How To Social Network

Oriental Business and Social Media

There are more than 100,000,000 users of social media in China and the number will continue to grow. However, many are jittery about the possible Chinese government reaction on the popularity of the social sites. In one news website, the Chinese government seems to appreciate the social media because such sites are good and efficient places for the state governments to disseminate information to the people and to gather information from party members. There is also another site showing concerns about rumour mongering and its possible effect on the stability of the nation.

The Chinese government always had a tight grip on the information released to the public. Rumour mongering and online activism are two activities which worry some officials. In a nation where the media is controlled by the government, the social media websites might have a problem in the future in the event that activism will become full scale. Of course, certain Chinese officials are aware of the population uprisings in the Arab world and the role of social media in those uprisings. According to a writer at CNN.com, the hot and cold approach probably reflects Beijing lack of understanding of the power of social media followed by its growing level of comfort as it realizes the medium’s potential as a valuable and also controllable tool to understand and access public concerns.

How about ecommerce through the social media? In communist China, if earning profits make you happy, you need to seek permission from the government. The state will have to say whether you can earn profits or not. Doing business is heavily regulated and doing so without the necessary business permits is considered a very high crime. In the United States and other Western country, trading online or exchanging goods is so easy and one does not have to seek a permit before he can engage in business. According to Western tradition, doing business is part of one’s right to pursue happiness. The story is different in China because one must consider the common good before he can start business. He has to pass through the committees and the bureaucracy to determine his fitness as a businessman and to determine whether his goods/services benefit all. As you can see, there is a slim chance for a social networking business to flourish in China.

How about Twitter and Facebook.com? According to a contributor at forbes.com, the two social networking giants cannot succeed in China because of the heavy regulations imposed. The two major sources of revenues for Facebook.com and Twitter are advertisements and online gambling – these two are heavily regulated. We are yet to see how the social networking giants can circumvent the problem or how they are going to comply with the strict requirements of the Chinese government.

We predict that the social networking empire will continue to grow and adapt to the unique Chinese way. Doing business online is easy in the Western world but there are challenges faced in China because of the prevailing economic philosophy. As predict that the economic philosophy will die a natural death in China as the people will continue to see that the free market always results to the benefit of the general welfare as correctly pointed out by Western philosophies centuries ago.

As China continues to open up, the result is also the freeing of more than one billion minds. These minds will add more to the general human knowledge. Besides, there might be new Chinese companies operating in the social networking realm.

References:

Edition.cnn.com
Forbes.com

Re-Understanding Technological Divide in Social Media Marketing

We are so used to hearing the word “technological divide” referring to the imaginary line dividing the people who know how to use the internet and those who don’t. In fact, there are hundreds of non-government agencies specializing in helping to so-called close the gap between those who don’t know and those who do. To better understand the errors of the proponents, we should clearly point one obvious item – technology is based on demand. If a certain population does not really need smart phones or mobile phones, why would you force the technology to them? Let’s take a look at applications. There are applications needed by drivers (GPS maps, traffic warning applications, voice texting app, etc), doctors (medical tables app, maps showing suppliers and practitioners, etc), lawyers (American jurisprudence app, legal dictionary app, etc) and even students (dating app, maps, free chat app etc). The application – the technology- gets popular in one group but the other group considers the same application as useless or worthless.

In the field of social media marketing, writers are again using the term technological divide to explain the lackluster marketing in some business sectors. The writers blame businessmen for not sharing information regarding social media marketing to their peers and colleagues. According to one website (internetmarketing.com), the internet community should devise ways and means so that such vital information is shared to the general public for the benefit of all concerned. However, information is not forced through conferences and seminars because the individual will naturally digest the information beneficial to him. If certain social media marketing is efficient to his business, he will do everything he can to learn the information and get every item he needs to study the technique.

