Google Global Search

The Vinculum places fifth for Global Search

Google Local Search

The Vinculum places second (or third?) for Local Search

Well, my efforts were appreciated by Google. Haha. On the crucial first page, still, only The Vinculum has a penetration. Nash Albacea’s Organizational Communication Cyber-Travel is also felt in the first page through Top Blogs (The Vinculum’s case before). Way to go Nash!

Next Goal: To have a higher rank than DLSU’s website!

A Social Media Enthusiast can oversee the digital society

1. You must have at least 3-5 years of editorial experience at a newspaper, magazine, wire service or online media site and be able to work under a tight deadline.
2. Blogging and multimedia experience is also a must.
3. An established personal online brand is an ideal. As a power user in social media, you must have at least 300 followers on Twitter, at least 200 connections on LinkedIn and at least 400 friends on Facebook.
4. You need to have a passion for social media and a thorough knowledge of the industry. You will be expected to flag trends and be aware of new social media sites on the horizon.

Taking a look at the qualifications, I think I’m almost there. Haha. But seriously, it’s one tough job. Organizational Communication practitioners can be the social media planner or the producer or maybe both.  Let us translate the qualifications into something generic:

1. A great and experienced writer.
2. A regular blogger.
3. Social Networking King or Queen.
4. Someone who can explain “New Social Media” without jargons.

Are you ready to shape and reshape the new social media sphere so that your organization or your company can benefit from it? Well, take a look at the latter requirements to see if you can do your job with flying colors.

Source: http://ederic.net/yahoo-is-looking-for-a-social-media-producer/

The Real Portal to Campus Life

The institution’s Office of Admissions tapped 12 student bloggers (selected through a writing aptitude screening) to write about their life in the university. Here’s the catch: MIT did not impose any rule to their bloggers. Kudos to MIT for respecting the liberalism of the new social media (unlike Mikey Arroyo). Anyway, it’s not only MIT who started to embrace blogging for university marketing. Amherst, Bates, Carleton, Colby, Vassar, Wellesley and Yale are just some of them. These institutions realize that high school students (the potential customers) are getting tired of the first-hand crafted messages done by the institutions themselves. These academic institutions realized that the real window to campus life is through student blogs. Moreover, these blogs created interaction with potential students and even made MIT listen to the concerns of their own students—hitting two birds (internal PR and external PR) with one stone.

Kim's

Let us contextualize this with business organizations. First, consumers are tired of traditional, vain advertising. They want a real-life experience from a real human. Second, so far, corporate blogs are done mainly for the consumption of external consumers, specifically for future and present customers. I just wonder if there’s any company that lets their employees blog to market the the company as an employer. Can you name one?

And of course, when would the Office of Admissions of the University of the Philippines start a similar project?

News Article Source: The New York Times

• The internet has become the essential touch point, but getting close is getting harder.
• There is social media fragmentation; anyone could be someone.
• The images of brands are not dictated by companies—they are dictated by people.
• Companies don’t need to shout; they need to listen instead.

I was thinking of nice way to share what I learned from Mr. Pao until I remembered the things he told us in the end. Before he concluded his talk, he mentioned some politicians that have websites and how effective are those in engaging visitors. Well, it’s not exactly what he said but it is almost tangential to my rephrased version. With all the things I learned from OrCom 152, I am curious to analyze the social media initiative of our presidentiables and their running mates for the upcoming elections. For this entry, I will be having an objective description of their websites and a subjective analysis of their effectiveness as social media tools. Just a disclaimer, all of my views and opinions are not professionally crafted though I believe I have learned the core principles of social media marketing. Uhuh.

So let us start.

Noynoy  Aquino

Noynoy Aquino

First sight. What I like about Noynoy’s official website is its simplicity. It does not shout “Please vote for me!”. The typical blog layout structure suggests an ordinary person’s blog.

The Engagement. Noy and his team, used a blog platform for his official site. With this, people can post comments and Noy could interact with them through replying. The sidebar is also maximized through placements of different social media tools like videos (blogs), Subscribe to RSS, RSS feeds, related sites and even a “Support Noynoy for President” Blog Badge. On the other hand, his blog is really updated; the last few entries are about Ondoy.

The Final Blow. If simplicity is the sole criterion for an effective social media website, then Noy will win this race. However, I want a more Noynoy personality in the website. It may look so plain or even boring for some visitors especially for the youth considering most of the visitors will come from this segment.

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Mar Roxas

Mar Roxas

First Sight. Mar’s website is really appealing without sacrificing simplicity. In contrast with Noynoy’s, Mar’s site is branded with Mar Roxas. Although there is a humongous, animated Mar Roxas banner on the top of the site, relevant content follows the rather sugar-coated introduction.

