Hey Instagram... Marry me ?

As the great Beyonce says, if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it. With these words in mind, I would like to say that if Instagram was a living breathing human, we would be engaged to wed.
I have only recently begun using instagram for business, but I can tell you that it is not a decision I see myself regretting. So to get to the #instgoss, here is what I have learnt thus far.

- Keep your content fresh, interactive, and aligned with the brand attributes you want your fans to notice. Photos allow you to connect with customers in a different way. Fans and followers are more than happy to respond and take part if they are interested in the information you are sharing.

- Make sure the pictures you post have meaning to your customers and induce shares. If you don’t get excited about the picture you just took, neither will your fans. Take the time to think about what pictures your fans want to see from your brand and how to present them in an interesting way.

- There are 400 million shared photos on Instagram, and most were not shared by companies, but by the consumers themselves. Your customers love taking pictures and talking about their favorite products, so find ways to get your customers involved in your content creation.

- Give customers a better understanding of how your product is made. Craftsmanship is a dying art in this day and age. You work hard to build products that your customers love; show that side of the story alongside your finished product. 

- If you have a less-than-sexy product or service, you can get creative to successfully increase customer engagement with your brand. Holding a photo contest is a great way for customers to get excited about something they'd normally consider dry, expand your audience, and educate people about the important topics that surround your brand. 

- Take and share staff photos. Let your audience know what is happening behind the scenes of the company. Remember, any photo that demonstrates team unity and teamwork will be a strong selling point for your brand image.

- Create a personal hashtag. The best and most effective marketing strategy in Instagram is to promote your brand or business using a hashtag (#). It doesn’t matter whether you are using your business name or a targeted keyword, a hashtag gives you an opportunity to interact and monitor prospects and visitors who interact with your business on given issues.

Without a doubt, Instagram has become the choice social media channel for individuals, B2B Marketers, and businesses to share photos and connect with other businesses and service providers. I believe that Instagram Marketing has the potential to raise your profile, to boost your lead generation and, increase engagement with your target audience and customers. So try taking Instagram on a date, probably somewhere where the food is instagram worthy, you won't regret it.

Link in to LinkedIn - 30 tips on creating a great LinkedIn profile.

Well, since I have recently had to start job hunting again, I thought I would share with you guys some of the little tips that I have learnt. LinkedIn is an amazing social media strategy that packs a lot of bang for the buck, and the best part is it is free!

So, here are 30 ways to use LinkedIn more effectively. A few of these point are also applicable to businesses.

1.        Fill out your profile completely to earn trust.

2.        Use widgets to integrate other tools, such as importing your blog entries or Twitter stream into your profile.

3.        Do market research and gain knowledge with Polls.

4.        Share survey and poll results with your contacts.

5.        Answer questions in Questions and Answers: show expertise without a hint of self-promotion.

6.        Ask questions in Questions and Answers to get a feel for what customers and prospects want or think.

7.        Publish your LinkedIn URL on all your marketing collateral, including business cards, email signature, email newsletters, web sites and brochures, so prospects learn more about you.

8.        Grow your network by joining industry and alumni groups related to your business.

9.        Update your status examples of recent work.

10.     Link your status updates with your other social media accounts.

11.     Combine your social media approach: when someone asks a question in Twitter, respond in detail on LinkedIn and link to it from Twitter.

12.     Use the search feature to find people by company, industry and city.

13.     Start and manage a group or fan page for your product, brand or business.

14.     Research your prospects before meeting or contacting them.

15.     Share useful articles and resources that will be of interest to customers and prospects.

16.     Write honest and valuable recommendations for your contacts.

17.     Request LinkedIn recommendation from happy customers willing to provide testimonials.

18.     Post your presentations on your profile using a presentation application.

19.     Check connections’ locations before traveling so you can meet with those in the city where you’re heading.

20.     Ask your first-level contacts for introductions to their first-level contacts.

21.     Interact with LinkedIn on a regular basis to reach those who may not see you on other social media sites.

22.     Set up to receive LinkedIn messages in your inbox so you can respond right away.

23.     Link to articles and content posted elsewhere, with a summary of why it’s valuable to add to your credibility.

24.     List your newsletter subscription information and archives.

25.     Find experts in your field and invite them as a guest blogger on your blog or speaker at your event.

26.     Post discounts and package deals.

27.     Export your contacts into other applications.

28.     Buy a LinkedIn direct ad that only your target market will see.

29.     Post job listings to find qualified talent.

30.     Look for connections related to a job you want.

Battle of the Brands

If you are unaware of the commencing war between Apple and Google you have either just arrived in your time machine from the past or you have no contact with the technological world. Apple and Google have been going head to head in the technological market for a long time now. This means two things, 1. The companies have started mimicking each other (not a sign of flattery but rather one of war) and 2. The world of smart phones is going to continue to grow, as it has been, faster than most can keep up.