Now, is there a social media divide and that an intervention is required? There is none. The notion of a “divide” was used in the olden days to explain economic differences or gaps between groups of people. What the early academicians forgot is that individuals have the final say whether they are going to avail of a technology or not. Social media marketing is proven useful in many fields – retail, travel, services etc. However, it has also limitations. In the arts and modeling industry for example, the image-intensive nature of the businesses makes many social networking systems irrelevant. For the artwork bidder, he needs a website or a specialized third party marketer to promote the auction or make the auction possible. Simply depending on the social networking sites for marketing purposes is not enough for those lines of businesses.

There is no intervention required to close the gap in the social media marketing divide. Let the businesses discover things on their own. An intervention will only create a nanny system. In fact, all the major website reviewers frown upon intervention. Social media marketing will evolve and it will eventually be replaced by something more sophisticated. All depends on the market and the presence of the demand. Now, the next time you hear the word “technological divide”, just ignore it and do not read the articles because they are simply rehash of some old arguments dating back in the 1980s.

References:

Heidicohen.com
Internetmarketinginc.com

Twitter’s Best: A Roundup

It still remains to be argued, over and over, on whether social media is a boon or a bane in today’s society. Thousands have experienced their lives scandalized, themselves subject to ridicule and even condemnation, owing to some post they did not even consider as serious when they were writing it. But that’s the power of social media nowadays, and that is why we are all so fascinated (one way or the other) by it.
You probably are from another planet, or has been in deep slumber for decades, if by now you have not heard of the micro-blogging platform called Twitter. It is also continually argued whether tweets have brought benefits or disadvantages to our society. Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that Twitter has played important roles in so many of our social and political issues of today.

As year-end is a time for lists and round-ups, it is time to appreciate the best of Twitter as pointed out in this post: Socialmediatoday.com

Screening Social Media Marketing Techniques

There are plenty of social media marketing techniques being mentioned, as well as practiced, in the internet. Creative writers label them using very creative names. However, one should be careful and should use his mind carefully before applying what has been suggested by a website. The availability of thousands of websites giving advices to website designers, website owners and bloggers is not an excuse for not considering carefully before using. If there are several soaps in front of you, you just don’t use it to clean your body without reading the contraindications. The same is true in choosing the right social media marketing techniques. Some advices were written not by experts but by laymen who are simply copying or revising earlier thoughts for purposes of search engine optimization. We estimate that up to 50% of material online regarding website design and website optimization is written by laymen for purpose of search engine optimization and not about giving the right advice to the people. Some so-called pieces of advice are mere rehash or summary of other previously created ones and as such there is a possibility that the person reading is not getting the bigger picture. Other websites are merely copiers for search engine optimization purposes. There are a lot of such websites online. The writers merely copy the articles written by the experts and insert some keywords to make the article appear original but the truth is that the article is more than two years old.

In choosing the right social media marketing techniques, we have some points for you to consider.

First, you have to determine when the article was posted. If the article was posted more than one year, then there is a possibility that the advice had been rendered insignificant due to the technological advances. If you are not sure about the date the article was originally written, you copy two sentences, paste them on a search engine box and search them.

Second, you also have to know the website where the article was posted. There are respected article sharing websites and third party sites. One can see plenty of information posted and displayed on such sites. However, there are also poor sites or those renegade websites. The markers are quite obvious – poor spelling, mixed up contents, zero comments, and comments obviously made up by maker of the article.

Third, try experimenting on the advice like making postings on Twitter or Facebook.com (socialmediatoday.com) to know whether such advice really worked. People or friends who tried the technique will surely make comments. They will either give positive or negative comments or posts depending on their experience. If they had a good experience with the technique or that the technique gave them what they want, then one can consider it as positive.

Fourth, choose advices found in websites with advertisements. The presence of advertisements means that the site visited by many of people and not just a handful of “maintenance workers”. Companies and individuals will not place advertisements in incompetent or lousy websites. These people will only place money or advertisement investments in websites rich with customers and plenty of viewers.

Sources:
icontact.com
Socialmediatoday.com