The Engagement. Like Noynoy’s, Mar’s site is also a blog. However, they added a clever feature at the bottom of the blog frame. If you don’t want to read the blog and you just want to comment or leave a testimonial a la Friendster, a separate tool is available for you: Mahalaga ka, your opinions matter. On the sidebar, you will see popular sharing options, photo blog entries and a Twitter widget—all of these can’t be found on Noynoy’s website.

The Final Blow. I believe Mar’s site is relatively better than Noynoy’s. My only contention is it’s too formal and has a stiff look. When I visited the site, I didn’t know that it’s a blog or I could leave testimonials for Mar to read. An explicit announcement for interaction could be a great improvement.

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Manny Villar

Manny Villar

First Sight. Manny Villar’s site is really consistent with his campaign’s theme: The orange motif, the check mark and the Sipag at Tiyaga adage. This kind of consistency has a higher-chance of name-recall.

The Engagement. I think the site is more of luring volunteers or recruiting members for Tropang Villar. The blog and RSS feed of Villar-related news are there at the bottom fit to a very small frame. Although there is an attempt for social networking through sharing options and Tropang Villar invitation options, the overall feel of the site isn’t sociable.

The Final Blow. Manny’s site is really information loaded—it became a helpdesk about OFWs, Housing and Livelihood. Though for me, it still sticks to the Mass Communication perspective of relaying information. More engagement please.

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Chiz Escudero

Chiz Escudero

First Sight. Chiz Escudero hasn’t declared his candidacy yet so I think it’s not proper to blame his site not having any election-related propaganda. His site has a red motif, that’s it. Haha, on a serious note, his site has a 2-3 columns structure that made the site overflowing with information though it’s not really the case.

The Engagement. There is a Chiz Escudero blog but, like Manny Villar’s, it is hidden somewhere and it’s not the main feature of his site. Moreover, you could add Chiz in his different social network accounts through the links buried below in his online abode.

The Final Blow. I think Chiz and his team are still developing a more sociable website, well, that’s my no-basis assumption. The website is still an I-tell-you tool rather than an I-tell-you-and-you-tell-me one.

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Jamby Madrigal

Jamby Madrigal

First Sight. Just like Chiz’s site, Jamby’s site is purely an informational one. There is no explicit attempt to sell the Jamby Madrigal brand (She just announced her candidacy for the presidential race).

The Engagement. Get this, there is no engagement at all! There is a pseudo-blog but it’s not really a blog since it’s more of a collection of news articles.

The Final Blow. Jamby, if you wanna be president, be sociable enought.

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Gilberto Teodoro

Gibo Teodoro

First Sight. Like Mar Roxas’s site, Gibo’s site is neat without sacrificing content. It’s green, it’s easy on the eyes and I like green. Haha.

The Engagement. I believe that Gibo’s site is the most social media-centric of all sites I presented. He has a webcast, a guide on how to help and develop his supporters’ pool through online campaigning (I like how the site segmented the different target audiences, clever!),  a Twitter widget, News RSS, Leave Your Testimonial tool, a Photo Blog and of course, sharing options.

The Final Blow. I like the strategy of Gibo, his team is really updated with the social media tools and with the techniques on how to use those. However, my only contention is the absence of a felt-able Gilberto Teodoro on his very own site. A personal blog could answer this problem.

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With all of the sites I have presented, Gilberto Teodoro’s and Mar Roxas’s sites are the most sociable of all. Of course, they have their weaknesses too. It is safe to anticipate that the upcoming elections will take advantage of Web 2.0. I am excited, and I’ll be watching.

The Internet: From Pornography to Charity

I saw a video in Facebook about how flood invaded the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center complex. Through Facebook sharing options, the video became viral.

The video, by the way, is hosted by YouTube which has channels for different Ondoy-related videos. YouTube embedding options made it possible for these videos to be posted in many blogs.

Readers of blogs can tweet or plurk what they read or saw.

Speaking of Twitter and Plurk, it is a trend to ReTweet or RePlurk the different ways how one can help. Imagine how this 140 character statement, like the UERMMC video, can become viral.

Wiki Spreadsheet

My Twitter and Plurk timelines are full of these kinds of tweets and plurks. What caught my attention were the wiki-type platform of Sahana Disaster Management System and Google Spreadsheets. They have different, free, sociable mechanisms to help people help other people.

Ondoy might have threatened or taken the livelihood and lives of many but social media exists to resist this threat and, more importantly, save threatened lives.

For Hotlines/Directories and Ways on how you/different institutions/individuals can help, you can see Inquirer’s and/or Yahoo!’s compilation.

Take care everyone!

