Why CEOs Should Not Get “Into” Social Media

One of the big questions or issues in Social Media is whether CEOs should involve themselves in the social media space.  Certainly, there are many CEOs who are immersed deeply in the social media environment, twittering, facebooking, etc…, however, these are mainly CEO of relatively modest sized companies.  The CEOs of major companies prefer to stay out of the social media limelight…unless they are in that line of business.

Many blogs, articles, commentary and opinion pieces have been written on this topic.  Since most of these pieces have been written by people with an interest (either financial or otherwise) in social media, the inevitable conclusion is that these big time CEOs are doing their companies a dis-favour by not engaging their “customers” and stakeholders through the various social media streams.  I beg to differ for the following reasons:

-  The average CEO of a Fortune 100 company has thousands upon thousands of stakeholders…its impossible to engage with everyone at a personal level without passing on the communication to a team.  This is what the current “Community Managers” are already doing for the company so why create another channel which everyone will take to imply gets them more attention.  It dilutes attention from the corporate social media engagement without really affording the close personal touch needed.

-  The rules of Corporate Governance apply to all CEOs, so anyone expecting the inside scoop on Twitter or Facebook is going to be disappointed.

-  Since its unlikely a CEO would put down his/her personal opinion of various staff, customers, etc…what does that leave you in terms of content?

-  What would be the benefits to a “plugged in” CEO?  A closer relationship with the customer?  Building more PR sympathy?  Actually, as any social media specialist worth their salt will tell you, no one will universally like you online, and the opinion trends can swing in seconds from positive to negative.

 

So given that the actual benefits are almost impossible to define, the potential pitfalls are many, the effort is huge, the status quo is comfortable, why on earth would any CEO of a Fortune 100 company even consider building their social media presence online (to say nothing of the fact that these CEOs change more frequently now too!)?

 

Why I (we) would never enter Politics

The grapevine’s abuzz with news about when the next General Election will take place in Singapore.  Looking at the odds in the major betting houses that cover such issues (ie.  heartland coffee shops), it looks like Feb 2010 is the month.  As with any other Singaporean, I’m looking forward to the mud-slinging, massive opposition rallies, hawker centre walkabouts where I will finally get to see my MPs (last time was the previous election) and the inevitable PAP win.

I thought it would be fun to list down several reasons why an average guy like me (and you!) wouldn’t enter politics:

1.  No Social Life

Seriously, its one thing to party every night of the week with friends, and quite another to attend dinner functions every night of the week with politicos, supporters, cronies, etc…  Everywhere you go, people know you and want to talk to you (which is bad) or know you and want to scold you and throw acid on you (worse).

2.  No Privacy

No surfing porn on the sly, no scolding bad words, no cheating with parking coupons, no downloading illegal movies, etc…the list is endless.  Even worse, wife and kids are also held to the same standards.  Politics is like living in a glass house.  So unless you and your family’s favourite movie was the Truman Show, this may not be for you.

3.  Really ugly uniform

Face it lah.  Best chance of getting into politics without being made a bankrupt is through the ruling party.  Their all white uniform was highly fashionable maybe in the 1960s.  Today, they all look like they are going to a Chinese funeral minus the sack cloth on the head.  If they went all black then maybe can consider.  Of course this beats the oppositions’ uniform of singlet, shorts and slippers which is all they can afford after a few rounds in court.

4.  Thankless work

Meet the people, work for the people, try to change things for the people, told to toe party line, cannot change things for the people, kena sai from the people….that sort of sums up the process.

5.  MOST IMPORTANT!!!

You think you want so easy ah?  Unless you are a cross between Gandhi, Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Mother Theresa you stand no chance lah.  So stop dreaming and go make babies for Singapore!

Should Traditional Media Be On New Media?

I got thinking about this topic when I attended a lunch recently where several editors of major news media organizations in Singapore spoke.  Represented were the Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao (Chinese) and ChannelNewsAsia.  It was meant to be a session where these editors shared their “invaluable” knowledge on the basis of their decision making when selecting news stories.  Considering a good portion of the attendees were from PR firms, it was obviously a topic of some interest.  Attending more out of interest than any real professional need to get my company in the news, I was able to listen more closely and objectively to what was being said.

