Social Media

A recent article by GoMo News, “Mobile video use explodes for YouTube” is very telling about the increase of mobile video consumption. Even more telling is a recent article by YouTube’s own blog, “Great Scott! Over 35 Hours of Video Uploaded Every Minute to YouTube.” It is rather apparent that we are in the midst of a video content creation explosion the likes that this world has never seen. This may sound dramatic, but lets look at some of the stats these two articles present.

-75% of YouTube users say mobile is their primary way to access YouTube
-35 hours of video uploaded a minute, equates to 2,100 hours of uploaded video in an hour
-50,400 hours of video uploaded daily to YouTube
-70% use YouTube’s mobile site a least once a day

The increased mobile use and the increase in upload of video content goes hand in hand and you can see that YouTube, the worlds largest video social networking site and second largest search engine continues to grow. Some reasons for the increased upload of videos are the increase in length of uploaded videos by YouTube, the continued technological advances in mobile handsets (iPhone, Droid X, etc) and portable video devices (Flip, Kodak, etc.) as well as the increased use of YouTube’s api allowing for upload of videos from other social networking sites, video games, and other online communities. But what does this mean for corporations, law enforcement, and people in general?

One of the biggest issues that corporations, law enforcement agencies, and people are going to have to come to grips with is that video will soon be on the web as fast as Tweets. Now this is already happening to a certain extent with more tech savvy social networkers, but prepare yourself for the masses to become instant reporters of police brutality, poor product performance, failed product performance, poor service and the list goes on. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube continue to change the way people consume information, but if you notice YouTube videos are shared on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, email, blogs, etc, which allows for continued growth of mobile video consumption and content creation.

Is your organization prepared to deal with the ramifications of the video world? I would like to hear from you if you are experiencing challenges from the new video age we are living in. mike@michaelvallez.com.

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Being a “Fan Boy” of gadgets, mobile devices, and technology overall I was extremely impressed when I scanned an application into my Android “Droid X” smartphone the other day. This was by far one of the coolest things I have experienced since becoming a “technology geek.” The technology is a 2D bar code similar to the bar codes on most products we purchase at stores, but there is a twist. This bar codes is made for cell phones/smartphone cameras. There are several of these types of bar code formats as follows: 1) Semacode, QR Codes and Data Matrix (Wikipedia) which are optimized for cell phones. Here is how it works. I downloaded the CNET Scan and Shop onto my Droid X. Then I went to appbrain.com and selected an application, any one will do. You then take your scanner app open it up to the scan functionality and hold it up to your computer screen. The CNET app makes the sound like you hear at the supermarket during checkout and you are asked if you want to download the application. If it is a paid application you will have to go through the purchase process, but if not you tap install and the app is downloaded onto your device.

mobile media

This technology has been around for awhile and In fact I even saw this at Best Buy yesterday while walking down the main isle in the store. Best Buy was using the these bar codes for information on DVD’s and CD’s. In the not to distant future you will be using this at Walmart, Cosco, or any other store to scan your own retail items to determine the cost of those items. More than likely you will be purchasing products at your favorite stores and checking out on your smartphone before you know it. Use your imagination and you can quickly see how powerful smartphones will be as their cameras and overall functionality increase. MV

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Update: 08/09/10 - The failure mentioned in this post was from a personal Twitter persona standpoint. This article chronicles how I lost my way Tweeting on my personal Twitter account with friends, associates, and people I meet on a daily basis. From a corporate perspective I see Twitter activity based on scalability and mission. Additionally, the intent of this blog post is to have a follow-up post that chronicles how I successfully regained my positive Twitter persona in 4 Easy Steps, look for this in a day or two. MV

Prior to 02/2009 I never participated in any social networking sites. Then a friend introduced me to WordPress blogging and Twitter. The result was an injection of social networking into my life that I had never experienced before. I became an active Twitter persona Tweeting daily and meeting new people regularly. There was a satisfaction of connecting with people all over the world with like thoughts and sometimes argumentative thoughts. All the same I was having conversations daily with cool people all who I met on Twitter. Then something happened that one would expect would increase a social networkers presence on Twitter.

