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Chinese microblog platforms have one major thing in common with Twitter, they limit updates to 140 characters. However, since a Chinese character generally conveys much more meaning than a single letter of the Roman alphabet, a Chinese microblog update can say a lot more than one in English.

As a very rough guide, four Chinese characters (新浪微博) are used to describe one of China’s leading microblog platforms, while fourteen characters are needed to write its English translation, Sina Microblog.

Similarly, 推特 - the Chinese for Twitter, does in two characters what English does in seven.

In addition, Chinese sentences do not need any spaces to make sense, even after punctuation marks.

Admittedly, posts on Chinese microblogs are often a mixture of English words and Chinese; and the online cultures of China and the English-language speaking world abbreviate in different ways.

However, despite these qualifying factors, by offering the same 140-character limit, microblogs are being much less stingy to Chinese writers than people updating in English.

So, a company or an individual can say a lot more. And quite often, they do just that. First, look at this fairly typical Twitter update from microblog aficionados, Dell (@DellOutlet):

Below is another update, also from Dell (@delldirect), on Chinese “twitter-like” site, Zuosa.com:

In just 114 characters, this Dell microblogger had managed to say the following:

Dell’s National Day Sale will run from Sept 11 to Oct 8. To celebrate the 60^th anniversary w. the motherland, Dell Home Computers is offering 6 cool gifts & deals on 10 computer models. These exciting offers will run non-stop for 4 weeks. Also, get a free upgrade to color casing & a 512MB independent graphics card, as well as other service upgrades. All offers are on a first-come-first-serve basis. What R U waiting 4? Act now!

It doesn’t look so “micro” now, does it? By using only part of their allowance, Dell managed to say the equivalent of 430 English-language characters.

When it comes to microblogs, I am less likely to read long updates; fat blocks of characters – English or Chinese – put me off.

Of course, not everyone is as lazy as me. However, companies should think about whether they should take advantage of these slightly less “micro” opportunities by writing longer updates. Personally, I think they shouldn’t. In this case, less is definitely more.

It’s not easy being a foreign social media enthusiast in China. China blocks the social media sites that you take for granted. Life without Twitter I can deal with but can you imagine being denied Facebook and YouTube? They even blocked Vimeo and Last.fm. Try running a blog without being able to embed anything but videos from YouKu and Tudou (which is not necessarily a bad thing because they are less censored than YouTube - go figure).

I tried to get around with tools like Ping.fm which could simultaneously update my Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Delicious in one go but bugger it is banned now too.

Of course, none of this matters to China’s 360 million Netizens who think foreign social media is inferior anyway (and in many cases they are right). However there is one benefit to living on this side of the Great Firewall of China that you folks will never know; not even my friends in Hong Kong. For while I can use a VPN server to access YouTube when I really need need it, Google’s Music channel in China is something you will only experience on the mainland.

Each morning when I log on I point my browser to http://www.google.cn/music, search for music and decide whether to add to my evolving playlist (and sing along to the scrolling lyrics) or download and send to friend or iPod.

There are prompts to purchase the music although I don’t really know why anyone would, nor for that matter what Google’s business model is, other than a sink or swim retaliation to Baidu’s equally impressive music search, listen and download system.

I recently setup an Ogilvy Asia-Pacific Tweeters list using a handy service called TweepML. In case you’re not familiar with it, TweepML is in its own words “an easy way to create, manage, share and find lists of interesting Twitter users to follow.”

Very easy in fact, it took only a couple of minutes to copy-and-paste in all the Ogilvy Asia-Pacific Twitter users I could find. All there was left to do was tell everyone about it.

But then of course Twitter rolled out its new lists feature, giving us all the functionality we could ever want, and pretty much rendering the TweepML service and my blog post obsolete – or did it?

One thing is for sure: Twitter lists are rapidly becoming the new currency in social media with traditional follower-metrics on the way out and list-baiting already well under way.

But after having used both, I can say that Twitter lists are still missing some key features. For the Ogilvy Asia-Pacific list it came down to 2 things which TweepML lists let you do that Twitter lists don’t:

1. Users suggestions
   The Ogilvy Asia-Pacific Tweeters list will most likely grow and chances are not everyone that should be on it was there from day one. So allowing users to suggest additions is key to keeping the list relevant and up to date.

2. One-click following
   Twitter lists are a great discovery mechanism as they essentially allow you to subscribe to a feed of users without directly following anyone. But what if you actually want to make a connection with everyone on a list? With a Twitter list you would have to go through the entire list and manually follow each user, TweepML lets you follow everyone in a list with just one click.

So if you want to connect with fellow Ogilvy thought leaders in the Asia-Pacific region, make sure you check out the Ogilvy Asia-Pacific Tweeters list.

