GOOD DEEDS THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA

 If you've been reading my blog, you might notice that I never actually mention facebook specifically as one of blog topics. Reason? Well, I believe facebook is something we are more familiar with, compare to other social media tools like Twitter or Skype. Many bloggers would probably have blogged so many things about them, all the how tos, what they can do etc etc.


On the other hand, I want to blog about something that most of us might have overlooked. Nowadays, social medias have become most people's daily activities (well, at least for me, I know some of you too), some even hourly activities LOL. We interact with each other, with businesses, buy and sell things online, some people might even got rich because of it!


However, what we don't pay attention to much is how we can "GIVE" through our daily social media usages...


Many not for profit organisations have implemented social media as their strategic tool, and been very successful, of course some fail. So I wanted to blog about those cool campaigns I found that I like for this blog : )


1. Social Vibe

What Social Vibe can do is that, they donate money they can raise to whatever charity you want the money to go to. What you can do is participate is a "branded activities" such as facebook questionnaires, surveys etc etc.Through facebook apps, your friends can participate and earn points which turn to donations to your selected charity! 

2. Global Work Party

This one is very cool indeed, some of the big not for profit organisations may probably have used it.

This Global Work Party deals with global warming,  They have approximately 4,400 people in around 173 countries who have registered to this project to help with climate change, whether it be using bicycles instead of cars, less AC, plant more trees etc etc to help reduce CO2 and everywhere there's a project, the map will mark the point where it happened

3. Twitchange

Twitchange is the "first-ever celebrity auction", remember following celebrities around using Twitter? This is actually done on eBay, pretty clever, celebrities can tweet about what they offer, whether it be, following the person who have the highest bid for a period of time, retweet his/her tweets. At the time all the money went to aHomeInHaiti.org. 


One of the example (Quoted from the source)

The Justin Bieber Mega Package, described thusly, “Justin Bieber will follow you on Twitter for a minimum of 90 days, will retweet one of your tweets and will send out a tweet including your @twitterhandle,” is already up to $2,325.00 and 62 bids.

Pretty cool right? 

See? Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, eBay, all of these are actually tools that we use in our daily lives, see what we can do to "GIVE" to others? 

Well then, hope you like these campaigns. If you want to see more information, check out my sources.

Sources:

http://mashable.com/2010/09/22/support-cause-social-network/

http://www.350.org/en/map

http://mashable.com/2010/09/15/celebrity-twitter-charity/

http://mashable.com/2010/09/30/creative-social-good-campaigns/

: )

WHEN WE LOVE TO BE SOCIAL BUT IT CAN ALSO MAKE US UNSOCIAL.

From my last post, it was about the popularity with iPhone, and how we love to stay connected. So, I found this video, it's actually a Thai ad. Pretty interesting and touchy from my point of view.


One of my friend actually uploaded this video before, but I'd like to write more about this so I think I might as well do one blog about the topic of how when we become so social, it can make us unsocial sometimes.









What do you think about the video? By the way, in the end the ad said something like "Reasonable usage should be enough"


I was like "TOUCHE"


So I've done some further research on "how social media can make us unsocial sometimes" and I found a very interesting article.


Social media is local and global at the same time, it gave us possibilities and opportunities to get out there and be social. In many ways, how we use social media, how we stay connected, it obviously make us more socially active. For example, someone who most of the time love to hide themselves comfortably behind their computer screens, live with cellphones and internet, social media allow them to stay connected to the outside world.


Social media and the internet give us the opportunity to break barriers, allow us to interact and share ideas. Thus, I think interactions and sharing points of views are major advantage of why they exist. People share more information than they do before they exist, and faster too. Expressions become easier, for example, facebook status allow us to understand more about people we connect with or how we don't need to be afraid of those awkward moments if we want to say hi to a friend we haven't talk with for a while. In many cases, we get to know more people, we expand our circle of people we know.


On the other hand, because it is easier for us to connect, share ideas, interact etc etc. The downside of it is that, conflicts and obsession are unavoidable. So...Where's the point of too much? When there's issues about privacy, parents concerned on their child browsing through lots of inappropriate stuffs on the internet.


