What Social Media teaches us:Facebook Shows 145% Growth in 1 Year

Almost 3 years from now, Facebook has a mere 20 million U.S. users.  Today, over 103 million Americans use Facebook, let alone the big number of its users world-wide. The following is a graph showing the growth rates of various user bases in Facebook from 1/4/2009 to 1/4/2010. All data comes directly from Facebook’s Social Ads system.

While I was appalled by this incredible growth of a social networking site, I realized it was not just a web site or service that got popular and successful. Social media sites are changing everyday life. They change the way we talk, study, work, and live. This change should wake up all those traditional marketers and businessmen that the old-fashioned sales and marketing are not working exclusively now. There are better tools, and they need to learn how to use them. I believe what we learn in this world will help our future. I also got to understand this when I watched Desperate Housewives Season 5. Tom Scavo was interviewing for a job when the interviewer guy asked him if he was experienced in marketing though twittering. Tom felt devastated by the fact that he was old and left behind by the times. I hope we won't. 


Source: Istrategylabs. http://www.istrategylabs.com/2010/01/facebook-demographics-and-statistics-report-2010-145-growth-in-1-year/

How to Make Chatroulette Profitable: Chat To Win

In my post few days ago, I talked about why Chatroulette will hardly make any profit for its creator. Now that this is interesting to many of us. I want to discuss some ideas to commercialize Chatroulette. Here is an example of people responding to the famous Brooklyn cat. (I experimented with my yellow kitten, and people reacted exactly the same.)

 (Credit: Chatroulette)

The blogger of Life Before Moon, Rachel talked about Chatroulette with me after class. We thought there might be ways for corporations to utilize Chatroulette and make a profit. I'll just pick Doritos as an example since the company is very into social media. So let's say Doritos wants to start a campaign using Chatroulette as a medium. We've got two 'sketches of plan' for it:

Idea No. 1: Scavenger/Treasure Hunt Party!
Rachel suggested that companies can start a scavenger hunt event on Chatroulette (CR) which asks CR users to look for clues that can be found in strangers' cameras. There are several websites providing cool hunt clues for companies to use. So, for Doritos, they can start a scavenger hunt to look for many clues related with food (not necessarily Doritos) or lifestyle (clothes, home settings, etc.). That will encourage people to click through CR to find strangers that meet with the requirements. The idea of having a scavenger hunt without explicitly involving the product or brand name in it, is similar to what Megawoosh did for Office 2007. We want to attract people's interest and further lead them to find out about the product.

Idea No. 2: Who Shares My Doritos?
This event is aimed to turn the spotlight to the product. CR users are asked to put a bag of Doritos chips in front of their camera. Whoever puts the same flavor, size, etc. forms into a team. That team should keep looking and expand their team. Within a certain time limit, the winner is whichever team with the most people in it. This event will not only promote the products but also help people to connect and find the common interests.

Of course, the ideas above are just some rough ideas to commercialize Chatroulette. I believe there are many other cool and great ideas to do so. Want to share yours? Please leave your comment below.

Social media Etiquette: What Is Adding Value?

What is adding value to the community? We hear social media gurus talk about it over and over again, and yet we don't know exactly what is value and how to add value. In this interesting post called "The Top 10 Reasons I Will Not Follow You in Return on Twitter", the author listed "not at all adding value" as No. 6. He put it as: I will not follow you because "your updates clearly indicate that your Twitter activity is always, only, about pushing your own service/product".

In this information age, it is important that you get your key message out, but in order to accomplish that, you have to contribute your value to the community. Simply selling the products or services using social media is a dead end. People don't buy that kind of stuff any more. Now that your stakeholders take the initiatives to decide whether to hear your messages, it's time for corporations to take a step back and think about how to add value.

In other words, when you decide to use social media as online marketing tools to sell something, you will never want to make this intention "glaringly obvious". When social media users find out about your real purpose, it takes them no time to block you/unfriend you.

Instead, you want to sound helpful and charming. By that, I mean providing useful information, advice, sharing interesting posts and ideas, contribute to discussions, and engage your followers/friends into the conversation.
Now, let me know what's on your mind.

