) Developer Network channels - like a forum for developers to discuss about any technical issues they have encountered, or even technical knowledge that they would like to share amongst their communities of developers.

2) Technical Documentation - to mainly store technical information of all sorts, and across all industries.

3) Effective knowledge sharing - Perhaps this would only work out for bigger organisations, so that employees in the different departments can share their operational knowledge with each other, instead of asking each other for answers up front.

That said, in my perspective, it is of course, most important, to gather feedback from the main bulk users - people like you and me(who are the technologically savvy ones, i believe ;) ). Being the group of people who use the system, we can provide genuine inputs as to what is lacking with the system - improve and what is not - in that sense, to further enhance the already-good product.

Interestingly, I found this fact about 'The First Wiki':
"The first wiki was a complement to the Portland Pattern Repository, created on March 25, 1995 by Ward Cunningham, who based the name on the Hawaiian term 'wiki wiki', which means 'quick.'"

It is amazing how Sony Ericsson has its own internal wiki - but obviously they don't call it wiki, but it is mainly their own internal website for their internal sharing, mainly their developers.

In addition, before I finish off, here are some links which I thought were pretty good:

http://www.elevatorview.com/2008/01/08/7-effective-wiki-uses-and-the-companies-that-benefit-from-them/
http://www.businessofgovernment.org/sites/default/files/Using%20Wikis%20in%20Government.pdf

Micro Blogging

So today, I have decided to research on micro-blogging.

To be honest, I have not really heard of this technical term. Maybe it's just me, or has anyone else heard it before? Ha...If so, pardon my ignorance, I am trying my best - I promise! ;)

Then, I was asking Google(obviously after doing a Google search) and not literally talking to someone named Google or even the organisation itself.
Anyway! I have learnt that micro-blogging is apparantly writing very short blog posts on UKOLN word document, similar to text messages. Okie(pardon my own spelling of 'okay'-although by now, you should be used to my crazy 'Yvonne-ish' terminology eh ;) ), in my own terms, or in maybe some of your terms as well, we commonly call it 'status updates'.. You know, like how we update our statuses occasionally, or maybe hourly(that is rather extreme for me though) for some of you..

I was wondering why do organisations bother to microblog - after all, personally, we only do our own status updates when something significant happens in our day-to-day life..- or for me at least! hehe
What I have found out from Sandy Carter's video is that micro blogging within the organisation, generally helps a whole lot of communication and bonding within the organisation. They include what employess are doing today(calendar), announcements, Conversation on your board, two way channel for ideas and feedback, asking for help to leverage network and lastly Executive Public recongnition. In case anyone might not know or might be curious, Sandy Carter is the Vice President at IBM in social business.

I found it incredible how IBM had implemented their microblogging internally. Check this Slide 11 of the slideshow . Incredible, isn't it! They include status update integrated with your intranet profile, employees can easily view updates from their contacts or from the entire organisation, etc.

Photo credits: Jeff Bullas











Then again, me being me, I like to always find out about the advantages and disadvantages of implementing microblogging. This is what I have gathered so far from:
Advantages would include:
- Greater understanding of what is actually going on in the organisation across teams or projects
- Personalizing and demystifying the aura of senior leaders
- Seeking opinion and exploring options before decisions are made
- Driving engagement and the feeling that everyone’s opinion is important
- Increasing social status of employees in business related matters

All in all, from what I see it, the benefits includes mainly on the bonding within the organisations and the employees, which is definitely a good thing.

As for the disadvantages, I guess the biggest one would be its limitation of text/characters - 140 characters?

Last but not least, personally, I found it amazing, even BBC has got its own social media strategy! Amazing!

What about u? Personally, do you microblog? Okie, apart from facebook and Twitter, are there any other Tools that you use?