July of 2009 I was transitioned into a full-time position as “Social Media Strategist.” Initially, I found myself Tweeting as I had prior to assuming this title, but slowly over a period of 6 or 7 months I fell off the Twitter grid. My failure was not due to lack of social networking enjoyment, it was due to scalability. During this time I had created 2 more personal Twitter accounts and 4 corporate Twitter accounts. As most of you know, trying to keep conversations going on 7 different Twitter accounts is impossible, even using TweetDeck, Seesmic, HootSuite, etc.

Here is how I failed in 4 easy steps:

1) Lost my purpose - The purpose of social media/social networking is to build community and community comes first. The minute you take your eye of this purpose in the social realm you may as well close your Twitter account. I took my eye off community in exchange for a larger community. Due to scalability I #Failed at building community and I lost my purpose on Twitter.

2) Too Many Twitter Accounts – The time it takes to cultivate and nurture conversations on a Twitter profile is significant. To continue an authentic conversation requires time and when I became responsible for 7 Twitter accounts I became overwhelmed. Granted 4 were outward facing communication channels, but nonetheless this contributed to my Twitter #Fail.

3) Went On Auto Pilot – Using HootSuite or another Twitter client to schedule Tweets is great, but once I traveled down this path it led me to lessen my non-automated Twitter activity. I let my accounts become robotic and people don’t respond to this type of social networking interaction. Even if your a Twitter celebrity, people are quickly able to discern the difference between an auto tweet and a real tweet. People want authentic conversations and by going automatic I #Failed.

4) Lost Interest – I know what your thinking, you #Failed on Twitter because you just got bored with it? No, I lost interest due to the 3 reasons above. My Twitter conversations dwindled and people lost interest in me plain and simple. I took myself out of the conversations and found myself a little lost trying to get back into the conversation.

People are smart and those on Twitter want to be engaged with other’s or they would not be there. Once you lose purpose, try to manage too many Twitter accounts, go on auto pilot you will loose interest in your Twitter activities. The simple reason is we as people can only focus on so many things and doing the above causes things to go out of focus. I encourage you to avoid the 4 steps I list above and keep your Twitter interest alive and well. MV

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social media five-o

What exactly is considered private when it comes to social media and social networking? Since becoming involved in social media about a year and a half ago I have been a little astonished at what people share about themselves. MySpace has been the social networking website where both men and woman pushed the limits on how much skin is showed in uploaded pic’s. Seems like Facebook has surpassed MySpace with lack of clothing pic’s due to the shear number of users 465,564,340 (via http://www.checkfacebook.com/) and the numerous men and women in their undies, bikinis, or less.

I am not a prude and am not against girl’s in bikinis (not into guys in underwear), but there seems to be a lack of modesty and forethought when it comes to information (pics, videos, crazy status updates) being placed on social networking sites. Once information is placed on the web, you should assume it will live on the web forever, yes forever. People can save any images or text with a simple right click of a mouse and don’t assume because your privacy settings are set on Facebook or other social networking sites that any of your risque information won’t show up on the web (so called friends can share your information).

Another security/privacy issue to be considered while participating in social media/social networking is GPS location services. Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook, and most other social networking sites allow you to provide your GPS location. As a retired police officer I do not think this is the best of ideas for personal security reasons. There are websites like pleaserobme.com that are placing your GPS locations on their website once caught off the web from status updates along with the fact that you are not home encouraging criminal activity or at your residence i.e: burglary because you are most likely not at home.

Below are 5 common sense tips on how to prevent from unwanted privacy intrusions:

1) Don’t share naked pictures of yourself unless you are ready for the consequences – Hmm, what will my parents or kids think?
2) Don’t put anything into a status update you don’t want recirculated on the web – My boss John Doe is a #$%^.
3) Ladies turn off your GPS notifications from all social networking sites so you are not advertising that you are alone at a bar at 2am – There are creepers on the web you know.
4) Don’t always trust a picture of an individual on a social networking site because they are attractive – Things are not always as they appear.
5) Don’t list your cell phone number on Twitter, Facebook, or any other social networking website if you don’t want your privacy invaded – Ladies really, weirdos will call you.