Sad to say, the presentations by these so-called media giants was neither well prepared nor well structured.  They wandered off on irrelevant tangents and seemed more interested in whining about their jobs.  Their insights were neither insightful nor useful.  They spent a good portion of their time complaining about being “scooped” by one of their “competitors” at the table.  They rounded it off by talking about how they were undecided on using Social Media as a channel to their readers.

To make sure it wasn’t a total waste of my time and money, I got to thinking about how Social Media can be used to complement Traditional Media.  I know this topic has been argued to death in many other countries, but Singapore is quite different.  At the end of the day, the three “competitors” at the lunch ultimately report in to an organization controlled by the Government of Singapore.  That in itself defines the limitations on news coverage and commentary, but also ensures a sustainable income and subsidy, something which is critical for survival in today’s media environment.  Without this support, the main newspapers and news channels in Singapore would be treating Social Media with a lot more fear than they currently are.

In their defence, it has to be said that even with the high internet penetration rate in Singapore, most news readers still prefer to get their news in a format that they can touch, feel, turn pages and roll under their arm to bring to the toilet.  So print news is not going away anytime soon.  However, this issue of who “scooped” who is pretty much a non-issue.  The main english paper, the Straits Times, is printed and distributed at a fixed time every day.  Even if the US were to sink under the waves in an Atlantean catastrophe, readers of the Straits Times would only find out in the next day’s paper.  ChannelNewsAsia is slightly better.  They can put a headline above their news ticker similar to what CNN has.  However, unless you are a couch potato or carry around a portable TV, it is unlikely you will get this news till you are home.

Thats where Social Media can be useful.  Most people now access the web using their mobile devices.  Some companies, including the Straits Times and ChannelNewsAsia, even have mobile apps that embed their news bulletins on iPhones and Blackberries.  In the worst case, you can go onto their corporate website using your mobile devices.  It might seem a logical way to keep your readers in the know, but it doesn’t take into account how humans form habits.

I have the apps for the Straits Times on my iPhone.  Its free, but I very seldom access it.  A few reasons.  First, its slow and takes a long time to load, even using 3G.  There seemed to be a need to incorporate pictures and details into the articles.  Secondly, I haven’t formed a habit to click it to find the latest news.  Thirdly, the habit I have already formed is to use  Twitter for my short communications.  One of the organizations I follow on Twitter is Fox News.  Anytime there is breaking news, I get a short 140 character update from FOXNEWS.  I use this update to verify news that I would usually have obtained on Twitter earlier.  If I’m interested, I would click a link to read the details.

The beauty of Twitter is that you don’t need to craft an elaborate copy to hook the reader.  All you need to do is to shoot off a headline (once the news has been verified of course).  Its somewhat akin to the newsboys standing at street corners in the early part of the last century, shouting out the news headlines to passerbys in the hope that they would buy a paper from him.  And there is no dispute about who scooped who since all Tweets have time/date stamps.

I don’t expect these media giants in Singapore to change their philosophies anytime soon.  They lack the hunger and urgency brought about by a highly competitive environment, and to a certain extent, the luddites in senior management probably wouldn’t be comfortable in such a fast paced media environment.  So, till something happens to make them change, I expect things to remain status quo for at least another couple of years….while the rest of the industry worldwide moves on to the next big thing.

Tong Hsien-Hui

So Majority of Tweets come from only 5% of Twitter Accounts?

People who meet me for the first time often ask me, “For a guy who claims not to like Twitter, you sure blog about it more than any other topic..”.  Mea culpa.  Ever have a scab you kept on scratching even though you knew it wasn’t doing you much good?  I feel much the same about Twitter.  I don’t dislike Twitter.  I just find it functionally irrelevant, and those Tweets that tell me I can make money on Twitter..?  Well I give the same amount of consideration to those as to those emails from Nigeria telling me can share in a fortune and all I need is to send a couple thousand dollars to clean all that black money.

Well anyway, following this kid’s comments about how other kids don’t use Twitter much (see my blog post on “Why are we so quick to run down a teen’s opinion about social media?”), Mashable, a pretty decent aggregator and publisher of social media news, conducted or gathered research information pertaining to useage of Twitter.  The findings were interesting:

-  5% of Twitter accounts generate 75% of Tweets.  I speculate that 100% of this 75% is useless spam.

