So you’re not a consultant in the social media field, but you’re looking for work. You’ve finally landed the coveted interview after sending out more than thirty resumes and you’ve gotten past the phone chat. You’ve told them you read Mashable, TechCrunch, Social Media Daily and crunch numbers for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and dream in terms of social media strategy. 

Now what?

As you step into the interview, consider the questions that you will be asked, but also the questions that you should ask your interviewer. In this series, we cover questions every aspiring social media superstar should ask before they get the offer. Read on today for our third question – How do you manage social media?

The wonderful thing about social media is that it’s a relatively new medium and has been around for business use for roughly three years. In terms of technology, that makes it the shiny new toy in the office that everyone wants to get his or her hands on and has an opinion with, but is unsure how to take apart the box in order to get the package.

Because it is a shiny toy, it’s also apt to breaking. Much like the childhood events where you are so excited to open a Christmas gift you break the item, social media is just the same way. Used on its own, and by an individual, its fine. Collaboratively works as well, but from a managerial standpoint, its important to understand how your manager views social media and plans to manage the execution. Will you get free reign to think? Or will you be at the mercy of your manager with every single tweet curated and made sure that its up to their likes? Make sure that when you ask this question, you know your personal likes and dislikes – that way when you are managed, you don’t feel cornered. 

What’s your opinion? Is this a valid question? Share your thoughts in the comments below or send me a tweet.

Link: The Science of Community Building

crystalsocialmedia:

fuckyeahsynesthesia:

Why is the reddit community so kind compared to 4chan or YouTube comments?!! Even Facebook comments aren’t often as compassionate as reddit comments.

I admit, though, I’m new to reddit, but the level of community in it is simply incredible.

Citing Michael Wesch, hatred as a public performance in internet dialogue is bred from anonymity, physical distance, and rare and ephemeral dialogue.

Like 4chan and YouTube, it’s anonymous and physically distant from everyone else, it’s a little less ephemeral, but not by much.

Maybe it’s the rankings. By making high ranking comments something desirable, people try to make their posts the best as possible. “Best” means… interesting? engaging? funny? Hmm… even 4chan’s biggest threads aren’t full of hate, but full of originality and passion.

 Something to think about when community building. reddit does have a completely different atmosphere to other communities. I think the ranking system is a large part of it. Why do you think this is?

Community building is no simple task. It involves careful attention o detail, empathy with members within the community and a very, very thick skin. Nowhere is this more present and needed than on communities such as 4Chan and Reddit, where erroneous or backhanded comments can leave a person grasping for their Internet lives.

Anonymous identities are partly to contribute for the tough nature of community management. Anyone can grab a photo from the Internet and pose as a tough person or a foxy vixen, carry a persona that makes them a millionaire or pose as a celebrity when they really aren’t. As we have embraced the concept of anonymity, we have also given rise to an entire culture built up around sitting behind a wall and being protected.

In community management, therefore, it is important to always be empathetic because you never know what may come out any specific incident. By showing that you care and even bowing down, you show that you want to keep things from getting out of hand. Pre-social media, we called this customer service and customer engagement. Post-social media rising, we call it community management.

What do you think? Send me a tweet or write in the comments below.

Much ridicule, debate and anger has been made about Amy Chua and the book she wrote earlier that was a reflection of her parenting experience, but expanded upon has led to an entire debate on the role of the Asian American in school, the workforce and the issues beyond the exams in college.

I went to a very high achieving high school, one where over ten percent of my graduating class ended up going to UC Berkeley. Taking two AP classes was almost considered procrastination and many friends went home to their parents fearing repercussions from coming home with anything less than an A-minus. Friends spent weekends taking classes for the SAT, attending speech and debate tournaments and stayed up to study until the wee hours of the morning on topics they could care less about but needed the grade so much for. 

I spent much of my time at that school in the top 25% of my class but if you felt the pulse of academics at that school, you would have thought I was in the bottom 25%. As an Asian, you weren’t just expected to be great at math, you were supposed to understand Calculus by the time you got out of your second year, be looking at an advanced college course by the time you began your senior year and grab A’s in almost every class. Not being able to do so didn’t ostracize you but was looked upon as not fitting in to your ethnic class. Even then too, you could see who cared and who was passionate about the work they did – the people who didn’t somehow got A’s anyway. 