As social media continues to change our culture our definition of privacy seems to also be changing. What was private 5 years ago is now a profile picture on Facebook or a status update on Twitter that potentially millions of people can see. I am not throwing rocks from my glass house as I have violated my own common sense rules a time or two, but consider your privacy current or future when participating in social media and social networking sites. Mike Vallez

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The Department of Defense has implemented an encompassing “Responsible and Effective Use
of Internet-based Capabilities Policy
” last week to get everyone under their large umbrella on the same “social networking” use page (http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Web-Services-Web-20-and-SOA/Pentagon-Loosens-Reins-Over-Use-of-Facebook-Twitter-Web-20-Apps-448094/). As one could imagine the DoD was going to have to do something sooner than later to get the different organizations under their jurisdiction under the same policy.

The trouble began last year when the US Army banned the use of several “social networking” sites for their organization. The US Marines followed up with a much harsher version as I wrote about in August of last year “Marines Ban Social Media, But Can They.” The Marines banned the use of all “social networking” sites from all US Marine network computers.

The DoD is the protector of the United States of America and the job involves at most times a high level of secrecy and security around operations, procedures, and intelligence. Naturally, the banning of “social media” by the various organizations in the DoD was as a precautionary measure to protect national security, i.e. the United States. But, apparently after some study and consideration the DoD feels comfortable enough to allow use of “social networking” sites by their massive employee base.

Could the DoD successfully, have banned social media? Perhaps, but policing this would be a very difficult process, one that might take up an inordinate amount of time and take away from the more important mission of protecting the this country. The policy allows for use of “social networking” sites, wiki’s, etc, but there is some wording that allows the DoD to put the “kabash” on” social networking” if necessary. The cause for revoking “social networking” access is mostly common sense based on abuse or “bandwidth” issues.

I applaud the DoD for stepping up and taking the “social media” bull by the horns. An organization this large, especially one that deals in national security may have just set the standard for “social networking” use for the rest of the government and private sector. It ought to be interesting to see how other agencies, corporations, and other government entities deal with the same issue, people using “social networking sites” at work. MFV

http://michaelvallez.com

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During the Christmas shopping season my wife and I had a tremendous customer service experience at ToysRUs in Wesley Chapel, Florida. No offense ToysRUs staff reading this, but we ended up at this stores electronics department after coming up short at Best Buy. We had intended on going to ToysRUs to grab some board games, but never really thought of purchasing any electronics at this store.

After grabbing the board games we needed we headed over to the checkout line, until my wife mentioned something about checking out there electronics. I almost brushed this off, but anytime I can check out electronics anywhere I am game. The breadth of electronics selection obviously is not up to par with Best Buy or hhgregg. But the electronics they do sell are reasonably priced. They had a small selection of digital cameras, a nicer selection of iPod compatible radios (better than Best Buy), and a respectable selection of iPod’s. As we wandered around the counters we almost left, but Trevor a customer service fellow asked if we needed help. That little outward offer by this guy to a couple that had no intention on spending any cash on electronics at ToysRUs was the beginning of a great shopping experience.

Trevor was very knowledgeable of the cameras and he helped us get a 12.1 mega pixel camera for our daughter at a magnificent price, less than $100.00. We were unable to match this at Best Buy (sorry, not trying to pick on Best Buy, just saying). Trevor continued to ask if we needed anything else and we were in the market for an iPod Touch. Really, I had no hope of purchasing an iPod Touch at ToysRUs due to the Apple price controls. But, low and behold ToysRUs offered us a discount, not on the iPod Touch, but off the total price of our purchase and the discount was a ToysRUs gift card. That cemented the deal. Another customer service woman (forgot her name, sorry) helped us find a wonderful iPod Touch radio that also was on sale and she was personally knowledgeable of. My wife and I walked out of ToysRUs spending almost $400 with an iPod Touch, a nice digital camera, and an iPod Touch alarm clock radio, with a $25 gift card as well.