The article also found that, some people consider that people share more information than they interact, for example, posting a clip on someone's wall is consider information sharing not interaction. Or in the end, it can seem that when you know someone, the person they are online are totally different when you meet face-to-face.


Anyhow, in the end it's depends on what people think. For me, I would say, I love how they existed. And I know when to use and when to not. I've seen some people obsessions over facebook games, applications. As long as we know how to make the best of it. I think it's more than useful, it keeps us connected and that's important.








: ) hope you like the post




Source: http://outerorbit.blogspot.com/2010/10/does-social-media-make-you-unsocial.html

WE LOVE TO STAY CONNECTED.

Nowadays, walking around anywhere, you will see people txting, calling each other, or facebooking, tweeting etc etc etc, using their mobile phones. Some of the terms that we might be familiar with 

"I'll *txt* you tonight", "what's your BB pin?", "hey! have you download that new app?". 

See how we love to stay connected much? How we see the importance of mobile phone these days. It keeps us connect to each other, allow us to be updated with the world around us.

iPhone is one of my favourite smartphones. So, I've found some interesting stats on the popularity of iPhone, US stats though, but it still shows us how popular it is. So I think I should share these with you guys : )

What do you think?

When I saw this I was like "wow...."

Next blog is one of the blog I look forward to write about it.

Hope you also find this interesting. By the way, there's also a Bigger Version here.

Source: Mashable

SKYPE BLOG No.2: Make the best of it!

Many businesses found it very difficult to connect to clients, especially when they are international clients. Businesses need to worry about time differences, languages, or even traditions. Well, you might want to try skype. Most people know that Skype existed but they might not know how to make the best of it. Skype is actually a very useful tools for businesses if they know how to utilise it effectively.

Generally, just like other tools, it provide users with chat features, file transfer, making calls, video calls. Thus, all of the general features offer businesses useful tools that they can use. Therefore, there are some tips that I found that would pretty much help all those businesses make the best use of skype!

Do you know that Skype have Screen Sharing features?

Yes! they have Screen sharing feature, so in another word, when you are video calling, you can share your computer screen with another person whom you are talking to on the other side! By just right click and click "Share your screen"

How about Skype Extras? Just like other similar tools, Skype offer many plug-ins that users can download for example, call recorder, voicemail features etc. Some of the plug-ins also will ease your business when you seriously need team conferences. 

Skype also has Call forwarding! users can set up call forwarding feature on their skype, which you can set it to forward calls from your skype to your phone. Thus, this can easily be set up in "Tools" menu.

Sneaky on your employees much?Ok, there might be other use to it as well... this is obviously something you might want to consider, when there's no time, it's nearly deadline for the project! When you are overseas and suddenly you need to check out something at the office? Users can create two skype accounts and set one of the account as auto-answer any calls coming in and set it to start video calling automatically, then you can see what's going on.

Note that, this won't work if one of the account is not online... : ) 

The last tip is obviously something any businesses might want to consider, Skype = customer service tool? There's a feature called "Skype button" which allows customers to contact your company easily, and you can make this a customer support number!

Remember that this obviously help reduce a whole lot of costs. Hope you enjoy all these tips to enhance your Skype experiences. 

Next blog coming soon : )

sources:

http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/technology/article/5-tips-for-utilizing-skype-for-business-ben-parr

http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/technology/article/6-ways-to-manage-international-relationships-online-zachary-sniderman

http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/technology/article/how-to-use-skype-for-business-communications-adam-ostrow

When Skype is coming to town!

Today's Blog = Skype

Skype Limited (partly owned by eBay) who provides a software that allow users to call each other using the internet. Which it can be used not only on PC, but also by phone, cellphone, and users can use skype to call landline as well at a cheaper rate. And, if you call PC via PC using skype, I'm pretty sure that video call is possible and it's free.

Although, skype is no doubt, a very convenient tool for us (especially international student like myself) to talk with our friends, or talk to our family overseas without having to pay as much as calling on the phone (unless your internet is very bad, you might prefer using the phone).

