This makes you think, doesn't it? Social media counter

Found this counter made by Gary Hayes on personalizemedia.com.




It is an interesting counter based on the following:
20 hours of video uploaded every minute onto YouTube (source YouTube blog Aug 09)
Facebook 600k new members per day, and photos, videos per month, 700mill & 4 mill respectively (source Inside Facebook Feb 09)

Twitter 18 million new users per year & 4 million tweets sent daily (source TechCrunch Apr 09)
iPolicy UK – SMS messaging has a bright future (Aug 09)

900 000 blogs posts put up every day (source Technorati State of the Blogosphere 2008)

YouTube daily, 96 million videos watched, $1mill bandwidth costs (source Comscore Jul 06 !)
UPDATE: YouTube 1Billion watched per day SMH (2009)- counter updated!

Second Life 250k virtual goods made daily, text messages 1250 per second (source Linden Lab release Sep 09)

Money – $5.5 billion on virtual goods (casual & game worlds) even Facebooks gifts make $70 million annually (source Viximo Aug 09)

Flickr has 73 million visitors a month who upload 700 million photos (source Yahoo Mar 09)

Mobile social network subscribers – 92.5 million at the end of 2008, by end of 2013 rising to between 641.6-873.1 million or 132 mill annually (source Informa PDF)

SMS – Over 2.3 trillion messages will be sent across major markets worldwide in 2008 (source Everysingleoneofus sms statistics)

What Is A Social Media Expert?

How to import rss to twitter

So in another post I said something about that you can use twitter as an autobot to post news. Please people don't use this the wrong way. Because if you mis-use the import of rss within twitter you'll be seen as an spammer and you won't get a lot of followers. Believe me. Who wants to follow someone (thing) when they update every 4 minutes with the same type of messages?

If you are clear in your communication that the account which has te import function of rss and twitter is a news account, then this is a very usefull tool!

So let's get started!

There are a few tools to import RSS into your twitter account. Here is the way I do it.

1. Go to twitter and make sure your signed in with the account you want to import RSS to.

2. Go to this website and sign up. http://rss2twitter.com/ ( this one is still in Betá however it works fine ( Safari 4 on Mac OSX)

3. Make sure you get the confirmation e-mail and activate.

4. Add a twitter account by clicking on " add account" this will bring you to the twitter website where you need to click " Allow"

5. When your done twitter is connected with rss2twitter.

6. Click on "my feeds" and add a feed. Just follow the steps on the screen.

7. The bottom three optional options can be used as filter within your RSS feed. This way you can always add #marketing or #socialmedia for instance.

UPDATE: I also came across https://twitterfeed.com which basically does the same.

Hope it works for you guys.

Cheers.

How social is Social Media

Well we all know about social media. " Even my mum is on the Dutch social network Hyves ;)". When we talk about social media, we like to think of Twitter/Youtube/Facebook/Flickr or bebo. Well forget that last one.

For a lot of people in The Netherlands the social networks are pretty important. And are used daily. We poke each other on Facebook we scrap each other on Hyves, a lot of so called BN'ers famous dutch people have discovered Twitter, some free newspapers use Twitter to interact with their readers and well I go on for a long time. We are going social.

So here is my question. Why do companies find it hard to be social?

Come on.. Look at it. A lot and I mean a lot of companies try to be social. But instead of preparing a normal social media strategy they tend to just start a public profile on a social network and forget about it. Look at these "Dutch" Hyves one of sns-bank http://sns-fundcoach.hyves.nl/ or http://landal-greenparks.hyves.nl/ . The last one has potential but if you analyse the scraps you can see that there is absolutely no conversation. Instead you see a moderator(s) broadcast news/photo's and gadgets on a new channel. So why would I ever join one of these groups? To say that I had a fantastic time using their product? Give them compliments? Upload photo's so they finally have an update on their channel? What's in it for me?

Why do you even bother starting something 'social' when you don't make time to react? I see it happening so many times when companies don't even react on the @replies which I have sent on twitter. There is somebody who is receiving that. Isn't it a great fast way of communication between two parties? A way where you can easily solve a problem.

Another problem which I see starting social companies is that they want and expect instant results.

Social Networking takes time! I know about these success stories! But think about all the initiatives which have failed because there was no one who interacted with the campaign and where people just pulled the plug!

