Marcel's Mindweeds

Statistics are fun. Especially when they’re about Twitter. I am curious about them. And I hope you are too. IWell, below some details extracted from half a million tweets. Love to hear your comments!

The two graphs in this article by HubSpot are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Please link back to this article if you use the graphs.

Didn’t I write about Facebook and their quest for more transparency yesterday? Couldn’t be less true, now they even opened their corporate blog to their public! With some monitoring of course because useless namecalling is not really constructive. The CEO’s message yesterday generated over 1000 comments already.

Not to long ago a meeting was organized by the foundation Copyright & New Media at Seats2Meet in Utrecht. About Creative Commons, intellectual property, a subject that I am very much interested in. I will try to do my very best to publish news on this subject on a regular bases because I feel it is important to all you content producers out there.

Facebook about ownership and ‘user data’.
We do not own user data, the users do. This was told by Mr. Zuckerberg (CEO) in the conference call held today. Facebook and it’s Terms of Service became subject to a fierce discussion the last month because of the adaptations they had made. These changes resulted in Facebook being allowed to keep user generated content in their databases for eternity and they could use it when they want, even if a user had deleted his or her account.

This forced Facebook to act quickly. They introduced the ‘Draft Principles and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities For User Review, Comment and Vote’. An initiative that ‘promises’ users that the issue on intellectual property is tackled and that they intend to keep users in the loop on further developments in this area.

A good example of intellectual property problems that even makes giants like Facebook trip over. I am looking into the subject myself as well. It does take up some time but it is worth to find out!

Want to know more on the subject? Check the following links:
De ‘Draft’ van Facebook zoals genoemd in het bericht.
Creative Commons
Stichting Copyright & Nieuwe Media

Bored on the bench? It’s just a point of view. Of course it’s disturbing that freelancers are out of jobs faster and longer then usual or to be an interim manager with trouble finding an interim assignment.  I am in the midst of such a situation but I also see what the advantages are. It can go in all directions. I use this time for some self reflection and look at my wishes and goals again. Am I going in the direction I want to? Is this the moment to start something completely different? Should I work for an employer again? Which partnerships can I build? Actually, you should look at this momentary lapse as a welcome moment of change. Because you normally never take enough time to look at your strategy. Enjoy it while it lasts! Because before you know it, its: How are you? No time, busy, busy…

Make money with Twitter? Some do. In this case, where Glam covers the Oscars, they did hurt the ‘freedom of speech’ on Twitter by editting tweets so that they could make sure there were only clean tweets to read on their website widget. Because of that they were able to sell sponsoring to Aveeno. What a shame of all those restricted tweets. By the way, shouldn’t everybody who contributed to #oscars get a kick back?

Press agency ANP published a press release where Willem Verbeke from the Erasmus university explains that he expects that within 5 years from now organisations will start taking brain scans from employees and employees to be. In that way it would be possible to filter for people who are not suitable for the job because they are ‘crazy’ or because they don’t fit the job profile.

Looks like a scene from a movie like ‘Minority Report’. Iris scan, brain scan and finger print identification. Personally I think this direction is unethical, it intrudes privacy and if it where up to me we should stop this type of activity right at the root. I would really like to know how you feel about the subject.

A lot of big brands still do not know what to do with social media and how to fit them into their strategy. Organisations are very often enclosed in old school ways of thinking and acting forthcoming from media strategies based on old school media traditions. A shift in mindet has to be made when it comes to media and social media specifically.

Below you will find some points of attention of which I think that they should play a role creating a ‘new school’ approach.

• Organisations tend to operate very regional and local. When content is produced and shared by consumers it is mostly doen so without a ‘localized’ intent. The consumer will share with everyone, around the globe and whenever her or she feels like it.
• Control works restrictive. The more an organisations limits the use of social media the less effect it can expect. The consumer and content producer is in charge!
• Go, go, go! Do not ponder to long, start experimenting intenally. Your employees use social media as well (at least, most of them do) and they often render contribution without even knowing. They know what will and what will not work.
• Sociale media are very personal and not everyone will like or understand it instantaneously. Promote, support, explain, anchor it and keep it ‘fun’.
• Accept time. It takes time to become involved, to build a community, to get into interaction with and involve communities.
• Make the communication and interaction measurable.
• It will not work if there is no reason for the consumer to get involved. Results will be different from a standard advertising campaign. This makes it difficult. How to keep the audience engaged?

There must be dozens more that influence a solid social media strategy. Such a strategy is becoming more and more important, the consumer is demanding. They work with those media sooner than organisations would like to or even could. Learn from the consumers!

Questions or remarks? I would love to hear them.