However, is skype useful for businesses at all?

As clever as any other social media tool, Skype executives found a way to attract business customers with offerings that they reckoned business customers would be willing to pay to use their services. So their offer came in packages which is similar to normal services but with extra to the package such as video conferencing, businesses directories etc.


Skype offer business what's called "Skype Manager" which is a business control panel that allow users to manager numbers, employees and accounts in one place. Thus, this helps businesses reduce costs and also by using this businesses do not need to use complicated phone systems which are difficult to manage.


Common way that I saw small businesses use skype with their businesses is how they use it to recruit the most suitable employee for their business. By using skype they can reduce costs  of having to call so many candidate and make appointment with them etc etc. With skype they can do interview online! So if you actually search in google or youtube, I'm sure there are many interesting interview clips to watch : )


If you are interested in what Skype could do for biz, check out this link, there's video on Skype manager!


Skype Manager Video



But! the more exciting thing is that, there's a rumour going around that there might be partnership happening with Facebook and Skype.


Think what if that really happens! : ) OK, so if that happens, we would be able to connect directly with our friends and family using facebook via skype services (sms, call, video call, straight on facebook!) or we could log into skype using facebook accounts which is very convenience to those who do not have skype account. Imagine businesses talking directly with customers as now they are actually interacting with their customers on facebook already!


Skype can totally expand their users circle and what more can we not love about Facebook? (Oops! except this might bring up a bit of new-old privacy issues? who know), but for me it would be great, as not many people love facebook chat features, at least I don't.


So let's see what happens between these two! Next blog coming soon on how small biz can effectively utilise skype as their strategic tool!'




Thanks for reading : )




Source:


- http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/buyersguide/article.php/3816716/The-Pros-and-Cons-of-Skype-for-Business.htm
- http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10201830-92.html
- http://www.brighthub.com/office/collaboration/articles/6111.aspx#ixzz0xillW4VB
- http://news.cnet.com/2100-7352_3-5553053.html

How "energetic" can we get?

It's been a while, this blog would probably be another quick one.

As a student, I'm sure you are familiar with the word "assignment", and at this time of the semester...

Most of us are currently in "assignment crisis".

Anyhow, one of the assignment I need to do is an instructional video either about social media tool or how a brand uses social media.

Therefore, I and my friend Mr.Teacup, we paired up and decided to make a video about how "Red Bull" uses social media.

So below is the youtube link to the video. We'd really appreciate any feedback, comments, suggestions
: )

Or only if you view it and laugh...LOL....

I had fun making it, I'm sure Mr.Teacup did as well....(I hope).
Some of other interesting videos are now up on youtube,
which all were suppose to be related to e-marketing, which if you search youtube by "mkf3881" as keyword, I'm sure you'd find many of them very interesting.


Well, enjoy the video, another blog should be up soon

: )

Want some cheap eats? Hurry!

Hi All,

A bit late for this blog. It's nearly mid semester and things are heating up (assignments and life).

Anyhow, first thing after I got home, got into my facebook, and received a message in my FB inbox from MMSS which is my uni's marketing student society. 

The message was about this McDonald's which was just opened its new store near our university (East Malvern). One of my friend actually updated her blog about its grand opening 

Well, that's not the point, the point is that I followed the link in the message and came across this facebook Fanpage "The Pickle Club" that McDonald's just launched. And what the Pickle Club does is, they posted awesome deals on their page regularly or so and students who saw the deal can visit certain stores (this one is only for East Malvern, for now) and say the keywords and then you'll get the deal!!! but the deal is it's "One per customer per day."

Here are some of the examples of deals that were offered.

Source: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pickle-Club/147689095242742?v=wall&ref=ts

There was also a link from the info tab on their facebook page, so I checked it out.

It was http://www.kellycogroup.com.au/ and this page actually showed me what this Pickle Club idea is about. They were the company who own several McDonald's stores in Melbourne's suburban area. And they created the company so they can give back the community, for example hiring staffs in the area, give what they get to charity in the form of donations or sponsorships and so on.