I will be showing a step-by-step guide on how to make a Social Media Release:

Identify the need. Of course, you won’t be releasing an SMR just because. There must be a concrete and sensible rationale why you are doing so. Remember, even though using the new social media requires only a small amount of monetary resources, it could require time and effort. More importantly, it could spell difference in your credibility as a company. In Biokleen’s case, they wanted to target big institutions such as malls and offices of established companies. Biokleen wanted to market their products and services to the said organizations and prove to them that the company could do it even though it is relatively a new one.

Social Media Release Page 1

Mind the mindset. SMRs should not sound a TV advertisement or an Insurance Plan Agent; SMRs should not be vain. The mindset should be You-Will-Benefit-From-Our-Products rather than I-Want-Money-So-Buy-My-Products. The new social media is about the audience and not about the publishers. In Biokleen’s case, they wanted to take advantage of the Swine Flu Epidemic and how it could help companies prevent outbreak. The mindset here is helping and not selling—or the latter could be a secondary, discreet mindset.

Build the bridge. Be sure to place contact details on strategic locations. In the SMR I did, I placed the contact information beside the company’s logo because it is logical to do so. Moreover, I placed the same information below after the body because SMR readers, if they are satisfied and convinced, would look for the contact details after reading the text. Moreover, I placed subscribe to future Press Releases so that interested parties could be informed about new things about the company. Links to more, relevant information are also placed on the sidebar. Lastly, popular sharing options are also placed on the same location so that readers could share the article to perceived interested individuals.

Social Media Release Page 2

Simplify things. If you look at my sample SMR, it is really simple. Don’t try to complicate or over-sophisticate the aesthetic value and/or the content because people would get tired reading it. Follow the basic paragraph construction of intro-body-conclusion. Place few pictures so that readers could visualize what you are talking about. For the conclusion, answer the question so what? In my sample SMR, I placed it under the heading “The Lowdown”. Lastly, included in simplifying things is introducing your organization. Biokleen is a young company so a bit of storytelling would make the readers know what the organization is all about.

There is no hard set of rules in making a Social Media Release but considering the behaviour of people in the internet, there are core principles that SMR writers should consider. The bottom line of these standards is to make the SMR easy for the readers. “Easy” pertains to many aspects: from content to aesthetics and from the mindset to the sharing options. Make it easy and achieving goals would be easy for you.

Download Biokleen Care’s sample Social Media Release

1. Go where the crowd is.

The simplest of all strategies is to spot where most people could go and promote it there. Moreover, we spotted a “primetime block” where most people go online. With this, we armed different social networking sites such as Friendster (yes, we still promoted it there), Multiply, Facebook, Plurk and Twitter with our video link. But, we didn’t do it right away. We waited for the “primetime”. We pulsed these social networking sites and they peak user traffic at around 8pm. Ergo, we implement our tactic 10 minutes before or after that optimum time.

2. Go where the heart is.

Of course, our video has an umbrella theme: Sex. We assumed that people interested in sex will likely view our video. Nah, when I say “interested about sex” it doesn’t mean “looking for sex”—I think they’re different. Anyway, what we did is to look for YouTube videos related to sex or sex culture. Then, we posted our video as a video response.

Moreover, we searched WordPress blogs and/or blog entries that are about sex.  We reply to the blog entry and drive the conversation to sex and culture. Then, we suggest the video link (how clever!). Compared to tactic number 1, this tactic is more targeted.

Make sure the "virus" is doing the right job

3. Treat viewers as guests.

Some viewers leave comments about the video in your preferred video sharing site. What our group did is to make sure that every comment posted will be answered. Why? This drives them back to the video page (that’s one view higher) or it could give them the gusto to share and promote the video (that’s could be a lot of views higher). We start conversations then we slowly ask them nicely to promote our video. Think courtship.

4. Let Google crawl the video.

Ms Ingrid told us that search engines cannot crawl images, flash animations and even videos. But, there is a way to make the video relevant to these search engine spiders. How?

1. Creating Video and Blog Entry Tags
2. Writing a video transcript alongside the video itself

The first one is basic. The second one is radical and not recommended for all video blogs. Our video blog consists of pure, trivial and informational, one-liners. This feature of our video made it easy for us to make a transcript and actually embed it as a blog entry together with the video itself.

5. Make it plenty but with a strategy.

My group mates and I had a tendency to overdo promotion like flooding everyone with our YouTube link. But come on, not everyone clicks the link or, worse, some people may get irritated because of the flood in their respective walls. So what we did is to make each promotion or link distribution with a different message to say. For example “Let’s put the X in SEX” or “This is sex in a different position”. We also had teasers “The Aweikoma of Brazil has the same words for ‘sex’ and ‘eating’. More Sex Facts here!” Lastly, to give credit to the ones who commented to our video, we quote them and make that quotation as a link: “The function of sex as a procreation activity became a secondary one (Magicboy, 2009). Join the conversation! Watch Sex Trip!”