My first thought as a social media nut is to tell the world. As you can see I am a little late at that, but non the less I am telling the story. I did however, reach out to ToysRUs through corporate through an email, but got no response. I then scoured their website for any signs of social media (Facebook, Twitter, you know), but found nothing. A check of Alexa.com for ToysRUs shows their website to be the 310th most popular website in the United States, yet no signs of social media efforts. But hold on, ToysRUs does have a robust Facebook Fan Page with almost half a million fans. Weird that the ToysRUs company website does not have the Facebook icon or any mention of Facebook on their website or in any of the commercials I have seen for this toy store giant.

ToysRUs appears to be a company that gets it! When I mean gets it, they have customer service representatives that go out of their way to help customers, which in this day and age is hard to find. But, the squandered opportunity comes from not advertising their social media involvement, i.e. their Facebook Fan Page. Maybe they would have 1.5 million fans instead and increased revenue. A check of Alexa.com a website rating company showed the ToysRUs website to be the 310th most popular website in the United States, which means this is an extremely busy website, again no signs of social media. By not advertising their social media involvement they are probably missing out on thousands if not hundreds of thousands of customer loyalty followers.

My suggestion for ToysRUs is to clearly identify they are on Facebook and consider providing customer service on Twitter. They have a large customer base in stay at home mothers, work mothers, and stay at home fathers who probably spend hours a day on the web. By meeting their customers on Facebook and Twitter they have a huge opportunity to increase their brand and customer loyalty. I am a fan of ToysRUs and will continue to look for electronics at this store before heading to Best Buy, at least at times. CM

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Facebook is the largest social media community in the world! In fact, I am sure most of you have heard that Facebook would be the third most populated country, if it were a country. So if you are a business, law enforcement agency, or anyone selling anything you should have a Faceboo Fan Page. Just to give you one more statistic if you’re not yet buying in. Facebook had just under 130,000,000 million unique visits for October 2009 and 2.5 billion visits overall. That last stat was “billions.” One last reason to set up your Facebook Fan Page is it is FREE, yep other than the time it takes to set it up initially and provide status updates, there is no cost.

First thing you will need to do is set up a Facebook personal profile account. Unfortunately Facebook at this time requires all Fan Pages to be attached to a personal profile. I suggest if you set up an empty or fake profile to attach your Fan Page to. A fake or empty profile is not one anyone will be using other than for your Fan Page. Remember to make the name for the personal account real enough and you will need a valid email address.

Now that you have your Facebook personal profile set up you click on help and search “how to create a Fan Page.”
Screen shot 2009-12-02 at 9.15.01 PM
You will have to go through and make some choices that best fit your company, business, brand, cause, etc. Setting up your Fan Page as a website is one of the easiest ways to create a Fan Page especially if you have a website (guessing most do). But there are plenty of other choices to choose to craft your Fan Page. Be sure to put in as much relevant information in all the areas you can to adequately explain “what” your page is about “what” you offer for services and or “what” your product is about. If you are promoting a cause then be clear with purpose, how people can get involved, and contact information. Be sure to add your website address, pictures of your business, events, activities (off line), and what ever else you want to jazz up your Fan Page. If you want to take your Fan Page to the next level you can also have a customized side bar made by twitterimage.com.

Spread the word! If you have or know anyone with a large Facebook following I suggest you as them to join your Fan Page and have them use their account to send messages to their followers to join your Fan Page. You may also want to consider advertising on Facebook. The advertising on Facebook is very targeted, I mean very targeted. You can target age, male/female, occupation, location, and more. A little inspiration. I have about 2400 friends on my Facebook profile and I have used this following to jump start a Fan Page I manage (Tampa Bay Crusader). By me suggesting followers from my personal account I have grown the Tampa Bay Crusader Facebook Fan Page to 389 followers in just 4 weeks. Not bad and results may vary, but with the information in this article you should be able to get your Facebook Fan Page up and running.

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Shhhhh…Do You Hear That?

by Mike Vallez on November 4, 2009

Apparently there are still a lot of corporations that are very disconnected from their employees. The most disconnected corporations are those whose employees are their number one resource to generate revenue yet they don’t listen to them. The end result is a canoe going up a creek with holes in it and no one has a paddle, I think we all have heard that expression before. But why is there such as disconnect? Complacency.