-  24% of Tweets are generated by bots (or small programs that automate some action…in this case retweeting stuff on DIGG, etc…).  Spamming used to be frowned upon.  In Twitter it seems to be encouraged!

-  60.6% of the most active (the top 5%) Tweeters live in the US.  The next is the UK at 6.9%.  I suppose everyone else has a life.

-  54% of the most active are male.  I suppose when they aren’t on WOW or some other inane MMPORG, they have to do something.  That or its actually only 1 guy who generated thousands of Twitter accounts using a blog and created his own virtual Twitter farm.

-  48% of the most active accounts have more than 100 followers.  If I were a follower…I wouldn’t be for long…imagine 150+ updates daily from a single account.  Mostly crap I assume.

-  Ok, so FoxNews is one of those most active Twit(s).  Maybe its not all crap.

So how to separate the wheat from the chaff?  You can’t really.  Its not possible to turn someone’s updates off unless you “unfollow” them.  I live in Singapore, a country with a reputation for high rate of internet penetration among the population.  A significant percentage are ostensibly registered on popular social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and the local press has been playing up Twitter recently (no surprise there….see FoxNews…..).  That said, I only know of a small handful of people who Tweet regularly.

My company has a Twitter account to keep our members posted on the latest events.  We will shortly be promoting certain programs and activities solely on Twitter and Facebook.  But this isn’t really creating a conversation.  Its just another channel of communication (like ads, flyers, etc..).  We do get feedback and criticism occasionally, but we need to actively search for it using Twitter’s search function.  In each instance, we engage using Twitter and close it online.  This usually doesn’t take more than 2 rounds of engagement which hardly constitutes a conversation.

For those keen advocates of Twitter out there…I am open to any suggestions you may have on how to make better use of Twitter given that few of our target market is on Twitter and even fewer are regular users!

Tong Hsien-Hui

What is Twitter? No Really….

There are lots of people trying to define what Twitter really is.  Those who love it call it the best communication platform since the telephone….those who don’t love it call it….well basically they don’t call it anything…they just don’t use it.  It has been called at one time or the other a personal news feed, a sophisticated advertising medium, the next generation sms, a spam device, etc…..  It is of no surprise really, to find that all these definitions work.  It really depends on what you tweet about and what kind of followers you have.

What do I mean by that?  Well lets say you only tweet things that happen to you.  I have people I follower (usually not for long) who tweet about everything they do…no humour, no insight, just banal day to day activities.  To these people, and the losers/voyeurs/fans who follow them, this is a personal news feed.

If you promote your product or service or retweet a product of service, then you are using Twitter as an ad board.  If you use it primarily to tweet with your friends to arrange meetings or bitch about something, then you are using Twitter like an email or group sms system, albeit a really really unreliable one (I know the Fail Whale logo better than the Proctor and Gambol one…).  If you tweet personal insights or on specific topics or even if all you do is aggregate all related information on a specific topic and retweet them….then you are using it as an online forum.

Followers fall into three main categories.  Those that follow you because you follow back…and you don’t know them from Adam.  Those that follow you because they are your friends or acquaintances in the real world.  Finally those that follow you because they actually think you have something interesting to say (fans!).  So it should now be obvious what Twitter means to both parties.  In the first instance, because there is no social tie between members other than the tenuous link based upon mutual following, Twitter is a spam board.  In the second instance, because your Twitter universe comprises only friends, then Twitter is primarily a glorified sms system (a heck of a lot cheaper than using the group sms function which props up the business of most telcos).  In the final instance, Twitter is a powerful tool in brand building and communication.  Unfortunately, while many companies and individuals aspire to this, few if any actual attain this e-marcom nirvana.

The truth is, most of us have a combination of the kind of tweets we tweet, and the kind of followers we have.  I would find it hard to believe that all those following Ashton Kutcher are his fans…most I would suppose follow him because of the hype.  Following CNN on the other hand is a totally different proposition.  There is some real value in the tweets a major news agency sends out.  Unfortunately, given the speed of the internet, I usually only check CNN tweets to confirm information that had already been tweeted elsewhere….and I mean hours ago (MJ’s death was a classic example.  It was tweeted close to 5 hours before the first major news agency confirmed it).