On video count alone, I can say that we are the one of the videos with the most number of views among the class, but of course, we need to make sure that the quality of our strategies are at par with our view count. There are two basic questions a viral video blogger must answer: 1) Does my video receive a lot of video hits? 2) Are those hits relevant to my objectives? Most people fail on the second question.

About the video

Here is our Viral Video Blog for our OC 152 class. What we are told to do is video blog that would become viral or is perceived to become viral. The topic that we chose is about sex though it’s not your typical, brainless sex video. To make it more interesting and to put an academic sense in it, we made it informational.

About the concept

We wanted a simple video blog. Actually, we have decided to just include pure animating text. Some popular video blogs in YouTube just include such content. Moreover, our group wanted to put an “aww” factor in it. In other words, we wanted the viewers to feel a sense of awe. This kind of feeling would push them to share the video, making the video viral.

About the initial reception

When you take a look at the other videos in our class, we could say that this vlog is the unique one though I liked all the other videos too. If you like this video, please share it to your friends using the share options below this post! Alternatively, you can share the URL of this YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnMwTdMXgj0

Video Transcript

In Australia, Australian Aborigines show friendship and goodwill
Through exchange of wives

Lesu Children are not only allowed to watch adults to copulate
They could also watch their parents have sex

The Ila people of Africa are devirginized at an early age
There are no virgins within them over the age of 10

Priests from some Hindu sects officiate marriage…
Through having sex with the bride

The Aweikoma of Brazil has the same words for “sex”
And “eating”

The Lepcha of Sikkim has not concept for “flirting”
If you want have sex, then ask for it

If a Goajiro woman trips a man during a ceremonial dance
She is required to have sex with him

When a Hidatsa woman reaches the latter stages of her pregnancy
Her husband is allowed to have sex with his wife’s sister

It is normal for the Aranda of Australia to have multiple rounds of sex every night
From three to five rounds of sex

In Lebanon, men are allowed to have sex with animals
As long as these animals are female

Some men in Guam have nice full-time jobs:
To have sex with virgins

In Hongkong, a betrayed wife can kill his husband
Only with her bare hands

In Cali, Colombia, honeymooners should have sex
With the bride’s mother watching

USA has the most sex-regulating laws
Compared with all EU laws combined

In Minnesota, it is illegal for any man to have sexual intercourse…
With a live fish

In Florida, it is illegal for any man to have sexual intercourse…
With a porcupine

In Washington DC, there is only one legal sex position
The Missionary (How do they monitor it?)

In Utah, having a sex with an animal is illegal
Unless it is profit-oriented

Percentage of French men and women who had group sex:
A whopping 41%

In Paramaribo, Suriname, a man who rapes a single woman won’t be punished
if he marries the victim

Japan may have the most successful Porn industry
But Japanese people are the least sexually active people in the world

Young men of Etoro Tribe must do something in order to achieve manhood:
Ingest the semen of their elders.

Even though NSM is celebrity popular, treat it as a stranger. New Social Media tools cannot be taken as a whole. The plethora of these different tools exhibit individuality and uniqueness. Facebook is different from My Space as Twitter is different from Plurk. Know the tool of the trade before actually arming it for combat.

Programming Codes can only do so much—humanize it. Humanizing the internet is not an individual interest; it is a revolution. Your consumers are human and only another human can understand him or her. Make the marketing strategy conversational, light and digestible. And for Homo sapiens’ sake, do not use Boto sapiens.

How human is it?

Write, Speak and Listen. I remember my Communication III professor saying that listening is the most taken for granted communication skill. As a result, most communication efforts fail because of the failure to listen. After launching your marketing program, be sure to stop a little while and have a coffee break with your target audience. Let them praise you, let them critic you. Then, make some necessary maintenance and improvement mechanisms.

In this world of complexity, be sure to start and go back with the basics. When problems arise regarding the marketing tactic you just have launched, it is most probable that you will try to heal the wound and even take the case to an emergence situation. Although it is right to apply first-aid treatments to problems, be sure to work backwards and see what went wrong. Issue a prescription and make an investigation.

Don’t use NSM just because. Because everybody is doing it doesn’t mean that you should also do it. There are a lot of things to consider before immersing yourself to this Web 2.0 culture. A structured NSM Assessment Guide could help you decide if you need NSM, could help you choose what kinds of NSM you need and could help you know what content to generate. Think of it as a flowchart.

Marketing has reached a state wherein it could be beneficial both for the company and for the consumers. However, as you play the cards of New Social Media, you could encounter The Joker many times and, of course, poker-faced consumers and competitors ready to trick you. Reading and internalizing these 5 simple steps could give you all the Aces you want.