Will Chatroulette Be Profitable?

The site Chatroulette.com was founded by a 17-year-old high school student in Moscow. His vision is to establish a U.S.-based company to run the site. His ambition was so familiar to what I anticipated in a 17-year-old boy. I don't want to sound like I am the professional or whatsoever, but let's be realistic, will Chatroulette make a profit?
I have three reasons that it hardly will.
1. It only drives people to Chatroulette because of the novelty and curiosity of meeting a total stranger.
It will take many ideas to keep these folks on the site. I've tried Chatroulette for a few times, and I really enjoyed seeing people's responses when I put my kitten in front of my camera. But that's it. Any sensible people will find Chatroulette as a way to kill time rather than making friends or exchanging information. The fever will be gone soon, and people will find other ways to entertain themselves. It is a good media phenomenon, but it will not last long.
2. As a social networking site (what I assume it to be), Chatroulette has limits and boundaries.
Providing merely nothing but video camera chat functions, I don't know how far Chatroulette can go. While big figures in the IT industry are thriving to collaborate everything (e.g. Google Wave), Chatroulette offers limited communication channels and thus leaves the users with more needs to meet.
My other wild guess is, even if Chatroulette links everything together, people will feel reluctant to use. God knows who you are REALLY talking to. S/he could be totally a bad person or a warm-hearted philanthropist. I doubt if our netizens will want to continue the conversation after a random encounter on Chatroulette. This also reflects my third point that:
3. Chatroulette is a dangerous place to go.
Communicating with strangers is potentially dangerous. If you ever checked out websites like National Sex Offenders Registry, you have some idea about how dangerous the real world is out there. Are you going to be comfortable letting your kids/siblings communicate with total strangers on Chatroulette? There may be people shouting out "Show me your boobz" or revealing their private parts via the camera. No matter how romantic movies tell us about meeting a stranger and starting a new life, there are traps and baits that people may fall into anytime.
Soon, people with evil thoughts will take advantage of the site and make their own profits, pornography for example.
Based on all above reasons, I doubt if Chatroulette can last long and make any profit for its creator. It is after all a "place for fun". Let me hear your thoughts.

Why On Earth Did Guy Kawasaki Become Famous On Twitter?!

I followed Guy Kawasaki on twitter after I created my twitter account. I knew him because I searched "people to follow on twitter" via Google. One web page caught my attention:

Ten People All Twitter Beginners Should be Following

Guy Kawasaki is No. 1 in that list who had 21,000 followers within 9 months. Plus, he has a very special name. So I followed him and I never regretted doing so. Guy Kawasaki posts interesting or helpful tweets about everything all the time. He updates fast and all his tweets look fun.

After watching Dr. Waters' lecture, I wonder how on earth did he became so well-known on twitter? I happened to watch this interview video talking about his 'tricks' of getting famous on twitter. (The lady in the video cut Guy off a few times, which is super annoying. But the content is good.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2peIwg86w4M

So, Guy summarized three main reasons for his popularity.

1. fame and fortune don't happen overnight. "It took me 25 years to get famous," Guy said in the video.
2. one should tweet often. One will hardly get popular if he simply uses Twitter to promote himself.
3. answer your emails. "I answer my emails, all my directs and replies," he said. "That's the cost."

I personally think of his second point as a good reason to explain why I followed him. It is hard to decide who is the person that "adds value", yet it is easy to say "oh, this guy is interesting, and I want to see what he will say next time". It is the fun and interest that brought people together to follow someone like Guy Kawasaki.

This golden rule applies perfectly to organizations. If you think all you have on twitter and other social sites are "hard information" about your products or services, you are SO wrong. You need to please your stakeholders/followers, and give them what they want to hear, and what they want to hear next time.

Microblogging In China, The New Cultural Buzzword

Link to the article: Microblogging spreads in China, even without Twitter - USATODAY.com

Microblog is a cultural phenomenon. With more celebrities creating their micro-blog accounts, Chinese netizens use microblog as a way to connect with others.