The austerity drive is on! Yes by now, we all know that our ministers are travelling economy class to set an example

shashi tharoor

for us mere mortals, in these times of economic recession. So when a minister and that too an erudite one, decides to use twitter to express his point of view on this topic, it snowballs into a crisis. This is a classic example of the growing influence of social media in our lives. Here was a minister, writing away on his personal twitter account, in less than 140 words his jocular take on the entire topic and before he knew it, the media was on it, the parliament was in uproar, and editorials were being dished out faster than you could change channels. Tharoor’s unfortunate remark, that he would travel “cattle class in solidarity with all our holy cows”, had come a day after Congress president Sonia Gandhi travelled by economy class in a flight to Mumbai to set an example for the party to follow austerity measures that could help the government redirect funds for welfare programmes in the wake of deficient rains.

What however interests me is how increasingly social media is changing our lives. For one thing, journalists have more sources to get stories for an ever hungry media. Then again everything you write, becomes available for the world to see, comment on and build opinions. dangerous  because it can swing public opinion in seconds, if you are a public figure. The trick therefore lies in not just using social media but knowing how to use it and how to leverage it to a maximum. A perfect example would be Obama’s election win, which I believe  was predominantly won on the web.

So even though Minister Tharoor has apologized, “It’s a silly expression but meant no disrespect to economy travellers, only to airlines for herding us in like cattle. Many have misunderstood… To those hurt by the belief that my repeating the phrase showed contempt: sorry”, this controversy has not yet died down.   The worrisome news is that for a government which came to power on the mandate of the common man ( who travels economy or lives below the poverty line) this is sensitive territory.

The good news for us social media enthusiasts is that India is tweeting.

Earlier today I had the opportunity to be part of a Webinar that covered how IT managers could use Twitter to help solve some of their day-to-day challenges. The Webinar was sponsored by our client Citrix Online and featured some great speakers, including Leslie Nassar of Fake Stephen Conroy fame, Richard Binhammer from Dell, Glenn Dobson of Citrix, and Nate Cochrane of Haymarket Media.

I kicked off the presentation with a quick 101 of Twitter, how to use it to achieve a specific business or communications objective, and how to get started in Twitter in a strategic way using a 3-step methodology:

1. Follow:  First start off by following people who are relevant to whatever it is you’re talking about on Twitter (e.g., IT staff, your customers, etc.)
2. Create:  Tweet on a regular basis and share things that are going to be of interest to the people you’re talking to and, equally importantly, on-topic (or at least of interest).
3. Engage: Once you are following people and listening to what they’re saying, are Tweeting on a regular basis (creating content), then engage by replying to others by asking questions, re-tweeting people who are saying interesting things, etc.

Based on a quick audience poll that we did early on into the Webinar, it seems that nearly 3/4 of IT managers here in Australia are considering using Twitter to address IT issues - but not currently using it for that purpose.  What was most interesting to me and the other panelists, however, was that 6 percent of the audience were using Twitter “unofficially” - in other words going out and solving IT issues that customers are having on a personal basis.

Here are some interesting discussions and take-aways from today’s session:

• @ksantolin: #twitter4it @richardatdell believes that existing code of conduct and employment contracts should cover social media confidentiality
• @ksantolin: #twitter4it dedicate certain personnel to answer queries on twitter (eg helpdesk) as part of their usual helpdesk duties @glenndobson
• @MartyAtDell: @bdgiesen said in #twitter4it webinar that the Australian growth rate of Twitter outpaces other countries
• @adriankhall: #twitter4it - follow; create; engage - customer service
• Dell’s @DellOutlet Twitter account is driving sales and revenue on new product at Dell.com according to @richardatdell
• IT departments should skill up staff on handling issues, the same way they deal with people by phone and email

And for all who are interested, you can download the full Twitter for IT Managers presentation deck over on Slideshare.

I have always wondered if we are “overdoing” social media, with everyone wanting to jump on the bandwagon without a proper strategy, and wanting to start a Facebook page for the sake of having one.

Hence, when I had the privilege of listening to Pete Teo, Malaysia’s very own multi-award winning singer/songwriter/film producer, at the Social Media Club (Malaysia chapter) inaugural event last week, I really wished I could put him in front of many people and hear it from him straight!

Teo, famous for his anti-racism music video Malaysian Artistes For Unity that became a popular national culture phenomenon last year, recently produced the 15Malaysia project, which also instantly became a hit. The 15Malaysia website, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were primary channels for publicity, in addition to print media.

15Malaysia is a short film project consisting of 15 short films made by 15 Malaysian filmmakers. These films deal with socio-political issues in Malaysia and feature some of actors, musicians and top political leaders.

