Because it matters to you

Had a chat with someone the other day about the purity of blogging.

"We used to blog what we felt," she said. "Blogging was a way to make friends, and express ourselves." Now, it seems like all we ever blog about are products and events.

The statement struck a chord with me. In no small way, I'm pretty much involved in "engaging" the social media for companies and most of these engagements are marketing driven. Clients love to see blog posts about their events, reviews about their products and generally nice comments about their company.

But somewhere along the way, in the rush to engage social media to sell the next product or market our brands, perhaps we're forgetting what made (personal) blogging such a lovely thing in the first place. To be sure, I'm not talking about news blogs (my friend at MyTechNews.info is a fine example), who's existence is to cover news about a certain industry or theme. No, I'm talking about those blogs that started out as a personal conduit for expression.

Like this one.

And I realise, you may read me for some of my personal views on social media or technology, and in the coming month, you might be shocked to suddenly see I've transformed into a "Daddy blog." Because that is what matters to me in the coming months.

I've included this picture of Lydia preparing for motherhood. Because it matters. From davidlian says...

But if you're looking for a social media lesson here. Don't fret. There is one. In our rush to get products, services and brands "covered" and "exposed" on social media, don't forget the driving force of what makes "social" social is because we blog about what matters to us.

How do you make whatever it is you're communicating, matter to the social?

Who's job is it to serve the customer anyway?

An astute colleague asked me recently: "How long before social media becomes customer service? Will we have to keep dealing with customer queries all day?" She had a point.

Once you get to the nitty gritty of it, social media work looks very much like a customer service job. Once someone tweets you: "Hey, my XXX just crashed on me! Help!" If you're the social media person representing the company, you'd better bet you'll need to respond with a "Sure, let us help you with this. Could you provide this information..."

And yet, would you entrust a regular customer service person to handle your social media aliases?

There's much to be said about the blurring lines between communications, marketing and customer service. In a perfect world, they shouldn't be separate entities. Unfortunately, that's not the way most companies are organised.

So today's social media practitioner finds him/herself on the firing line of customer service. Of course, there are ways to manage the flow of enquiries and information. Setting up a separate alias to handle customer service, and having that managed by the customer service folks is one. But customers still see whatever presence you have online as an official channel of communication with your brand.

And that means, your messages and tone need to be consistent.

And that the customer comes first.

And that it's not a good idea to piss of the customer by not responding, or responding in a generally unhelpful manner.

Unfortunately for us working on Social Media, this means we will HAVE to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty. At least every once in a while.

I think Google Buzz may finally be IT.

The buzz today is about Buzz. Google's, that is. The last greatly-hyped about Google experiment - Google Wave - didn't quite get the raving response we'd have expected and past social networking experiments - Orkut and the Open Social project - didn't quite scale up to the heights of Facebook and Twitter.

But check out Buzz...

...I think it's got it all. Here's why:

Gmail user base:

An old news story from the Financial Times I found puts Gmail's user base to be "more than 100 million". By comparison, Facebook's official page (as of time of writing) has its userbase at 400 million. But, I'd like to point out that having 100 million users (possibly) turned on in a very short period of time is miles ahead of having to grow organically one user at a time and presents a very real (instant) threat to Facebook.

The other point about having the Gmail user base is that Buzz intelligently identifies connections you've made (by looking at who you've emailed) and takes away the most painful part of setting up a social networking account - finding friends! In fact, if you've already been regularly emailing your friends, you'll soon be buzzing them too, I presume.

Mobile Apps:

Clearly, the next wave of social networking is going to be mobile. Apps that let you share where you are, update while standing in queue and generally be as little of a nuisance as possible while giving you meaningful connections with the people you love is what mobile is about. Checking-in on foursquare or posting a quick picture on Facebook via your mobile device means you won't forget to do it when you get home or be faced with the tedious task of uploading dozens of photos and organising them when you get home.

What's interesting is how Google has launched Buzz simultaneously into its mobile Google Maps app and taken advantage of the GPS feature on most phones to make geo-locating buzz(s?) something easy and contextual.