Some sites that are worth a read!:

http://www.slideshare.net/delphRB/ibm-presentation-at-digital-media-barcelona-twitter-for-business-microblogging-goes-to-work-sept-09-barcelonal

http://www.howto.gov/social-media/microblogging

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/documents/briefing-35/briefing-35.doc

http://www.squidoo.com/micro-blogging

http://gigaom.com/collaboration/implementing-a-successful-corporate-microblogging-strategy/

Return On Investment(ROI) on social media

Return On Investment on Social Media. To me, is that even possible? That was the first question that came to my mind when I heard about Return On Investment for Enterprise 2.0. Well, since I am still quite a beginner in this field, I believe I should have the perogative to have some naíve thoughts about technology.

Similar to my personal point of view, Forbes has the same point of view - that there is no way ROI can be measured for social media.

However, that said, although it cannot be properly measured, I have to, unfortunately believe that estimation is still reasonable enough for the Return On Investment. Don't get me wrong, really.. I am still trying to convince myself that this can even be estimated at all.

Interestingly, I had even found this page, whereby it shared 14 Social Media ROI Metrics You Can Use Right Now!

Based on what I have seen around all-the-so-many-websites on ROI, so far,what I have concluded is that when it comes to Return On Investment and social media marketing, many organisations have found it rather challenging to connect returns with their social media investment.

Also, this other website, I must say that it did actually impressed me, with the social media ROI on the different types of components of the business that organisations might be interested to find out more about. For example, ROI on sales, ROI on Customer Insights, ROI on Customer support calls.

Photo credits by: Jeremy Victors



But, seriously, why do organisations want to bother with measuring ROI, since they have already decided to go ahead with the implementation, they should really just go ahead!- (If I'm the CIO, obviously.)

So, I believe at this stage, I am pretty convinced now, that ROI is definitely worth a measure and also would exist, given that it actually benefits many businesses - good or bad. My thought is that, if they were to track the incoming traffic on their website, they would have a good gauge of whether they have done the right thing by implementing social media or not. And if not, they will then be able to think of some other alternatives.

Some of the reasons why companies want to measure/estimate ROI:
- Negotiate budgets with your management
- Land prospective clients
- Retain current clients

Ah...I have found one fantastic one to share, off from this website. It said, "The most common social media measurement model used by marketers is last-click attribution, which assumes the marketing channel most responsible for a consumer’s behavior is the channel that the consumer last touched before visiting or making a purchase. It’s a model that’s been used since the days of email, search and other direct response online media channels. The model works well for these because it measures the behavior of customers who are further along in the decision-making or purchase funnel."

So yes, by now, if you were initially like me, I hope you are convinced that social media Return On Investment(ROI) can be measured/estimated.
Otherwise, let me know and I am sure I can very positively find further information for you. ;)

Interesting articles that I had found:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2012/08/28/3-reasons-why-theres-no-measuring-roi-on-social-media/
http://www.text100.com/hypertext/2012/03/first-click-attribution-the-more-effective-social-media-measurement-model/
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-estimate-your-social-media-return-on-investment/

Another unfortunate incident over the use of social media

I just find it really scary how 'powerful' social media can be to that extent.. especially to vulnerable teenagers.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/14746433/teen-jailed-facebook-killing/

Update to my previous case study on Dawson's recent social media case

I was just reading on this article on The AgeThe Age - on Charlotte Dawson's case.

I am more strongly opinionated now, that for those famous icons who are not familiar with the basics of social media, all the more they should not use it.
Or, if they want to, at least engage/hire an assistant or agent who will take care of that for them.

Gee.

Latest social media attack..

Wow, I was just surfing online.

And randomly found this online article about Charlotte Dawson being hospitalised after social media attacks.

It is indeed scary how 'powerful' social media can be these days.

This incident, reminds me very much about cyber-bullying, how so many kids have already ended their lives innocently just because they were being attacked online by their peers, unfortunately.
It is quite a sad thing, but yet, I am not sure how much is being done to prevent future incidents, or rather how much more can be done to prevent, since we know as a matter of fact that the social media is soo powerful, and the internet is just limitless - knows no boundaries at all!

Singapore Airlines vs Social Media Policy

I had really enjoyed the speech by Mr. Malcolm Burrows last night. It was a fantastic one! I mean, I hardly knew the laws behind the online stuff, but what Mr. Burrows had shared was just incredible. No -  I swear that I am not trying to bootlick, but I think I would appreciate using the internet and social media with much more cautions now, and be even more conservative with what I post and support online, even.