So in a way, the power resides with you to determine what Twitter is or can be.  The beauty of these simple platforms is that you are only confined by your imagination as to how it can be used for your personal benefit….and if you run out of ideas…..tweet me at #hhtong……

Hsien-Hui Tong

Why are we so quick to rundown a teen’s opinion about social media?

Yesterday, the Guardian in the UK published a “research” report by a 15 year old intern from Morgan Stanley listing out how teens consume media.  It created a storm of controversy with opinions swinging from “revelation of the decade” to “piece of worthless trash”.  As a quick summary, part of his “earthshaking” revelation was:

-  Most teenagers are not regular listeners of radio

-  Teenagers do not watch a consistent amount of TV..it depends on the season (programs)

-  No teenager of his acquaintance regularly reads the newspaper

-  Wii is the most popular gaming console

-  Most teenagers have Twitter accounts but don’t use it regularly as they prefer sms being more private and cheaper

-  Most teenagers are reluctant to pay for music.  Even iTunes is too expensive.

-  Teenagers tend to go to the cinema more frequently in their early teens than in their later teens

-  Teens prefer mobiles with large capacity for music (Sony Ericsson was cited as an example)

The problem with this report is that it lacked any supporting data to demonstrate its validity.  Critics were quick to say that the lack of supporting information meant that it wasn’t possible to validate any of the statements made.  In this era of superficial data gathering to support spurious facts, it was said that the lack of any real research data showed that none of the statements made had any basis in fact.

To these so-called experts, I say bull.  Having been a data analyst before, I know how flimsy the premise for drawing any real conclusion from a set of data is.  There are too many inherent biaises in data gathering, not just relating to the where and how.  In the paradox of Schroedinger’s Cat, the act of observation changed the outcomes.  Similarly, the act of gathering this information inherently changes the conclusions that can be made from the data.  Ironically those who were the sharpest critics were those who had the most to lose (so called Social Media experts and Twitter specialists).  Twitter is such an anonymous application that I would question very closely any conclusions drawn from research data on Twitter.  For instance, it is not difficult to create many Twitter accounts and put in any age you want, then to join a service like WeFollow.com and quickly accumulate thousands of followers, none of whom are of any value.

So lets examine the boy’s statement impartially as logical thinking adults:

-  Why and under what circumstances would teenagers listen to the radio?  As an adult, I only listen to the radio when driving and on the way to work, and even then I have the option of my iPod.  The radio programs just don’t interest me and the talking just makes it worse.  I would listen only to maybe catch a song I haven’t heard in a long time.  So is this possibly an accurate statement?  YES

-  No one other than a rootless vagabond watches a consistent amount of TV everyday.  There are programs we want to watch and programs we don’t.  During the football season, I watch more football on Saturday.  In the off season, I don’t.  Is this a reasonable statement then?  YES

-  No teenager of his acquaintance regularly reads the paper?  I would expand that to say no one to my knowledge consistently reads the paper other than those whose job it is to read it.  Otherwise most people get their news from online papers, blogs, etc….  So, YES, it is a very possible statement.

-  Well I won’t challenge the issue of Wii….I think this is the one statement that is supported with very real data.

-  Teenagers don’t like Twitter.  Well so don’t a lot of people.  Real research has shown that as many as 80% of Twitter users don’ regularly update their account.  Since this is data that is less subject to biase, I am willing to consider it validity.  Given that only 20% regularly tweet, then it is not hard to draw the conclusion that kids just don’t use it.  Sure, some do, but then again, we are looking at the bigger body of teens than just a select few.  In fact I would speculate with substantial data to support me that NO age group consistently tweets.  Its just a few tweeting 80% of all tweets.  So I would say, YES, it is a possibly valid statement.

-  Teens don’t like to pay for music?  Who the heck LIKES to pay for music?  And anyone who was a normal regular teenager would know how expensive $1 a song can be when your allowance is small.  This is the most obvious YES of them all.

-  Again, teens preferring to go to the cinema in their early teens vs their later teens is something of an obvious statement.  I think bars allow patrons above the age of 18 to go in…nuff’ said.  YES.