Simple and Natural

The third reason why I think Buzz will be a success is because of how elegant the system is. People have compared it to Twitter & FriendFeed - calling Buzz out on some very similar features. But there's nothing wrong with a little copying here and there, I say, especially if the system works.

And yet, the best thing is that Google's services help build a self-contained environment for all your content needs. Need photo uploading? Yes, Flickr will work, but so will Picasa. Video? Youtube then. BUt at the same time, it adopts open standards (thanks @paullmf for pointing out) so 3rd party developers get to use it in different ways.

Services built by others expand on Twitter's usability, but Buzz starts with them already - so that's one problem out of the way.

This is why I am not a social media guru...

... I'm a PR consultant.

PM improving on Twitter. Okay, just a little.

Perhaps we've been cruel in laughing at our PM's twitter account. Arguably, it's justified. Following only one twitter account. Not engaging people. Tweeting his schedule and generally nonsensical stuff no one's interested in listening to.

Today, I'm pleased to say he's improving. At least he's started replying people.

Maxis & Rapidshare: Communications in the thick of real-time

In case you've not been keeping up, there was some (nearly) major drama that ensued with Maxis 3G / Broadband over the last 36 hours.

It all started with MyTechNewsInfo's post on Twitter:



And he continued to substantiate the claim with a couple more posts: here, here and here. In a matter of moments, the twitter-sphere exploded with @khawchiahui, @derekw, @ben_israel, @andrewkjs, @icednyior, myself and others starting to comment.

For those of you not in the know, rapidshare is a popular file-sharing site where users can post up big files for friends to download. It is also a popular way to distribute (for example) free maps from malfreemaps (ed: thanks MyTechNewsInfo). The common theory (for lack of a direct explanation) was that Maxis had started blocking Rapidshare downloads as the traffic was getting too heavy and starting to strain bandwidth.

The main sticking point was censorship. What right did Maxis have to censor the internet, regardless of whichever site it is? (In my own opinion, if they do want to block traffic-heavy sites, they should clearly state up-front in their Terms-of-Service and let the customer decide.)

Naturally, we netizens don't take kindly to censorship and Maxis had a mini-mob in their hands. Crisis-time.

At least four of us sent notes to Maxis' official presence on Twitter @maxiscomms asking for an explanation:



The first response was less than inspiring. Instead of taking the issue head-on with the main complainants, @maxiscomms posted a general tweet about Maxis Broadband's fair usage policy! Two mistakes here: 1. @maxiscomms did not address the issue to the concerned audience (in this case, @mytechnewsinfo et al). 2. @maxiscomms posted an irrelevant response. What does a Fair Usage Policy have to do with the simple question "are you or are you not censoring Rapidshare?"



People obviously weren't too impressed by the response:





In the following hours, @maxiscomms then adopted a different tact - getting people to DM (direct message) itself directly instead of putting it out in the open. This is a legitimate tactic, and at least addresses some of the concerns above, of ignoring the audience and broadcasting an irrelevant message:



So I DM'ed @maxiscomms a simple complaint: "Maxis broadband users can't download files from www.rapidshare.com, is maxis blocking the site? Answer appreciated. Thanks." It was 10pm that night already so I didn't expect an answer till the next day.

And as you would have it, the next morning, @maxiscomms got back to me with a simple message acknowledging the complaint and saying they would get back to me. Another couple of hours later, I was sent a direct message:


So I tested Rapidshare and, sure enough, it worked. This news deserved to be spread and so, a quick tweet out:



Was greeted with testing from @mytechnewsinfo and others, who found the same to be true. The conversation turned for the better (for Maxis) and the earlier audience that complained now went back to telling @maxiscomms "Good job".

I thought to share this case as its reflective of the communications (and I don't just mean advertising) industry today. There are a couple of things I'd have done differently from @maxiscomms:
1. I'd have avoided posting the first post in the first place - it just drew more ire from Netizens.
2. When asking people to DM directly, I would have DM'ed them directly first.
3. I'd actually preferred to follow-through with a proper explanation and clarification as to why Rapidshare was blocked in the first place (technical mistake, or policy mistake?)