Photo credits by : Lauri Stevens





Found it especially interesting when he brought in a facebook case, which was a rather complex one, which involved parties in different countries.

For this week, I would like to share about Singapore Airlines.. (no, not because of the fact that I am a Singaporean, nor is it the fact that I fly with Singapore Airlines often.) I have recently gotten more interested about this organisation after chatting with my boyfriend's brother who was working for them in the London office for the Europe region.(obviously a British..)

Not sure if Singapore Airlines is famous enough internationally, then again, I think it should be pretty famous, given that every single month, they win all sorts of possible awards internationally across different countries like UK, US, Germany, Turkey, China, Holland...just to name a handful really. The List of awards can go on if you want me to..but I will leave you at that.

So here I am, sharing with you some basic but pretty impressive information about Singapore Airlines(no, I'm not boasting, neither am I having any sense of national pride, I just would like to share, in that sense.)
Singapore Airlines was apparantly founded in 1972, and was the first in the world in the following activities :
- Free headsets, variety of meals and drinks in Economy class
- Introduction of inflight telephones in 1991
- Involvement of a panel of world-renowned chefs in 1998
- Audio and Video on-demand(AVOD) on all flights in 2001
- Flying of the A380 from Singapore to Sydney on 25th October 2007.
Just to name a few of them.
















I have only just discovered today that Singapore Airlines has got its fanpage on our favourite(or at least most of us..) Facebook as well as on Twitter. Apparantly it was started by a real fan of SIA on facebook, and they had then taken that over from that fan, on 5th of September, 2011, with a total count of over 100,000 fans. That is really not that many - if you think about it. Given that it is known to be a world renowned airline. Disappointing to me. Till date, it has about slightly less than 180,000 fans.

Anyway, very unfortunately, after doing all my research, I was not able to find any known cases of the airline getting into trouble with social media policy and the law. However, based on what I have been communicating with one of the top directors in the organisation(sorry, I cannot name names here, as it is highly confidential), here is what I have to say.

Firstly, based on what I have heard, the thing is that within the organisations, only the staff who require the access to the internet for their job, are given the access rights. - which sounds rather insane to me - because if  the organisation is not in Singapore, I believe access to the internet can be considered even as a human right in certain countries, like Estonia, France, Greece and Spain.

Next, for those who are given the access rights to the internet at work, the websites that they visit, it is not being monitored, unless, the IT administrator gets notified of a huge chunk of bandwidth being taken up by that particular user. That said, it is very unlikely, unless the employee actually dares to stream video at work, during working hours. Or worse, surfing pornographic sites at work. That might be too late for the administrator to even get involved. In the worst case scenario, say,the employee has already downloaded quite a number of those obscene videos on his work desk computer. That, might have been tracked down by the police in Singapore. In that case, the employee, would have already gotten in trouble with the law, ruining the reputation of Singapore Airlines, should the police force head down to the employee's desk to search for the material.

Lastly, what if any of their employees, were to blog, or even update a status on facebook, after taking a flight with Singapore Airlines itself, and had received rather poor service(although really rare- as it opposes the organisation's values). Should he/she be fired? Is it right for that employee to post that, after working hours, on his/her own personal computer? Who is to restrict that? Who should be regulating that? (I'm just saying in my opinion that..)It would not be quite right for SIA to fire that particular employee, since he/she was not using the company's resources, to start with, and that was outside of working hours.

What do you think?

Interesting articles I found:
Singapore Airlines finally connecting on social media
Fanpage of Singapore Airlines that turned into an official page
How is a community different from a network?
Behaving appropriately online

+ves and -ves of Enterprise 2.0 implementation!

Firstly, pardon my short forms of '+ves' and '-ves', since afterall this is a blog, and meant to have a tad of casualness in it.. And of course, being in the IT line, I should have some 'techy' language of my own!