An environment exists where corporations are so fixated on generating revenue that they unwittingly overlook there finest resources, their people. They create great operational plans that in the board room make fiscal sense, but the human element is left out of most of their slick equations. I don’t have an MBA and frankly I don’t want one. I appreciate the folks who have worked hard to accomplish an MBA, but if we all had an MBA then no one would think like the employees the resources who generate revenue. Corporations that get it are communicating with their employees and actually listening to what the employees say. The “I get it” corporations are not complacent, they are fostering a sense of communication that exists in social media. A give and take communication environment that creates trust (see Chris Brogan) , which makes employees feel important, wanted, and happy.

As social media changes our culture people expect more honesty, trust, and respect in their communication with others. People are quick to cue in on less than honest communication or complacent communication that makes them feel unimportant. People are expecting honesty in the communication they receive from their employers. No, this is not where I play a few versus of Kum-bi-ya. The idea of an employer providing honesty in their communication with their employees is not science fiction. Take that a step further and show the employee that you are listening to them. That what they say is actually important and you will win that employee over. Jump up to the next level and implement an employee idea (only good ones) and you will score a huge morale victory with your employees.

Funny that people don’t want to feel like they have no say in the work place. People spend more time at work than they do at home, so it is only natural that they want to find value and importance from their employer while working. I don’t care how sucky or unimportant the job is you can still and listen to an employee. It just may so happen that the garbage man has an operational process improvement that will save money or the police officer on the beat has an “out of the box” idea to reduce crime. Maybe the employees that work at your corporation have the next great idea to help your company generate revenue from streams never considered. Maybe that sound corporations hear is their employees talking about these ideas, but because they are not listening there missing out.

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So to prep for this blog post I decided to post a question on two of my Twitter accounts CrazyMikesapps asking “what is honesty.” I got only one question, but no answers. Is that surprising? Does honesty mean different things to different people? Probably. So not to get too morally righteous, but honesty to me is telling the truth. The truth would be reality, what really happened as opposed to what did not happen or made up excuses.

As I spend more time blogging, Tweeting, posting Facebook updates, I readily see that people do not want to communicate with someone who appears to be fake, dishonest, or a narcissist. One of the fundamental characteristics of social media is transparency, which one could equate to honesty. People want to share their life experiences, but they don’t want to share them with a 54 year old pervert who has a Facebook picture of a twenty year old girl and communicates as such. That is just plain creepy. So ask that person you are communicating with through social media some basic questions. Like what they like to do, what they like to eat, what year were they were born, etc, and do this quickly. If they provided weird answers, or they provide unreasonable delays in answering then maybe you should consider who you are communicating with. Consider they are not who they say they are.

When it comes to social media one who is dishonest can only hide for so long. Bloggers call it the way they see it and if a blogger provides wrong or discrepant information the pack tends to right itself. People unfollow, weirdos, or those who have proven to be untrusted. That is what I love about social media and the honesty that comes from this forum. Not to get political, but from Bill Clinton to George Bush there is this belief that lying is acceptable in a sense by people on both sides of the political spectrum, which is nonsense. Lying is never acceptable and I don’t try to foster some “greater than though” moral righteousness. I have lied and probably will lie again, but that is not the point. The point is a true sense of honesty is alive and kicking in social media websites where millions of people are having conversations.

Who would have thought that “social media” websites would be the catharsis for honesty, not me. Not to be naive, I realize there is plenty of dishonesty on the web, but if you pay attention you can ferret out the dishonest, but you must pay attention. People want honesty. They want truth, they want to feel like they are actually being told something that is not a fairy tale. Take 5 minutes and look at Mashable the social media website for case studies in social media success by corporations. The corporations that are winning at social media are those that are engaging their consumers with a funny little thing called “honesty.”

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customerservice

When I started this blog, Mike’s Social Media Blog I wanted one of my first post’s to be on customer service. Well this blog has been a little neglected due to simply being to damn busy. Yes, no excuse, but putting food on the table, being a good employee to my company Altegrity, and fitting in my family (notice they are last) has been to say the least a balancing act. So I have decided to blast my customer service post out today.