To their credit, @maxiscomms kept a cool head and avoided hostile remarks and responses that would have drawn further anger from the Twitter-verse.

But the one question that's keeping me thinking now is the expectation of response time and what communications departments / agencies and even the entire company needs to consider as we shift into the world of constant-internet. Consider this summation from @mytechnewsinfo:



I'd argue to cut @maxiscomms some slack as most of the most scathing discussions took place after work-hours. Complaints actually flowed in at about 6 pm on 3rd December. My DM to them was sent around 10 pm. And, understanding the communications process, I'm quite certain @maxiscomms ended up needing to put in some extra hours after work to get responses approved and to get to the bottom of the issue.

He / she probably needed to wait a while for someone who knew the actual situation (policy maker in Maxis / technicians) to brief him / her and then to work out how to communicate and what steps should be taken to rectify. This is a time-consuming process - but the internet keeps on clamouring as you're working it out.

So maybe the process isn't good enough. In the age where mass communication is more real-time than ever, and more important than ever, companies need to rethink the entire communications flow to match the age we live in.

Arguably, the process should have begun before the crisis started. I'm not sure how the process took place, but if an internet-savvy communications person at Maxis was told about the decision to block Rapidshare and asked for his / her opinion before any action was taken, I'm sure the crises would have been averted - simply by Maxis NOT blocking Rapidshare.

Communications people should now be part of business decisions at the earliest possible stage and before any concrete action is taken - especially when those decisions affect customers. Why? Because communication is real-time. It gives you a chance to avoid a communications mistake before you make it. Because you'll face an up-hill battle trying to clean-up after.

In the aftermath of Rapidshare-gate, I'm sure some of us will be sympathetic to @maxiscomms, but the question surely lingers on - why did Maxis try to censor Rapidshare in the first place? And, was it a legal move?

Update: Corrected Malfreemaps example on downloading from Rapidshare. @derekw twittered a response that while whether blocking sites at ISP level is legal is up for discussion, it certainly contravenes the MSC's Bill of Guarantees.

Slowly slipping to communism totalitarianism

I'm reading with concern the The Malaysian Insider's report on plans for a "Malaysian Green Dam". Apparently, there are plans to implement an internet filter in Malaysia. Tender documents seen by The Malaysian Insider say tenders are:

• to evaluate the readiness and feasibility for the implementation of Internet filter at Internet gateway level, through assessments on the existing infrastructure and existing products in the market.
• to evaluate and estimate costs for the implementation.
• to study the existing legal framework in addressing content filtering and no censorship issue, including the impacts that are caused by the implementation to Internet users and the Malaysian economy.

Sounds like gibberish? Here's the Cliff's Notes version: The Malaysian government is planning how it can best censor the internet.

As @derekw points out, this is in direct contradiction with the MSC's Bill of Guarantees which promise "no internet censorship."

Now, the discussion can easily devolve into politics and speculation on what the government is actually trying to block. But even before that, the fundamental questions is: "should censorship come from our government?"

Sure, the excuse could be to "block undesirable elements" from our society. But the government should govern, not play the parent. The key difference being parents are given the uni-lateral right to decide what's right for their children while the government decides according to the people's will.

And I hardly see any people's will decrying the "harmful elements" of the internet. And if there are, isn't it the responsibility of the parents to block it? Isn't it your responsibility to surf only to the clean sites? Isn't it your responsibility to sift thru the lies and get the truth?

If the government dictates what we can or cannot see, are we slowly slipping to communism totalitarianism? Are the communists totalitarians winning after all, after all these years?

*Note: Edits made to this post after useful and sound feedback from StefStefStef and Jia-Yi. See the comments for more info. Thanks guys.

No, tweeting isn't the end of journalism

So a couple of days ago, MPs went head-to-head with each other on Twitter during the Parliament sitting on Tuesday where Bukit Gantang MP Nizar Jamaluddin got kicked out.