What do you think?

The first time I saw it, I was like,,,hmmmm??

Do you think this will make more people go to East Malvern McDonald's and even though they didn't get the deal first, would they still buy something from there. 

Or

Do you think people won't bother trying to get the deal first at all.

Well, from my point of view, I'd want to try to be the first to get the deal sometime, you know....just for fun!

But in terms of marketing, I like it, I like the idea that they are making the use of social media, and also they are giving what they get back to the community or donate to charity. They not only use facebook though, they also have Twitter account that people can follow and get updates on great deals everyday.

Some of other businesses actually do this too, but mostly what I received are more formal deals which come in the form of e-mail. f=For example, Myer send me e-mail everytime there's a sale, Borders sometimes send me discount vouchers as well as Dominos Pizza.

Do you look at the deals you received from several businesses and have you ever used them? I tried Borders once, it was 5% discount on a book, and yea, simple as!

Anyhow, thanks MMSS for the message, I'd have to try it sometime.

P.S. have a great rest of the week, next blog coming soon!

It's a FAD so I'm doing it!?!

Actually, I wanted to blog about Klout. Which if you remember from my last blog, fanpagelist.com had this system called Klout to measure top brands on twitter. 


However, from the comments I received on my last blog, I want to take this opportunity to blog about the topic which was quite popular over the last few years; "Is Twitter a FAD?" which I think is a bit more interesting than Klout.


OK, so If you actually google "Twitter & Fad" together, there will be million of articles on it. I've read some of them, some I agree and some I don't but to blog about it I should be asking myself and I also want to ask you who read my blog. 


"What do you think, Is Twitter a fad?"


You are probably wondering what on earth I mean by a "fad"? If you don't know what a "fad" is. This is what Wikipedia said. 

A fad, is sometimes called a trend or even a craze about something

A fad becomes a fad, when a number of people start "doing it" and it then starts to increase rapidly. 

A fad is "the behaviour that will fade quickly once the perception of novelty is gone"

I remembered the first time I used twitter was because of my friend who told me what it can do. She said I can follow medias, celebrities, and other stuffs. So I gave it a try, but what makes me like Twitter was how I can keep up with the world not because I can follow celebrities. 

So I would say, if you think it's a fad, then it's a fad! I mean I agree and disagree. I can agree that it's a fad because, twitter have all those elements. By saying all those elements I mean the celebrity endorsements, following people here and there and lots of media are using it. So yeah, I believe that these elements are the influences why many people are using Twitter. 

However, I think that businesses that can find ways to appropriately utilise twitter within their companies are clever, regardless of whether they are using it because it's a fad or not. Many companies are now including twitter in their processes as a tool for communication, assign tasks throughout departments etc etc. I've seen it myself, the company I've interned for last summer used Twitter to communicate about the meeting, share ideas and experiences and lots of other activities.

By doing so, they can cut down some of the costs and companies can track activities of employees. Thus, this not only can benefit the companies on how they can interact with employees but what Twitter can give is more than that. Twitter allows company to know what customers are saying about them, whether they like or dislike their brand? It provides "direct" interaction between companies and customers. And if companies can find the right tool to measure and track customers, then it's easier for them to develop new products, new brands or even find potential target markets etc.

I came across this statistics which give some interesting insights.

• 23% of online customers read what's on twitter once a month and 11% do not own twitter account but are still reading the tweets.
• 20% of customers said they followed a brand of company so they could interact with them.
• One of the motivations why customers follow a brand of company on twitter is because they want to seek for more information from the brand and the company.

Source:Webpronews

However, many statistics have suggested that Twitter's popularity is fading (FAD?) and also have a very low retention rate. 

Source: Nielsenwire

Nielsenwire did a study on US Twitter's users and found that around 60% of the users do not return to use twitter the following month. 

I follow approximately 650 people on twitter which more than half are not tweeting anymore. I reckon that if companies do not create a regular habit to tweet, they risk loosing customers. If businesses are using twitter to interact with customers, therefore, your twitter account is somewhat similar to your customer services department.