When the project was launched on Facebook on 17 August 2009, it reached 10,000 fans within an hour. Today, it has 86,852 fans on Facebook, 1,488 followers on Twitter, and 366,363 video files downloaded from the 15Malaysia website … and still counting. (The tremendous amount of traffic has busted four servers and Teo has also received a lot of help from the public through his SOS tweets.)

While he has successfully made use of social media to promote the 15Malaysia project (which has just received an invitation to screen all 15 films at the Golden Horse Film Festival in Taipei this November), Teo said that it’s not about the tools. Social media is only a tool and is as good as it gets if you do not engage people in an emotional way. He aptly stated that, “You cannot ‘formulate’ your way into this (social media success).”

Think before you jump. The important questions: What are you trying to sell? What is your message? How does your project engage the public and what value are you offering to the community?

Should anonymous commenting on blogs, forums, social networking sites and microblogging sites such as Twitter be allowed? Is it ethical?

I’m inclined to lean strongly towards the negative argument. I’d suggest that anonymous posting goes against the very fundamental principles behind social media and the importance of authenticity and transparency when operating in online communities. It’s therefore very interesting to see that there are new online tools and services popping up that encourage this very behaviour.

Two of the latest examples are as follows:
• Tweet From Above
• Tweet From Below

The company’s tagline is: “Anonymous Tweeting: For what has to be said, just not by you”

One of the services implies tweeting for ‘good’ and the other for ‘bad’.

I’ll be interested to see the sorts of tweets that get shared on both of these services. I’m particularly interested to know what sort of tweets make it to the ‘Tweet From Above’ service. If there’s something good to share - a fabulous CSR initiative by a company, something great that a colleague has helped you with, your love of Sunsilk shampoo - why not put your name to it and share it with the world?

I can understand the reason for not putting your name to posts that comes from ‘Tweet From Below’, but surely this is just another service that has the potential to flare up cyber-bullying!

Are there any valid reasons for commenting anonymously? The assumption would be that one would only do so if they have something to hide. Perhaps what they are posting is factually incorrect or perhaps they are simply gossip mongering. Whatever the case, I don’t agree with it.

I’d be keen to hear if anyone has any thoughts on when anonymous commenting would be permissible.

Nate Cochrane pens his rules for social media etiquette on iTNews. And in a style true to the very fundamentals of social media which encourage active sharing and participation, he has made a point to list the rules he outlines as a work in progress and has opened it up for discussion on the site.

One of the rules that he points out is one that we tend to forget: ‘Quality NOT quantity’. Too often PRs get flack for doing a last minute dash to sign up as many people in their network to become friends/ fans on their clients’ Facebook groups and pages or on their Twitter handles.

As PRs, we need to continue to educate our clients that the real value does not lie in the sheer volume of people we sign up but rather in the quality of the people we engage (even if it’s only a handful!).

Consider who your target audience is, where do they frequent and how to reach them. Who is in your fans/ friends extended networks. Are they the right audience to target?

Using Twitter as an example, it’s important to do the analysis and drill down into who the person is that you want to connect with, get to know them, follow them for a while and find out what they write about. Also have a look into who follows that person, are they the appropriate person for your client to be reaching out to or is there someone in their Twitter network that is better?

This tool can help you determine the most appropriate people to follow:

If we want to get some real and long lasting results for our clients, the key is to make sure that we’re speaking to the right audiences!

Already one of the world’s most active microblogging countries, the latest data from Netratings shows that the unique users of Twitter grew to 783,000 in June alone. This compares with 200,000 users in January, a growth of four times. h/t to IT Media Japan

The Singapore Law Society broke ground this week by fining a lawyer S$1,000 for giving his views on an ongoing case on his blog.

As reported in The Straits Times:

Mr Alfred Dodwell was taken to task by the society for ‘publicly promoting his view of the witnesses and the merits of an ongoing court proceeding, albeit through the medium of blogs’.

The action, reflected last week in the Government Gazette, was taken as Mr Dodwell ‘had failed to meet the standard of conduct befitting’ a lawyer.

Although no names were mentioned, Mr. Dodwell’s blog entries had enough key details for affected parties to recognize the case, the newspaper reported.

In a follow up story, journalist Serene Luo The Straits Times highlighted that Social Media policy is a new area of concern, well beyond lawyers and doctors, with many companies hastily creating new media guidelines for employees.

Speaking personally, I have had my own fair share of run-ins with new media. In the first instance Facebook ended my marriage and in another Twitter scooped my new job announcement.

Neither one had dramatic consequences on my life, but they served as reminders of new media’s power.