Interestingly, a journalist mused whether this would spell the end of journalism on the competition MPs (and brands, companies, individuals) who could go directly to readers on a mass-distributed platform such as Twitter would bring to journalists in breaking news.

I'd add: would this actually mean the end of journalism as a profession? Well, actually - no.

In fact, I don't think there's ever been a time where the journalism profession has ever been so important. Yes, I could hear what Lim Kit Siang or Khairy has to say, straight from the horses mouth, on Twitter; but I also want to hear a 3rd party with an unbiased viewpoint provide a report of the proceedings.

As uppercaise so kindly points out: breaking news is just one aspect of journalism.

I'd want to hear a 3rd party commentary from someone who's trusted as non-partisan, non-biased and with my best interests at heart. That's what a journalist is (at least, that's how I was sold when I went to journalism school) and that's why people will keep reading news - whether on paper or online.

"Journalists serve as the main purveyors of information and opinion in contemporary society" (source: Wikipedia). They aren't the source

So it's sometimes funny how I hear social media is killing journalism. Journalism is a profession that isn't tied to its medium. People will still want to read gadget reviews from an expert, whether its on a blog or in a magazine. People will still want to read good political commentary.

What's changing is how a journalist does his / her job. Mind you, there can be no generalisation here - not every journalist needs to get a Twitter account. Rather, the journalist can reach his / her audience in the most relevant way possible. Even if that's handwriting news on papyrus. But new and social media are opening up new vectors to receive and disseminate news, and the best journalists will always be the ones who can get their news out in the most timely and relevant fashion.

And that could be tweeting.

Note: I've updated and edited this post to more accurately reflect Uppercaise' views.

Now, what's tweeting done to journalism

If you're a tweeting Malaysian, chances are you may have been following the many streams from various journalists and news organisations tweeting updates from the happenings at the Perak State Legislative Assembly.



Now, in the era of the internet, the blog and the news site, live updates are not something entirely new. I remember accessing my mobile and refreshing every 15 minutes to see the latest results during the March 8 (2008) elections. But Twitter is something altogether different. Here's why I think so:

Too fast for filtering?
It's instant. It's spontaneous. And with a 140-character count, the reporting is straight and to-the-point. With the speed the live tweets are sent out, and the tone they result in, I suspect a lot less filtering is happening.

Yes, live updates on popular news websites are fast, but I bet you there's a couple of eyes looking at those updates before they go live.

I doubt that @edgemy has any similar process where the journalist needs to get clearance from his / her editor to post a tweet. What we get is unfiltered reporting straight from the source.

These are real people reporting
The Star's Deputy Executive Editor Wong Sai Wan (@saiwanstar) made a good point. He tweeted: "...now people realise we who write are real people" and I can't agree more. Last year's debates over the freedom of our press often cast the newspapers and media as monolithic organisations that were pro-government.

But when journalists Twitter, you'd realise that journalists are real people who have feelings, opinions and ethics. Most importantly, they are right there on location.

Follow @melodysong you won't see just a nameless entity covering a potentially dangerous situation. You'll see a very brave journalist who's put herself on the line to report the truth. So much so people actually care about her safety.

The conversation ripple
The third thing that's happening to reporting thanks to Twitter is the conversation ripple that's forming. Okay, I invented that term. But what I mean is this:

Journalist A tweets. Person B responds. Person C retweets. Person D follows Journalist A because he saw Person B's response. Then Person D retweets.

Multiply this X 100 times and see messages fly back and fourth. If the event was #hashtagged, you'd have a pretty good gauge of sentiment (at least among geeks).

Now, this is probably no different from what happens at the mamak stall when you discuss the front page of the newspaper with your friends. But virtually, think of it as 1,000 people crowding around the same table, and the conversation doesn't happen the next day but as it happens.

I'm not @melodysong, and I don't know what it feels like to be out in the field reporting and getting live feedback from hundreds of voices, but I'm pretty sure it's different from those days of just going out and covering a story then coming back to file it.