Therefore, what do you think Twitter should improve? Do you think it will stay?

p.s. I didn't think it would be this long, therefore twitter list of interesting people to follow will be my top three only

1. @Mashable  - Tech new, lots of insightful statistics

2. @SocialNetDaily - all about social medias, lots of interesting articles

3. @Flipbooks - not only lots of RTs about social media news, but lots of good quotes and interesting stuffs like "7 reasons why you are addicted to twitter"

Enjoy! : )

When the blue bird "Tweets"!

Just last night Twitter has just reached its 20 Billion Tweets! which I've got the news from of course while browsing twitter.

Source: Mashable

Twitter has been around for quite some time, which some of you would've probably know what it is. Basically it provides social networking and microblogging services, which users can update "status" called "Tweets" online using what's similar to texting, which the Tweets can be written up to 140 characters (Wikipedia, accessed on Aug 1, 2010). Well, nowadays, Twitter is, I think, one of the essential social media tools that businesses should use.

From a little browsing, I came across this link Top Brand on Twitter, which measures brands that are using Twitter as one of their social media tools. The site measures the brands based on number of followers and also "influence" statistics (more about "influence statistics" next blog).

The Fanpagelist.com allow us to browse through all the brands that are using Facebook and Twitter (I will only mention twitter today), which the site also divided the brands into corporate and product brands. 

As you can see from the two pictures which I captured from the site, most brands that we are familiar with are now using Twitter as one of their tools to interact with their customers. One real life story I want to share which my housemate was the one who's experienced it. It showed how a brand/product can interact and create value with customer using Twitter.

My housemate was ordering Domino Pizza online, when the pizza arrived the toppings that she ordered were all wrong, so she tweeted @domino (yes, Domino Pizza is on Twitter!), which Domino responded very quickly and actually e-mailed her to apologise and they also told her that they will make sure the store that she ordered from is monitored so that they keep the service consistent. I mean, even though my housemate did not get the right topping, at least Domino took certain level of responsibility and apologise for the mistake.

As what I said before, other popular brands are now on Twitter, interacting with their customers such as Starbucks, Apple, Google. But from what we can see on the list, that as Twitter provides microblogging services, so many brands that made the top 10 are mostly "media-typed" brand such as CNN, Time Magazine etc, which these brands use Twitter to tweet the latest news to the world.

During this moment I'm typing, many new twitter accounts are being created, therefore, no doubt that Twitter should become one of the many tools that businesses should consider using!

P.S Hope you enjoy some small facts about Twitter in my blog and feel free to comment, suggest and follow me on twitter. Next blog, promise to have a list of people that are very interesting to follow on Twitter.

: )

Guess there's a first time for everything?!?

I actually wanted to greet using something better than 'Hi', but I guess it would come out pretty lame.


Anyhow, welcome to "It's The Ripple Effects", and my name is Ratchsi Wongphimonkit!
If you can look to your right hand, which that's my profile. "Ju" is what my friends call me and you can call me by this name as well, which I know, is a lot easier than my actual very long name.


This is not the first time I blog, I used to keep what I call an online diary, but then I stopped. So I guess, I found another reason to start blogging again. This subject I'm taking this semester MKF3881 - so called Electronic Marketing gave me a choice to choose between blogging and creating a video (about social media & e-marketing) and a marketing report. I've experienced the pain of doing so many reports in one semester, so this time, I decide to do something different. 


By the way, if you are curious about the name of the blog. Basically, the idea of the name of this blog came from my screen saver, which helps me link it together with how social media is. Think about it...social media create enormous ripple effects : )


Enough about me, this blog needs to be about e-marketing, therefore, first of all


This video I've attached is about social media revolution, it's pretty fun to watch! Some of you might have seen it already, but just like I said, it's fun to watch : )

Edited:

In case, if there's any tech difficulty. Here's a link for it instead:

Social Media Revolution 2010 Video










Hope you enjoy the video and feel free to comment, share the video, follow me on twitter etc.


 : )