With Nexus One, Google, which had been content to power multiple phonemakers' devices with Android, entered the hardware game, becoming a direct threat to the iPhone. This is where the war gets a little petty. In July 2009 Apple refused to sell a few Google affiliated apps in their store- A true testament to the companies competitive nature (Gigaom, 2010).Now, many say the war was sparked by Google. It is true that Apple did not enter the search game where-as Google decided to enter the Apple dominated phone game but as many apple fans believe, Google may have started the war but Apple vows to finish it. In my opinion Apple should be very, very concerned.

Gigaom, 2010, Google Vrs Apple, http://gigaom.com/2010/02/12/google-vs-apple/

Second Wife?

Second Life is a virtual world where people can explore, interact, socialise, play and work all in the form of avatars. With the growing popularity of Second Life people are forgetting how ‘virtual’ the world really is. Second life has become more than just ‘ones and zeros rendered on a computer screen’(Boellestorff, 2008, pg 97). One scholar Boellostorff describes second life as ‘a resident-built environment organised around the creating and selling of objects’ (Boellestorff, 2008, pg 97). People invest real emotions, time and money into the game which make many feel the happenings and tribulations inside the worlds are then also real’ (Boellestorff, 2008, pg 93).

Boellostorff talks of this ‘realness’ in relation to space, arguing that ‘placemaking is absolutely foundational to virtual worlds.’ (Boellestorff, 2008, pg 91). He analyses how Second Life makes land owning and building as realistic and cultural synchronised as possible; noting the emotional investment into land ownership and use.

Boellestorff is mirrored in his views by Lessig in his analysis of second life in his book Code version 2.0. In his chapter four puzzles from cyber space he discusses virtual worlds such as second life. Lessig tells a story of an argument over virtual boarders stating that ‘real space is the place where you are right now: your office, your den, maybe by a pool. It’s a world defined by both laws that are man-made and others that are not’. (Lessig, L.2006)

Another scholar Mark Stephen Meadows writes a passionate account of his own personal immersion in avatars and society’s immersion as a whole. Virtual worlds are, by nature, somewhat immersive. Unlike video game worlds, virtual worlds are immersive because they contain people. Actual,  real people. Virtual worlds are immersive because they represent the same complex social interplay and situations that you get in the physical world. If you think that Second Life is fuller of drama than the physical world, you don’t get out enough.

Meadows also discusses paedophilia. In second life there are some areas where avatars dressed as children were offering virtual prostitution. Role-playing and sex are two common activities on Second Life, and users frequently select avatars of different genders, races, ages or even species, and then do it like they do on the discovery channel, so to speak....

Resources-
Mark Stephen Meadows. “Why?” I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life. Indianapolis: New Rider s, 2008. pg. 82-87

Boellestorff, Tom. Chapter 4: “Place and Time”. Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Pg 89-117.

Lessig, L. (2006). Four puzzles from cyber space. In L. Lessig Code version 2.0 (pp 9-30). New York: Basic Books. [URL: https://www.socialtext.net/codev2/four_puzzles_from_cyberspace]

Tweety Dumb.

The most fascinating thing about Twitter is not what it's doing to us. It's what we're doing to it.' Johnson, S 2009

The twitter fad hit hard and fast. But many  were unimpressed; not understanding how anyone would be interested in 'blogging' only 140 characters. Suddenly useless communication was becoming more interesting everyday and everyone else's business was becoming our business.


Probably the strangest thing about Twitter is its air of 'stalker-ness'. You can follow whoever you want and see exactly what they are up to. We used to all have our little black books full of meticulously collected addresses, emails and phone numbers of our family and favorites. Now we can simply search a name and click 'follow' and suddenly we are in their pockets 'stalking' their daily actions.


In saying this it is clear that platforms such as Twitter are beginning to change the very fabric of communication; weaving us together in new and very strange ways. These are changes that are slow and sometimes unnoticeable but a certainly steady. As we communicate and engage with more people, our means of doing are changing along with the times. Twitter, as much as any other site, is helping to launch and enable this new era of communication. Like it or not, we have entered a completely new era in in who we communicate with and how we communicate with them. And central to this is social media sites like Twitter.


Johnson, S 2009,'How Twitter will change the way we live', Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1902818-1,00.html

Why photographers be hatin'

As the popularity creative commons licenses grows an increasing number of photographers have become dissatisfied with the Creative Commons system.

I am a big believer in the idea behind creative commons but I feel it is a little flawed.