Normal people can report too
Goes without saying, just like with blogs - even if you don't consider yourself a journalist, there's nothing stopping you from tweeting what you see right in front of you.

As a bystander in this industry, I'm pretty excited to see where this is all heading. As a citizen of the country, I'm hoping this will mean more transparency and accurate reporting in our country.

For posterity's sake

Hey, yes, thanks. I noticed. I'm glad you guys noticed too. And if you haven't, please read this excellent mainstream twitter story by @nikicheong published in last week's Sunday Star.

One thing I'd have to disagree though: I don't believe there are tens of thousands of Malaysian tweeters out there. Maybe 8,000 or so.



(Graphic taken from and is the property of The Star Online. Link)

Twitter bursts to life in Malaysia?

Did anyone else notice the sudden spike of Malaysian activity on Twitter in these past 2 months?

I've been on the service nearly more than a year and I think I must've seen double the activity on Twitter in just this very short period of time. And I don't think it's just down to Ashton Kutcher vs CNN. Or Oprah.

Last month, there was KL Tweetup [pictures -thanks bytebot / videos - thanks CarolynChan]. And in the space of the month, at least one more KL Tweetup and a couple more smaller tweetupKLs have happened. Then there was yesterday's #twtkl initiated by AvrilChan. Nineteen people showed up to an event that was organised in the space of 40 hours (more or less).

So have we reached a critical mass? The point where the numbers add up and there's enough people for us to follow, and are local enough for us to relate to and discuss locally relevant topics? As much as the preaching goes around that the world is global, there's no doubt with Social Networks local plays a bigger role.

You join a network because your closest friends are on it. That's why Friendster is / was big in Southeast Asia but not the world.

I'm finding Twitter takes on a whole new dimension when you can discuss Malaysian things with Malaysian people. I'm loving the fact that I can ask a totally Malaysian question and get 10 or so responses from Malaysians in a jiffy.

So here's the deal, if you're Malaysian and you're on Twitter, add me (at @davidlian) and I'll follow you back too, ok? Promise.*

PS. I'm also thinking of collating and setting up some sort of directory of Malaysian Tweeters. What do you think? Too invasive of privacy? We could have it as opt-in. Feedback? Edit: Thanks to @derekw. Just use WeFollow.

*Please note, above deal does not apply to people who have "success, money, business owner, network marketing, financial freedom" in their twitter profiles.

There's definitely a science to this...

I notice a sequence to technology adoption in my household. First, I discover something cool and start using it. I don't evangelise it to my family, but somehow, a couple of months down the road, my brothers start using it.

Like Facebook. I know its hit the mainstream when my father asks me "hey, what is this Facebook thing and how can I use it? My friend says he's sending me pictures on Facebook?"

I also know that this is the point most early adopters start to jump ship. Like me.

So here, may I present you the "GeeWhiz, Social Networks!" curve, roughly indicative observational learnings of social networks. You may also have come to the same conclusion, but remember, I drew this curve first. :)

(click for bigger picture. Not on the text. On the picture of course.)

Joking aside, there's something to be learnt here. And though I have not the time nor the will to write a thesis, I think there's really something to be investigated here. Till next time.

Friendster vs Facebook: who's winning in Malaysia?

For project on some work I was doing, I gathered some armchair research on Friendster vs Facebook in Malaysia and here's the interesting data:

Friendster No 1 in Malaysia (Oct 2008)
User comment points out that while Friendster is No.1 in terms of numbers (accounts), Facebook is in Google’s top 10 key word search in Malaysia. Friendster does not make the top 10 list.

Friendster press release

Alexaholic Rankings (current, updated real-time)
This ranks the traffic websites get from Malaysia. Note that Facebook is the 5th most visited page ahead of Friendster (only No. 7). This has changed much from the 2008 news release from Friendster which was in the Top 5 most popular sites. Facebook has overtaken them in these past 6 months.

Of course, Alexa is anything but accurate in Malaysia, but still...if Friendster used to go around telling people they were top 5 on Alexa, it's news that right now, they aren't.