Han Han, China's famous blog writer and representative of the Generation Y, opened his personal micro-blog not long ago. His first micro-blog is only one word---“Hi”, which soon attracted hundreds of thousands of netizens to respond. When asked about the first post, Han said, "I meant to type 'Hello' to test the micro-blog, but I accidentally hit 'Hi' and that's it." People predict that micro-blog may lead to a new round of revolution among the young people.

As the micro-blog becomes more and more popular, the voice of the grassroots is being heard much more. Like the article mentioned, the Chinese twitter service provides the public a platform to get their opinion heard.

"With this new tool, there will be more citizens supervising the government," says Min Dahong, a new-media researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.

I think it is a good start.

Off The Point:

Maybe censorship did shut down the door to free speech before, but the situation in China is improving as the emergence of more social sites like Microblog. We are getting there, even though it has to take a long time before the free speech right can be fully given to all people.

Toyota Mass Recall Leads To A 'Made in Japan' Crisis

With Toyota's escalating safety crisis, media and the public started to question other products 'made in Japan'. A WSJ article written by Jeff Kingston discussed the poor crisis management of most Japanese brands. Instead of apologia, they generally chose to use denial, and then mitigation. Here's what Jeff Kingston said in the article:

Over the past two decades, I cannot think of one instance where a Japanese company has done a good job managing a crisis. The pattern is all too familiar, typically involving slow initial response, minimizing the problem, foot dragging on the product recall, poor communication with the public about the problem and too little compassion and concern for consumers adversely affected by the product.

Under the big umbrella of the Asian culture, Toyota's corporate culture (and those of other companies as well) has been deeply impacted by the belief that crises should be solved asap w/o losing the company's face. Face work here is a big deal. Even with modern technologies and management models incorporated, Japanese corporations kept their traditional values in issue management process. Toyota eventually made a good gesture to apologize. Yet I am not optimistic how the European and American customers will say.

Social media here works as an agent for Toyota. By communicating through media conference, the video clip got distributed all over the world through news websites, YouTube, Twitter, and all. This bridged the communication gaps between companies and consumers.

In the end of the video, Toyota's President Mr. Toyoda used his not-quite-fluent English to express his concern to the customers, "so please believe me, we always customers first, customers first priority..." Despite the incredible delay of the apology, Toyota made its way to spread its messages to its stakeholders and to express their concerns of consumers.

With a gloomy future ahead, the Toyota fiasco should have taught many Japanese companies, as well as corporations worldwide, a good lesson about crisis communication.

Toyota's Apologies through media conference [Video]

Vlogging Era: New entertainment for the Public?

This video below brought me several 'good' old memories about YouTube videos, which were also considered as the 'kickoffs' of the new vlogging era.




Several researches studied the new media phenomenon, and I can recommend this one about gender differences. Research claimed that men checked YouTube videos almost every day, and they were found to be more active than in responding to video comments. On the other hand, women checked YouTube videos only once a month. (http://www.acjournal.org/holdings/vol10/01_Spring/articles/molyneaux_etal.php)
The media phenomenon triggered my different thoughts:this vlogging culture is part of the 'Amusing Ourselves to Death'? Neil Postman's book 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' discusses how the television medium caters to the public need for entertainment. Postman asserts the presentation of television news is a form of entertainment programming.
Despite that the work was done in the 1980s, Postman was far-sighted enough to depict a future of electronic media dominance for us in the 21st century. Information and messages are turning to be entertaining rather than rational. 'Age of Reason' is long gone, while 'Age of Fun' is here now.
I don't know if this is a good call though. We are hoping to become MORE 'fun' with LESS questioning and challenging.
Hmm....Reminded me of a conversation with a girl friend:

Mandy: Jing, is your bday this month?
Jing：Yes. 16th. Will turn 24. Yikes.
Mandy: Why? We are getting more mature and smart.
Jing: Wish we could be mature and smart without putting new numbers to my age.
(Both of us laughed...)

It is just never possible for us to both young and smart. Then can we be both 'smart' and 'fun'?