I came out of high school thinking I would follow every other professional field that every other Asian was going to do – for pretty much everyone, the major of their choice fell into two or three categories – business, accounting, engineering and for the select few, a fourth – biological sciences. It seemed as if your path was anything different – English, theater or something else you were either never heard from or people thought you were downright weird. Such are the pitfalls and culture of a neighborhood that seemed so sheltered.

The first year of college I found myself in accounting – my major, or at least what I thought would be. After a few weeks, I found myself dreading what I was doing. Granted, it was numbers and I loved numbers but I couldn’t see myself budgeting, debiting and crediting for the rest of my life. I had talked about going into accounting prior as if I was passionate and cared, and people up until my senior year still asked, “are you still doing accounting?” and had me answer…

“No, I’m actually thinking of going into social media for my career…”

Its here where I’d like to state that my career is just that – social media geek. Rather, I’m Asian, and I’m a social media geek. Away from the hours and hours that Amy Chua describes of playing the piano until boredom, staying up until the wee hours like many of my peers I found myself immersed in the great things of understanding Twitter, managing a Facebook Page, looking at how businesses are affected by social media, among many other things and doing consulting. The closest I ever get to accounting is figuring out how much money I’m getting per client, and not even that. The closest I get to engineering, is, well, when I’m creating good relationships and bringing people together on social media. 

If you’re Asian, or any person part of the perceived “model minority”, take a look at yourself, especially if you’re that social media geek. Embrace it, love it, tackle it, and be proud of where you are. You’re doing great things – enjoy it. Amy Chua may have raised her kids one way and everyone else in your world might be doing engineering, accounting or some biomedical field but you’re following your passions. As they say, if you love what you do you will never work a day in your life. Follow that dream, and follow that passion – while your forefathers and ancestors may have hoped that you do what they do, the world is so much more than that.

Share your thoughts and experiences below, or tweet at me to let me know what you think. I want to hear about your social media story.

So you’re not a consultant in the social media field, but you’re looking for work. You’ve finally landed the coveted interview after sending out more than thirty resumes and you’ve gotten past the phone chat. You’ve told them you read Mashable, TechCrunch, Social Media Daily and crunch numbers for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and dream in terms of social media strategy.

Now what?

As you step into the interview, consider the questions that you will be asked, but also the questions that you should ask your interviewer. In this series, we cover questions every aspiring social media superstar should ask before they get the offer. Read on today for our second question – How do you measure a successful social media effort?

Social media success is a huge issue, especially along the lines of return on investment. We covered the issue as a consultant, but it gets even more important when the questions involve you becoming a full time employee.

If the company in question asks if you can increase their follower count over night and that success is seen by the company grabbing 10,000 followers, then the first thing you ought to do is run. 

If they talk about Klout scores, engagement rates and monthly/daily active users on the other hand, you’re on much better ground. It shows that they care about a return and they want that investment to be well-defined and well understood. If they also ask for month-end charts and recommendations made upon the returns on investment, then you know that you’re in the right place. 

What do you think? Tweet at me or let me know in the comments. 

Random Thought: What was their goal in what they did, trying to plant stories about Google? Have the social media wars heated up to the next level?

What, if any impacts will come out of this?

Tweet at me or let me know in the comments below.

All this Facebook spam really weighs after awhile. Makes you wonder how much people will trust using these networks for fear that they will have their walls hijacked with junk.

Any thoughts?

So you’re not a consultant in the social media field, but you’re looking for work. You’ve finally landed the coveted interview after sending out more than thirty resumes and you’ve gotten past the phone chat. You’ve told them you read Mashable, TechCrunch, Social Media Daily and crunch numbers for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and dream in terms of social media strategy.

Now what?

As you step into the interview, consider the questions that you will be asked, but also the questions that you should ask your interviewer. Starting today, we’ll start covering questions every aspiring social media superstar should ask before they get the offer. Read on today for our first question – what is your social media strategy?

We’ve all seen it before – the half assed social media strategy.  Strategy lays the groundwork for every single company that you apply to, and social media strategy is no different. Does the company have a Twitter presence? Facebook profile? YouTube channel? Foursquare account? God forbid a MySpace page?

If they haven’t thought up of a strategy yet, and its up to you, then you have all the power and are calling the shots – that is great. But if the company already has something that exists and are looking at you to hone it, ask – what is their strategy? Take a look at their social media presence, and then ask yourself these questions:

1) Can you adopt their voice?

2) Do you agree with how they frame their voice?