Facebook Increasingly popular in Malaysia (31 March 2009)
This story in March reveals Facebook receiving a 14% sustained growth in Malaysia month-on-month. This means, in Feb 2008 Facebook received 500k visitors, but in February 2009 it received 2.4 million. That’s monumental growth.

Analysis
Friendster is, by number of accounts, the biggest but it’s trending down in terms of activity (measured by traffic). A quick dip-stick survey on Twitter reveals that most significant online people in Malaysia prefer using Facebook over Friendster.

Replies I got from the Tweet: Which do you prefer Facebook or Friendster? Why? #malaysia (to poll only Malaysian users)

nigelais @davidlian Facebook cause I deleted my Friendster account a long time ago.

mikefoong @davidlian facebook, its cleaner, easier to manage and expandable #malaysia

kellster @davidlian: facebook. i prefer the layout and the security of it :)

ShaolinTiger @nigelais @davidlian I deleted Friendster account too, it was lame and is even lamer now Facebook rocks! Myspace is for musicians #malaysia

thechannelc @mikefoong @davidlian facebook is fast losing it's appeal. I find I'm only there to play word twist to help me sleep. #malaysia (does not have Friendster)

lokgotz @davidlian facebook. Friendster too many annoying strangers... #malaysia

hantu @davidlian re: your question, I have a Facebook account, but I'm not active; I recently deleted my Friendster, clutter/ads issues.

HillaryChan Facebook, but I should probably be more busy on Friendster too. A lot of my girls from my alma mater are active there. @davidlian #malaysia

saimatkong @davidlian facebook, friendster tak da orang guna liao macam...

On another tack, I've got the sneaking suspicion that Twitter might end up the winner pretty soon. People clued into tech are now almost all on Twitter and people like my dad are now getting on Facebook. Obviously there's a bell-curve somewhere that

Personally, I love the simplicity of Twitter and how it lets me connect as meaningfully as possible, with as little effort as possible (140 characters FTW!). Facebook's recent revamp to make itself more like Twitter ("What's on your mind?" sounds too similar to "What are you doing?") seems aimed at driving meaningful connections more than zombie bites and that might just keep them in the running. And in my humble opinion, that's what social connections will turn out to be: simple ways to drive meaningful connections (data, picture, text - whatever is meaningful to you).

The winning social network, I feel, will need to give people the right balance of meaningful information, whilst avoiding information overload. Oh, and it also has to be free.

Apology accepted.

The Malay Mail published an apology for taking without prior information or permission blog posts from ShaolinTiger and myself. I'd like to say here that they did the right thing in apologising and I hope that this little incident in some (small) way contributes to a more professional relationship between blogs and the broader media industry.



For my part, I've no problems with people taking my stuff, quoting me or using content found on my site. I'd just like to be asked first. So there, that's the policy. If you need to take more than three paragraphs from my blog, please ask me. If you want to just quote me here and there, I really don't mind as it's fair use - just credit me properly. After all, we live in the age and culture of sharing don't we?

The PM's exclusive content: Marketing the wrong thing?

There was a story that ran in The Star today where our PM encouraged the people to check his blog regularly for 'exclusive content.'

I've got a question. What does our dear PM mean when he say's 'exclusive content'?

Is he talking about some exclusive wallpapers featuring himself? Behind-the-scenes videos? 'The making of' videos? What 'exclusive content'?

He says its exclusive content on coming events. Okay, so it sounds like its actually useful information. That's more troubling.

The issue here is: is it right for the nation's leader to have exclusive content just for the 59% of Malaysians on the internet - and even then, only the few - who may be visiting his website?

Shouldn't he be sending the message out to all Malaysians through as many channels as possible?

No, I don't believe 'exclusive content' is for the PM. I also don't believe a new logo will actually add any 'fresh perspectives' (read here).

Can you contribute others' posts?