My main issue is with commercial use and identifying who really benefits in the long term. In effect commercial companies can and are really benefiting from these ‘free’ photographs. Before CC, a corporation or ad agency that wanted to use your photo would have to contact you or your photo agency for permission to use it. You could negotiate a price based on the particular use, making sure you got a fair deal.
Through CC, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of photographers have thrown this right away forever. As we know, CC says that once you choose a license for your work, it’s irrevocable. Photographers are generally doing this with good intentions or for idealistic reasons. But the end result is that you are building a system enabling commercial buyers to use your images without paying for them.
How would you like to see your Facebook display picture on a billboard advertising Herpes medicine? Imagine the money a Herpes medicine company is going to save now they can just pick a face off Flickr and not have to pay the person a phenomenal amount to ruin their sex life.
I’m sure CC’s defence would be the ‘non-commercial use’ license. A few of the many flaws with this license include; A) you are informed enough to choose the right license and B) You and the rest of the world can actually agree on what 'non-commercial use' actually means.

I have hundreds of CC licensed photo’s online, until I sat down and had a think about it I was fine with that but I don’t want to be the face of Herpes and so, I be’ Hatin’ too.

You should check your emails more often, I fired you three weeks ago..

This week really got me thinking about the concept of global networks and the effects that technological inventions have had on the idea of 'community'. From the days of Egypt’s Human messengers and Chinas messenger relay stations it is hard to fathom just how far we have come in the world of communications. Long gone are the days where it was common place to receive a hand written letter complete with the stains and wrinkles of its travels. If you ask me this is a blessing as my handwriting is horrendous, but many disagree. The debates on the quality and quantity of the new communication corridors are wide and heated (see the articles in Wellman and Haythornthwaite 2002)

Personally, I believe that communities started changing from groups to networks well before the advent of the Internet. To begin with i think people feared that industrialization and bureaucratization would dissolve community groups and only isolated, alienated individuals would remain. Then people actually took a step back and discovered that communities continued, but more as sparsely-knit, spatially dispersed social networks rather than as densely-knit, village-like local groups. It is easy to say that the internet just isolates people from face-to-face interactions but the fact is we are just being given new opportunities to discover far-flung communities of shared interest.

After a few joyous hours of reading I have found three key sides to this debate. Some say the internet weakens community (Kraut et al. 1998; Nie and Hillygus 2002), others believe it enhances community (Wellman and Quan-Haase 2002), and others believe the internet transforms community (Barlow, 1995; Wellman 2001), believing that internet is simply changing the way people communicate rather than damaging or improving it. Networked societies are themselves changing in character. As discussed in the lecture it seems each person is now a switchboard, between ties and networks. People remain connected, but as individuals, rather than being stuck in the confines of home or work. Each person operates a separate personal community network and switches rapidly among multiple sub-networks. In effect, the Internet and other new communication technology are helping individuals to personalize their own communities. This is neither a a positive or a negative, but rather a complex, fundamental transformation in the nature of community.

Resources-

Wellman, B. and Haythornthwaite, C. (eds.) 2002. The Internet in Everyday Life. Oxford:Blackwell. In press

Kraut, R., Patterson, M., Lundmark, V., Kiesler, S., Mukopadhyay, T., and Scherlis, W. 1998. Internet Paradox: A Social Technology that Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-being? American Psychologist. 53(9), p. 1017-1031.

Nie, N., Hillygus, D. S., and Erbring, L. 2002. Internet Use, Interpersonal Relations and Sociability: A Time-diary Study. In B. Wellman and C.

Haythornthwaite (eds.), The Internet in Everyday Life. Oxford:Blackwell. In press
Barlow, J. P., Birkets, S., Kelly, K., and Slouka, M. 1995. What Are We Doing On-Line?, Harper's, 291, p. 35–46.

Wellman, B. 2001. Physical Place and Cyber-Place: Changing Portals and the Rise of Networked Individualism, International Journal for Urban and Regional Research, 25(2), p. 227-252.

Wellman, B. and Haythornthwaite, C. (eds.) 2002. The Internet in Everyday Life. Oxford:Blackwell. In press

Kraut, R., Patterson, M., Lundmark, V., Kiesler, S., Mukopadhyay, T., and Scherlis, W. 1998. Internet Paradox: A Social Technology that Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-being? American Psychologist. 53(9), p. 1017-1031.

Nie, N., Hillygus, D. S., and Erbring, L. 2002. Internet Use, Interpersonal Relations and Sociability: A Time-diary Study. In B. Wellman and C.

Haythornthwaite (eds.), The Internet in Everyday Life. Oxford:Blackwell. In press
Barlow, J. P., Birkets, S., Kelly, K., and Slouka, M. 1995. What Are We Doing On-Line?, Harper's, 291, p. 35–46.

Wellman, B. 2001. Physical Place and Cyber-Place: Changing Portals and the Rise of Networked Individualism, International Journal for Urban and Regional Research, 25(2), p. 227-252.