So I am rather curious.. Why do companies even bother, or finally decide on implementing Enterprise 2.0? I am sure, it is only in our human nature to reject new things/technology, especially when we are all in our comfort zone in that sense. So, seriously why bother at all? When that might cost some companies more money? Or not, in the long run..

Yes, in case you did not realised, to me, it's all about the money($$$)! However, what I found out was not exactly the case, really. There are way more intangible factors than the big dollar sign.
Ross Dawson (2009) in implementing Enterprise 2.0 identified 4 key benefits.
They are mainly: productivity and efficiency, staff engagement, knowledge, and reputation.

Photo credits by : Datamation.com










Some examples of the benefits :

Productivity and efficiency - IBM spent more than USD 700, 000 on tagging content instead of sticking to the traditional search. They knew it was a success when on the average, their staff save a quarter of a minute when researching, which ended up in them saving close to USD 4.5 millions per year.

Staff Engagement - McDonalds(of course, the ever famous one! I believe this is a childhood brand for everyone of us eh, regardless of where we come from! ;) ) They had apparantly created a real-time blog and platform, whereby staff, suppliers and franchises could communicate with each other - all in real-time! How amazing is that, instead of our daily-boring-phone-calls/emails!!!

Reputation - Redbull on facebook (that energy drink that we always never fail to see during a sports event, since they are normally the sponsors!!(or in Singapore at least!) *slurp*) They had set up a facebook account and have close to 30 million fans all over the globe. They have basically gained success in acceptance by their fans.

As for the risks..You know how they say, once you have been working on the benefits, it is just so difficult to come up with the risks and the negatives? It is just so true!
Anyway, I have managed to do my research and have come up with a few!
I still very much love to quote from Ross Dawson, as I think they are really awesome.
As quoted by Ross Dawson, he mentioned that the key risks of implementing Enterprise 2.0 are: Security, Loss of Control, Reputation, Reliability, Productivity, and Resources.

Also, may I add: in my opinion, I feel that there are a few more risks, like Regulation of social media within an organisation. Practically, I do not think that anyone in the organisation would be in charge of regulating the content, unless they are paid to do the job. For example, sometime back, I have read articles about an employee in the company using the company's fanpage to say not very nice things about the employee's boss.. Although that might be true, she was then fired in the end. Yes, she may deserve it.. But think about the psychological impact that might have on her... She will or might even find social media repulsive from then on.

Photo credits by : Pinastro on Wordpress



Personally, like if I ever decide to have my own blogshop, I definitely know that implementing social Tools into my online business would not cost anything. So, why not?! I might sound like a downright cheapskate, but who cares, right? Any business person would be all about costs savings though!

Some links that I thought are worth reading!
How to fail when using Internet Social Media
Implementation of Enterprise 2.0 by Océ

Web 2.0 Tools

I have to say that I am very much a beginner for Web 2.0 Tools and Technology. But well, it is always good to start somewhere to learn about it. Since Technology is always going to advance, and you never know how you could contribute. Given the fact that you may know the older technology, you might be able to contribute by providing feedback or suggestions as to how the new versions of Technology and Tools can be improved, based on personal experience with the older version of technology.

I must say that I am truly impressed after doing a simple google search on the different types of Web 2.0 Tools. I have discovered so many types of different websites that provides various applications and functions that I have never thought of was possible.(Although there really is nothing impossible with Technology)

These were the sites that I found and had signed up on:
1)  DoInk

Interface of the creation of the animation

Example of a nicely created animation which i found on DoInk.



I have to admit that although this is my first time with experimenting with such a Tool/website, I do find it absolutely amazing.
This site actually allows people to create animations based on their creativity. It is for anyone and does not require people to have specific technical skills or anything.
This would pretty much be a very useful tool, for those who want to create some animations and have them on their websites, or who want to share their ideas with the world through animations.

2) Wallwisher

A simple example of Wallwisher function







Wallwisher did impress me too. It is quite a useful Tool, whereby you do not need to have any knowledge of HTML or be 'techy' in that sense. You just need to know what you want to do. Like, your purpose of having the wall. Through Wallwisher, one can create noticeboards, brainstorm ideas, make lists, learn, collect feedback, etc.