Yesterday, the Malay Mail published both ShaolinTiger and my posts about "PR and bloggers" side by side in a contrapuntal article entitled "Battle for the Internet mind". Shaolintiger posted about this on his blog, attracting many replies screaming plagiarism, copyright-infringement or the like.



Technically, it isn't plagiarism, because its attributed to us. It's possibly copyright infringement, because we weren't asked or informed. But here's a slight loophole, that I've had at the back of my mind thinking:

The whole page is framed as a reader-contributed page where the Malay Mail asks readers to send in links to anything interesting they've seen on the Net. So technically, it isn't the Malay Mail that's willfully taking and publishing blogposts, right? Readers contributed them.

I'm not a lawyer, so I'm really asking an open question about the legality of this?

Personally, I wouldn't even have needed to be asked permission (permission is over-rated). But it'd have been nice to just get an email from The Malay Mail telling me:

"Hi David, we loved your post on this and this, so we're going to run it in tomorrow's newspaper. Thought we'd let you know. Oh, and don't worry about running out to get a copy, we'll send you a complimentary copy."

It doesn't hurt to be nice, you know?

On another note, in today's connected society, is the culture of taking and re-purposing something that's become a norm? I can embed any YouTube video I want without asking the person who posted the video in the first place. Can the Malay Mail 'embed' my blog into their newspaper too?

I guess that's another discussion altogether.

New MALAYSIAN tech podcast for my ears...

I've confessed previously what a big fan of podcasting I am. In fact, podcasts have replaced the radio completely for me.

What I've been looking forward to though is for a truly local tech podcast to break through and set the ball rolling in Malaysia. Murmurings at KLTweetup seemed to indicate that more than one large tech personality in Malaysia was looking into it and then on Monday, I discovered TheITChannel.



Hosted by @mikefoong and @andrewkjs (and supposedly, in future episodes @thechannelc) of Twitter fame, the inaugral episode covers Earth Hour, Maxis iPhone launch and DiGi's Broadband launch - all from a really local tech-head viewpoint. It's a great listen and the hosts are suitably Malaysian (not at all pretentious with western accents). I think it'll stay on my podcast list for a while.

Meantime, I'm also looking forward to ByteBot's podcast when that comes around. It's starting to looks like it's going to be the year Malaysian podcasting takes off.

PR people and bloggers: why engage in the first place?

First off, I'd like to remind you that I've got a disclaimer somewhere on this blog that anything and everything posted here is solely my opinion. This isn't work related, and does not reflect my employer's opinion. It doesn't even reflect my fellow PR colleagues opinion. Any similarities in opinion is purely coincidental.

Now that we've got that out of the way, I wanted to latch on to a timely post by Shaolintiger last week to put forward some thoughts on the matter of PR people engaging bloggers in Malaysia. And problems that subsequently ensue.

I believe the crux of the issue is that there is still largely misunderstanding on both sides to this core question: "What's the point of engagement?"

To the PR person:

It's no big secret that more and more clients today are asking agencies about engaging the blogosphere, twit-o-sphere or whatever "-sphere" you can think of.

Most clients don't understand social media, and I can't help but think the responsibility falls squarely on the agency to educate them. Both PR people and clients need to understand what social / peer media can and cannot do. Expectations, goals and objectives of any kind of engagement needs to be set right.

What's your goal in engaging the blogger? So that they can write a positive "write-up" about your client's products / services? If so, I'd say paying for the advertorial is probably the best way to go.

Let me give you an alternative viewpoint: what if your engagement with the social / peer media isn't so you can see positive blogposts, but so you can involve yourself and your brand in the conversation that's going all around you regardless of whether you take part or not, and add value?

What if the objective of holding a blogger event is to listen to what bloggers have to say about your product rather than having them go home and re-printing your press release?

Social media is about the conversation. Companies can participate, or they can pay some money and take an ad. Like what an editor once told me.

My humble advice is don't think the blogger owes you anything just because they attended your event. The onus is on you, the company and the PR person advising the company, to make sure what you've got to tell the blogger is worth the blogger re-telling, if coverage is your goal.