3) Do they value followers over overall content, or prefer a smaller following that is more engaged?

4) Who is the decision-maker when it comes to crafting the strategy? Do they look to outside consultants, or do they look inside, or do they look up to the C-level executives?

5) What do you see yourself doing for them?

A good social media strategy contributes to the fun of the game and adds value to what the company already has. Understand how the strategy is managed, executed and how results are looked at. This is one of the major foundations to a solid strategy that works.

What do you think? Tweet back at me or share your thoughts in the comments.

Dear Graduate, 

So you’ve done it. You’re finished with your finals, written all your papers and sent out your job applications and picked up your cap and gown. After almost 16 years or more in school, you see the light at the end of the tunnel, and as it creeps closer, you find yourself running faster and faster. For you, the real world and the experiences that come with it cannot come fast enough.

Graduation morning felt like yesterday for me. I remember waking up at about a quarter to seven that morning – the earliest I had probably gotten up in a long time, and walking down towards the student union from my apartment. It was one of the longest walks of my life, yet one of the shortest, and gave me the time and ability to reflect on the four years prior. With everything that I had done for myself in the time I had spent, I realized that I had come to regret nothing.  I hope the same applies for you as well. 

The experience of graduation in itself is surreal, from the putting on of the gown to hanging out with friends one last time to the pomp and circumstance of entering the graduation ceremony to a crowd of almost 15,000 people at my school – yours might be larger or smaller. As the names are read off of each graduating student you begin to realize how much has been accomplished and how much as been done, at least academically. Walking across the podium, you realize how many new doors have just been opened, among the many that just closed. It’s definitely a thrill in itself.

The sun will set tonight and you will call yourself a college graduate, something that in America, only 25% of people can claim. Tomorrow however, begins a new day – the day of the real world, and one that is not very kind and something that school never prepared for you. Amid writing all the papers, conducting all the lab work and staying up at night into the wee hours of the morning, college never prepares you for the work conflicts, social media fires and deadlines that you will experience in your first job out of college. Amid listening to all the great professors that you met in college, you were also never prepared for the traditions of the workplace, the push-backs on the new technologies you wish were implemented and the political bargaining that needs to be done. Alas, its all a challenge, and it will be a hard fought one too. 

But as your generation and every generation will do and discover, there will be prevailing winds and those winds will bring winds of change and winds of success. As the world will move forward, so will you, and you will help bring new, fresh ideas into the mix amid the old, tired and tried. 

So as you walk across that podium, look back and enjoy the successes behind you, but look forth to the challenges ahead. As a social media superstar, you have a lot waiting for you, and a lot of change to help bring forth.

Congratulations!

The Social Media Dude

In the traditional world of marketing, day-to-day activities are treated like a poker game – you never show your hand and you rarely if ever, reveal whom you are working with. If you do, it’s considered a near travesty and can cost you business because your competitors can poach your customers. 

The age of social media has taken competition and customer relations to the very next level. When customers complain over social media, especially over Twitter, everyone can see what is going on, and competition usually takes that moment to jump-in and pitch their alternative. 

The result of incidences like these are that brands have become a lot more protective of who their clients are, and try to keep them as hidden as possible. On Twitter, for example, companies can create private lists of those they care most about, and on Facebook, some brands opt for personal Facebook profiles instead of pages for added privacy when it comes to their brand. While both very strategic in nature, it doesn’t necessarily have to be this way.

The Confident Brand

Its obvious to say that if you are confident in your brand, you will sell it in the greatest confidence and want to show it off to everyone. No matter how many people complain about what you sell on social media, you’ll always know down inside that what you are selling is helpful, useful and meaningful to the lives of others. Furthermore, since brand recognition can be so powerful, its even more important to show off who your community is because its seen as a sign of success, and success perpetuates itself. 

Hiding oneself on social media is almost counter-intuitive to one’s brand image and strategy. To hide is almost to cower and equate oneself to fearing what the possibilities could be. A better alternative to the situation would be to instead enchant and show others why you are a company that is worth considering. Just as you would enchant someone through positive personality traits and good humor in real life, the same should be done over social media when building and maintaining a community. Showing that you aren’t fearful of others poaching your customers and that you are willing to be transparent will only help grow confidence inside and outside. 

What do you think? Share your comments with me below or tweet at me.

Today we salute our mothers for the great work that they have done raising us. For all the great things you do moms, Happy Mothers Day.