Free Flowing Thoughts

Chinese social media use surpasses US

And it's early...abstract for the Netpop report below, the full report available here:

Social media isn’t just taking flight in the U.S. In fact, 224 million broadband consumers in China regularly make contributions through a diverse number of social media channels – twice as many as in the U.S. Furthermore, 41 million of them are contributing content online through six or more activities (uploading photos, publishing blogs, posting ratings/reviews, etc.). These heavies are connecting with an average of 84 people in a typical week. As in the U.S., the news they choose to share can change the marketplace overnight with such scale that companies must tune in and be in a position to react quickly and decisively.

 

 

Netpop | Connect: Media Shifts to Social - China 2009 Preview

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A Different Approach to the Month of the Military Child

April is the Month of the Military Child, a very active time for MCEC as you can imagine.  Our typical PR activities this time of year include reaching out to a media roster we keep in touch with to remind them of the importance of this month and activities MCEC pursues on behalf of military children.  Sometimes this resulted in nice articles, sometimes not.  But we do it anyway because we want to build awareness of the cause.

This year we did something different.  We solicited art in the form of poems, stories and drawings representing the life of the military family.  Who better to tell their story?  We posted these submissions on our blog site, YouTube channel, Facebook group, and promoted with our Twitter feed. 

Our goal during the Month of the Military Child has always been to share the joys, challenges and opportunities to support the children of our military families.  Redirecting our efforts toward social media and less focus on traditional PR is helping us accomplish our mission more effectively.

Read more of these powerful submissions here:

I’m proud to be a military child because of everything it has taught me. I’ve gone through millions of goodbyes, welcomes, tears, laughs, and smiles.  I’ve been a military child since the day I was born. It’s my first nature and a title I live by.  My father is a Colonel  in the United States Army and one can’t begin to understand the feelings I have towards that title and job my hero holds.  My father has given up everything for my family and me to live in this free land. We have crossed oceans with him supporting his every decision.  Every child knows in their heart that their loved ones would give up their world, life, and family just to know that your safety, freedom, and peace is in their hands.

Corporate Adoption of Social Media - The Creepy Factor

Marshall Kirkpatrick explores some of the creepier side of corporate involvement in social media on this post.  Admittedly there is a slightly odd feeling when you imagine marketers and other company resources scanning blogs and Twitter streams looking for mentions of their company and reaching out.  I still recall the odd feeling when I saw my surprisingly accurate 'social profile' in one of these tools the first time.

Having worked at Dell as we adopted such a program, and now implementing one for Windows Azure I am convinced this involvement is a very good thing.  Not only for the companies who learn from these interactions with their customers, but for the customers as well.  In both programs I have been able to reach out to people having issues or with questions about the product and I cannot recall a single instance where someone asked never to help them again.  

The keys to removing the potentially creepy factor:

1. Be open about representing a company or product.  In some countries there are regulations on this area.  My user name on Twitter includes @ MSFT and at times I respond from @WindowsAzure to remove any question.  My former colleagues at Dell do something similar.
2. Offer to take the conversation offline where it's reasonable.  Some topics are more appropriate handled via email or (shudder) a phone call.  Make it easy for people to get in touch with the same human who reached out online.
3. Add value by offering information or help.  Simply letting a customer know you saw them talking about your product can make people feel a little uncomfortable.  If you have nothing to add, don't feel obligated to reach out.

Monitoring Online Conversations

Improving your social media efforts starts with being able to measure.  Radian6 offers a great service for not only measuring but managing the follow-ups necessary to build community.  At a simpler level, the overview here on building an RSS dashboard is a great start.

http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/03/31/how-to-monitor-online-conversations/

An RSS-based monitoring dashboard is a great way to collect everything you’re monitoring into one place...For people new to RSS, I generally encourage them to use something like Netvibes, which has a visual layout with multiple tabs and columns where you can see several key conversations at a glance.