Do any of you see it a little ironic that social media is reviving a sense of customer service? The companies/people who are engaging their consumers in social media and actually listening to them are bringing back a sense of customer service. If you have attended college you have heard a rant or two that the Untied States is fast becoming a “service industry” country. But, go to your local Walmart, doctor, government agency and you would all but think customer service is in the crapper. Here are a couple of real life examples of horrible customer service, which I am sure none of you have experienced (sarcasm).

Example#1-The Surgeon-My wife Lisa was having some problems with her hand and it led us to an orthopedic surgeon. Post MRI, x-ray, initial exam we were at our last appointment before surgery. My wife had an issue with one of the front office personnel at this visit before seeing the surgeon. The issue, we showed up early for our appointment and we continuously had others go before us who arrived after us. Typically not a big deal, but after 45 minutes after her scheduled appointment we began to become annoyed. My wife spoke out to a rather cranky front office person, but within 5 minutes we were in a room, problem solved right, wrong. Apparently, the surgeon was informed we were insurrectionists and he had an attitude upon entering our room, 20 minutes later. He treated my wife like an idiot, her questions were dumb and his answers were evasive. Point blank, we asked him a question about the surgery and his answer, “the pain has nothing to do with the surgery.” The why have the surgery? My wife and I left extremely dismayed that the surgeon was so uninformative and cold during this vist. Neither myself or my wife complained once during this visit.

Now, I like you would think, yes my wife or I caused this problem in the first place. Bull crap! A professional, especially a surgeon who takes an oath to treat his patients with sincerity should be able to overcome agitation (if you can call it that) and keep a good bedside manner. Remember, no matter how you slice it the customer is always right.

Example#2-Government agnecies-There seems to be an almost “carte blanche” attitude that because someone works at a service position in a government agency that they can treat you like crap. For 7 years I conducted federal background investigations and had to obtain police records from law enforcement records sections at numerous agencies. Seemed like no matter what day it was, the majority of the time (80%) most of the folks on the front end of these sections were difficult to communicate with and were resistant to doing their job. Bottom line, they appeared to have a high level of disgust for their jobs, at least from my perception. End result, they dish it back to you and I the consumer, a hard time when we go in for service.

I am not trying to be overly sensitive and, yes, I realize people have off days, bad days, yes I get it. But, I was a waiter during college and while in the police academy. My revenue during this time depended primarily on my tips. I did not receive good tips if I provided terrible service. Maybe the people in the above scenarios would provide better service if they truly received compensation from each service experience they provided.

The reality is people are tired of the bull crap and shotty service they get. They are tired of being treated like mushrooms and kept in the dark. They are tired of having products designed and produced with little to no input, then having those products shoved down their throat (car industry). People have had enough and I don’t blame them. If I am going to spend my money with a business that provides great customer service. So why do some in social media get it when it comes to “customer service?”

The basis of social media is to listen, engage, and to provide others with something of value. The irony is the web is the last place you think this positive “customer service” movement would have started. Bloggers to their credit have pushed this issue by blogging about everything. Social media customer service has blossomed from this movement. Yes, movement! There is a cultural change at foot and the change is a sense of inclusion into business models, inclusion of you and I the lowly consumer, end user, people with the money. This movement also includes law enforcement.

Law enforcement agencies like the Boca Raton PD and the Lakeland PD get it. They realize they can offer better law enforcement protection by getting their citizens involved through social media, because that is where a lot of their citizens are getting information. Instead of waiting to see if social media will last more than a couple more years these agencies are aggressively attempting to add this piece of the communication puzzle to their existing communication plans. By doing this they are providing their citizens better customer service. They are offering more, becoming more transparent, listening to their constituents, etc. These law enforcement agencies are providing a level of customer service not often seen in law enforcement (wow what a breath of fresh air).

My customer service goal is to be able to provide my wife, boss, kids, friends, acquaintances, and anyone I have contact with a great experience when dealing with them. Making them feel special, included, and important. People want that extra touch service that makes them feel special.

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