To the blogger:

Here's what PR people can do: pre-release scoops, direct contact with some top people (CEOs?), connect you to in-depth discussions with experts from client companies, get you product samples, previews of upcoming products, and ensure your feedback gets listened to and acted upon.

Here's what PR people don't do (generally): place advertorials or do advertising. This function is the media-buying agency, whom the client pays to insert advertisements / advertorials in the right places.

PR people shouldn't be out there to get free publicity. Many are (I won't deny that). But they shouldn't be. Bang them on their head if they try that stunt on you.

PR people are not out there to con you so that you write good things on your blogs about their clients, for free. If their goal is deception, they should be hung out to dry and rightly so.

PR people are there to facilitate conversations between a company and its interested audiences.

If you're a blogger who's heard about the upcoming cool new phone and think its worth your time and space to blog about it, the PR person is your best bet to get you that hands-on with the device before its even launched.

If you have a grouse against a certain company, the PR person is the person that should be listening and taking the feedback back to the company and making sure there's follow-up. Even if its to tell you they can't do anything about it.

If you're not interested, tell them and the PR person should go away.

This doesn't mean clients shouldn't advertise on your blogs and pay PR people to get free publicity. Advertising still exists and will continue to exist. It just isn't the purview of the PR agency. Rather, the right people who should be placing advertisements on your blogs are media buying agencies who might work for the same client as the PR person. Of course, this doesn't stop you from proposing an advertising package to the PR person you're working with if you think its something that will add value to the client.

So what's the root of the problem?

I can't help but think its the PR community's fault for bringing this onto ourselves in the first place by setting expectations wrongly when working with the blogosphere.

ShaolinTiger is right when he says:

...the sooner YOU poorly informed PR hacks educate yourselves the sooner you will reap real benefits from engaging bloggers and forming relationships with them.

The key word is understand. Social media is not as simple as the one event = 8 write-ups formula many 'PR' agencies peddle to clients. On second thought, even your traditional media isn't as simple as that. We could all do with a little more thinking, research, and just asking ourselves: "Would I do this to myself if I was on the other end of the stick?"

Please feel free to discuss if you've something to add. Comments welcome.

What's Twitter? Why is it so great?

I've become resigned to the fact that only a few people will ever get Twitter. But what I'd really like is for all my friends to be on Twitter.

So here's Ewan Williams, co-founder of Twitter explaining Twitter to the masses at TED. He does a great job too, and if you're a social media person - you should keep a copy of this somewhere on your hard drive.

Don't let your staffers run wild...

Like kids in a supermarket running amok while mum's busy, Ryanair staffers posse roughed up Irish blogger Jason Roe over a simple mistake posted on the latter's blog.



What I find really interesting from Wired's story is that later on, a Ryanair spokesperson confirms that the comments did indeed come from Ryanair staffers and unapologetically added: "It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy in corresponding with idiot bloggers, and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again. Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves, as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel."

I'm wondering what's Ryanair's strategy here - cheap publicity by infuriating the (local) blogosphere? It's not like the budget airline hasn't done outrageouspublicity stunts before.

Ryanair's own attitude aside, this incident also highlights the case for a proper, well-communicated social media policy for companies. Clearly, Ryanair staffers had taken it upon themselves to "educate" Mr. Roe out of their own initiative. In this day and age, with every white-collared worker spending their day sitting in front of the computer, and accessing the internet all-day, the chances are high that your staff's social media activity might run contrary to your organisation's objectives.

So should you just ban everyone in the company from blogging? Of course not.

Just lay out those rules. Share the game plan (if you don't have one, time to write one). What's the company's position of social media? (do we decide not to respond to criticism? Should only one person respond? Do we respond politely or arrogantly? etc. etc.) Define what your staff can do and cannot do, remembering that as individuals, they are entitled to some rights (blogging is still your private business, just don't do it on company time). And make sure people know these rules.

This is still oversimplifying it. But as it stands, I don't really have the time in the world to write a manual on this right now. The bottom-line is: don't let your staffers run wild... unless you're Ryanair.