-  Teens prefer mobiles with a large capacity for music.  Since they don’t listen to radio they need to listen to something.  And since iPhones are maybe too expensive for most teens, Sony Ericsson which allows you to play all those ripped off music makes sense.  YES again.

So looking at it logically instead of screaming about lack of supporting data, it appears that what the kid says makes sense.  I wouldn’t plan my marketing program around it, but I could do a lot worse than to take those assumptions and apply them for specific programs.  I can tell you what though….if I were to take the opposite as true, I am guaranteed to fail, and I know most marketers worth their salt know that too.  So give the kid a break.

Facebook and Privacy. Why Don’t People Get it?

I gave a talk recently on Facebook. The talk was meant as an introduction to the concept of Facebook and how it could be used to build communities and enable interaction. While the age of the attendees ranged from mid twenties to seventies, the predominant demographic was those aged fifty and above. This wasn’t a big surprise as the technological revolution has left a number of these people in its wake and even younger ones (myself included) have to constantly keep up with whats new in the realm of technology.

What surprised me most was that quite a number of those attending the talk had already registered Facebook accounts. In fact the majority had an account but did not use it. Their biggest worry was not how to use it (although I hope I was able to show them something new in the talk), but about the possibility of losing or having their identity stolen. It is unfair to deride them for being luddites simply because they have a valid concern which in fact few younger members have. As you get older, you have more to lose than a teenager whose “street cred” only extends as far as the end of the street.

What a lot of them failed to realize is that Facebook offers one of the most customizable privacy settings of any social media platform I have ever used (including MySpace, Ortuk, QQ, Socialtrak, Drupal, etc…). The ability to exclude groups of your “friends” as well as individual friends from viewing parts or all of your profile is what I think is an important function within Facebook. The process I suggested they adopt was the following:

- Don’t put anything on your profile that you don’t want others to see. For instance, I wouldn’t ever consider putting my credit card number or my actual address on Facebook, even if I have the option to block it out.

- Group your friends based on how close you are to them. I don’t mind my best friends seeing everything on my profile and photo album. I have a few FB “friends” solely for the purpose of the FB games I play. These I don’t give any access to anything other than the most basic information about myself.

- Go to Settings -> Privacy in your Facebook account and “customize” access for each of the logical segments of information categorized.

I understand that Facebook will shortly be changing the Privacy Settings page to make it more user friendly. Hopefully this will not remove the granularity of customization that we are now used to.

On the flip side of the equation, I have seen teenagers with FB profiles that are open to everyone and anyone. Basically even without being a friend, you can see everything they have available. This might be a concern in terms of physical and online safety. I think most of them only realize how dangerous this can be when their parents view their profiles….and comment! One of the most amusing sites I have visited recently is http://myparentsjoinedfacebook.com which posts screen captures of parents interacting with their children on Facebook. You wouldn’t believe how fast these kids figured out the Privacy settings after that!

Tong Hsien-Hui

Michael Jackson’s Dead and Never So Popular!

I’m not a fan of ole’ MJ. Let me clear that up front. I’ve of course heard his music all through my adolescent years to early adulthood, but could never click with the rythm or lyrics. Blame it on my upbringing, social influences or just plain good taste.

So I’ve had a quiet decade not being overly bombarded with his music or dancing (ok, so he’s a good or was a good dancer). Sure, there are the odd articles about him trying to mess with kids, but then anyone with half a brain could tell he was a closet or overt pervert. It didn’t take a court case for us to realize it, I mean geez, he looks like a ghost, dressed like Captain Crunch and lives in a zoo…

When I received news of his demise via twitter about a couple of hours before a legitimate news source announced it (I mean these news sources actually have to VERIFY their information), I didn’t think much of it. Maybe a sigh of relief at not having to listen to recordings of his proposed World Tour and seeing how pathetic it is for a 50 year old man to moonwalk. But otherwise a good riddance to bad rubbish kind of attitude.