This can be your very own personal homepage, for people to visit and comment, or share ideas or even collaborate in any sense. This, I believe would be very handy if people want 'straight to the point' homepages with quality content instead of very fanciful webpages. Although, not many people would be interested if a webpage is not fanciful enough. Then again, what people are truly after when it comes to knowledge, I would want to think that they should be after quality content instead of fanciful images and all, just for the sake of entertainment.

3) My ebook

This is another one that caught my attention. This allows those who have a very strong passion in writing or even to the extent of writing a book of their own, to publish and even sell their books online, as an ebook(electronic book).

This would be very useful for professional writers, in the sense whereby they do not need to personally head down to any kind of writing agency and discuss with the people in charge, or even sign a deal or contract. This would then save them quite alot of time, and save them the trouble of needing to go through the countless negotiations for the pricing of their publications. Also, this in turn, would mean that they will be able to earn more for their own keeps by publishing their ebooks through this website on their own.

Personally, I love writing, and might even consider doing that for myself one day. Not bad an idea at all.

How cool that is!

Photo Credit: Ross Mayfield

What about you? Are you currently making use of any of such tools? Or, have you discovered any of the above Tools like I did?

Introduction to a Singaporean's thoughts

This sounds cheesy. But I am going give a slight introduction of myself. I'm Yvonne, from Singapore. I have previously done my Degree in IT at QUT, 5-6 years ago...so u might be able to guess my age. But yes, I am back here to do my Masters in Business Process Management.

I must say, after stepping into the real world of working for about 4.5 years and coming back to uni life, I actually enjoy learning and enjoy attending lectures sooo much more than I did back than for my degree studies.

Anyway, even though this blog is meant to be a professional one. I intend for it to be somewhat formal yet casual(pardon the contradiction).

My goal in having this blog is to be a subject expert in Enterprise 2.0 as much as I can.

My objectives of having this blog are:
1) Driving traffic to my blog / gaining visits(inter-related with my next line)
2) Keeping my readers interested indefinitely
3) Gaining a professional reputation / professional online presence
4) Writing about Enterprise and its related issues to the best that I can

My Blogging Strategies:
1) I will try to be as personal as I can(since after all, this is a professional blog)
2) Inserting interesting images so that I do not bore my users with just words
3) Have catchy titles of my blog entries as much as possible
4) Using some humour when possible
5) Share knowledge/information that I have recently learnt with my readers
6) Engaging readers to respond

Photo Credit: Robert Sanzalone




At the same time, of course I aim to do alot of research and be as resourceful and as informative as I can, so that I am able to interest my readers, and get them to come back to read my blog as often as I hope they do. And most commonly, speaking to people in the relevant industries and seeking for their opinions on issues with regards to Enterprise 2.0. I also will not deny the fact that I will even to the extent - searching around for good websites, and emailing the owners of the websites, just to find out their views on things.






Photo credit: Gary Ng
http://www.ewebmarketing.com.au/blog/ceo-blogging-for-the-first-time/


Hopefully, with that much of information and readers, seeing how resourceful I am, will return to find out about information that they need.

Before I end my post, I was reading this few blogs, and I think they are quite worth reading. Reason being that, they :
1) are personal to a certain extent - I am opinionated that a blog, no matter what kind of professional purposes it has, it should be personal to a certain extent as it is a blog afterall
2) are up-to-date - Realistically, if you notice that a website has not been updated for months, or even years, would you still want to visit? I for one, will not, since there will not be new content that I have not read before.
3) contain some 'live' updates about themselves(twitter/facebook, social networks basically) - this will keep readers interested should they mention something that catches the attention of readers, readers can then respond immediately.
4) contain pictures, so that they will not bore readers with just words(which explains why that is one of my blogging strategies).

I have included the blog links below and titled them with my own words:
A Knowledge Manager's thoughts
A senior Consultant on social media
Interview : Thoughts on Enterprise 2.0
How to build and lead successful online communities

Question for the day: I have shared my methods of attracting readers to my blog. What about yours? What are your methods of gaining readership to your blog?