Apparently I am in the vast minority. After a decade of silence, the outpouring of “grief” through all forms of media was shocking to say the least. The fact that it actually SLOWED the internet down showed how much of impact his death had been. Kids who had never heard him perform or listened to his music were wondering why their parents were all sad and nostalgic about him, but more importantly why World of Warquest was slower than the molasses. And the radio stations were even worse. Some seriously considered a weekend full of Michael Jacksons’ music before cooler heads prevailed. That would indeed have been hell on earth.

Tonight I’m going to a party. Organized much earlier and meant to include lots of drinking, lots of eating, fun and games. I’ve just been told by my enthusiastic friend who is organizing this that there will be a moonwalk contest and we are to dress up like MJ. I haven’t moonwalked in two decades, but I think I can still find a pair of black pants, black shoes, white socks, and a single glove decorated with nonya beads to simulate the famous glittering glove. Too late for plastic surgery and skin pigmentation treatment though.

So MJ, while you rest in peace…the rest of us here are going to share your pain for at least another few days..

I still don’t like Twitter

   So I’ve been using Twitter since like forever.  I jumped on the bandwagon early last year when most people had never even heard of Twitter, and found it a novel way of communicating in bites (bytes) with followers.  Those were the days of having 20 close friends following you and you following them.  Then came the wave late last year as Twitter became the “in” social media platform, and everyone was expected to have thousands of followers to show you had “presence” online.  I never bit…but I have to admit I accepted a number of followers that I did not know or who did not really know me.

 

Now my tweetspace is a mess.  I still monitor interesting stuff that my friends tweet about, but if I were to see my tweet list, I have an eclectic mix of sales pitches, religious sayings, tweets in foreign languages and the ubiquitous tweeter who tells you every damn thing that goes on in his/her life.  I could really do without those “I tweeting while trying…God I’m constipated” tweets first thing in the morning.

 

So while lots of people find it “amazing” and “the next big social media thing”, I find minimal value in it.  Thats not to say I don’t think it serves some purpose.  After all, telcos could never figure out what the big deal about SMS was about…before it became a major revenue stream.  So Twitters somewhat similar.  Its a one to many web based SMS system that seems to work for some reason.  

 

If you were to ask me what a really useful service is, I would say a web based version of traditional SMS.  Sending free tweets to specific people, having the ability to send tweets to specific groups,  etc….but hey, isn’t that what Skype and Messenger are???

To Facebook or not to Facebook?

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working with more senior members of our community on a variety of ways in which lives can be enriched even after retirement.  It has to be stated first that these members, while not at the very top of Abraham Maslow’s heirarchy of needs, are certainly not at the bottom either.  So financial security is a given.  

 

Their biggest issue is with how to enrich their otherwise drab and routine lives which now tend to centre around looking after their grandchildren.  One of the reasons why I got involved is because technology and more specifically social media is probably more suited to this segment of the population than any other.  While the younger set use social media for convenience, issues of physical mobility are significant for our more elderly citizens and social media platforms can help facilitate their continued social interactions.

 

However, while the benefits of an engagement on this platform is intuitive to people familiar with it, it is not always so for others.  I realized after engaging this group that the following fears are prevalent:

-  Fear of technology, and more specifically how to use the computer or the internet.  This fear centres around how to navigate what for us is a familiar landscape but for others, an almost alien environment.

-  Physically being unable to read from the screen comfortably.

-  Fear of their personal information being stolen

-  Fear of new things.  

 

These fears are not without foundation.  I am just grateful that they were open enough with me to be candid.  The benefits I like to highlight are:

-  Maintain contact with their current circle of friends and even reach out to other friends who might have been forgotten with the passage of time.

-  Keep everyone updated on their current activities, or be incentivized to be more active to enrich their profile

-  Relate to their children through this medium.

-  Join or lead interest groups that are important to them.

To address the fears they have listed, I proposed the following activities:

-  A series of training courses to bring them from absolute beginners to familiarity with the philosophy and context of social media platforms

-  A manual on how to use large fonts for their computer.  If this is insufficient, it is possible to use the mobile version of Facebook on your computer…with a little bit of work.  The mobile version is very clear…especially when expanded to the PC screen.

-  Part of the training should include a section on privacy and parameters on what to or what not to put on the web.

-  The hardest part is the changing of the mindset.  But if someone is willing to turn up at your course, it shows a willingness to at least consider the options

 

 

Tong Hsien-Hui