If you like to start something social on the web. Don't try to be like the big boys when you're not. Have patience, and be honoust about what you provide. You see a lot of companies which just spam everywhere to get some followers or members on their network. Come on, it's not a marketplace! I have 496 unread hyves mail of invitations for different hyves. I'll tell my vision on why people join a group in a different post". Really, your talking to people. Stop shouting and start thinking. I think you should simply start every channel with a different strategy.

For instance:

Twitter:

You can have a company channel, however what makes you interesting? I wouldn't want to follow updates of a hosting company. What do these guys have to say? Well, in this case I would say that they can use twitter as an Helpdesk. Let all the know that if they have a problem or question that they can easily ask it by tweeting it.

In this example you see that twitter is used as a Helpdesk. But there are millions of ways you can use it. Think of simple website/blog updates which can be just an autobot. Or think of the personal use of twitter.

Some people ask me for what I use Twitter. And since I don't have a company, am still a student, have some knowledge on social media and video and simply like sharing things. I tweet about:

• Workshops which I attend
• Remarkable and funny video's
• Interesting Re-tweets
• @ replies (reacting on other tweets)
• Good video tutorials
• In my opinion good blogposts
• And sometimes some spanish stuff "Mostly when I feel Spanish on a Friday night ;) "

And why do I do it? I made contacts through twitter. I follow stories on live events which I can't attend. I keep in contact with friends abroad. I use it as SMS with some of my friends. I have gotten a job through twitter.

And Indeed it does seems a bit frightning when you only have 4 followers. But what does a number say ? Exposure.. Maybe these 4 people can help you more than any other person in my followers list. If your interesting, you'll get your followers. It just takes time.

Seems like I needed to write down some of my frustrations..

Do wonder what you guys think about social media strategy.. Should there be one? Should you just start? Who's responsible for the job. IT?

Speaking Piano - Now with (somewhat decent) captions!

Like this video.. Wonder when there will be a speaking drumset.

A Million years ago.

I have thought a lot lately what to do with fulltimechris, It hasn't been full time lately and still I only want to post stuff which makes sense. However I did feel that I needed to share some things with you ever since I went sabbatical in January.

So how did my last 6 months go?

As you might know, I have been studying in Madrid at the Universidad Europea de Madrid. An university on which I did a lot of experience in the filming and advertising industry. I have mastered loads of effects in Final Cut Pro and learned a lot about managing a film production.

I have embedded my two best video's below this post.

Next to the studying I also gained a lot work experience at Orange Aria. I work for this company for over 1,5 years now and I still could do video production, social media intergration and blog building while I was in another country. This has been a great opportunity, and a good basic income to manage my social life in Madrid.

I have seen a lot of things in Madrid. Just like the last time I have been there (July, August '08) they just use social media in a different way than people use it in The Netherlands. Some sites like the Dutch Hyves and the Spanish Tuenti can be seen as a similar website. However the " little" differences in the websites make a big difference in the use of the 2.0 app.

Tuenti for example doesn't make it possible to "spy" on profiles with which you haven't connected. Hyves however is the biggest James Bond application in The Netherlands. A lot of people don't know how to switch on the " private profile" modus and hyves has become a symbol of your image. What photo's do I upload? Which " scraps" do I leave on my profile page. Do I say that I'm in a relationship? etc. etc.

The filter which other social networks have can be seen as a safe thing. Especially if you think that somebody with pedofile beards can see your daughters Hyves profile page. But doesn't it make social networking extremely fun as a teenager? At least I find it fantastic to see how my classmates of high school are doing and that I'm able to see with who they are connected etc.

Enough about this social networking, I can go on forever. I have ideas about producing a documentary from January 2010. I will update you guys on this blog about my progress on that. See this post as my return on the blogosphere. Although I have been doing a lot of videoblogging ;) " In Dutch "

Here are the video's I have been talking about.

My selfportrait

Videoclip - Do it Again

Sabbatical blogging

I had my first sabbatical. It has been the 2nd of December since my last blogpost ( what a shame). Last month has been a real crazy rollercoaster ride. I have been busy working with www.marketingfacts.nl where I have been active as a projectmanager, managing a team of Interactive Media students, like myself. 

Also my work at Orange Aria has been a real exciting experience. I have been involved in producing a new concept called Blogstars. We had a redesign which has been a great improvement on the website. check it out on www.blogstars.nl. 

And of course! I have been preparing my 6 months Madrid safari. Mainly finding a home for the next period. I managed to get a room in a student flat based around 40 meters from Plaza Mayor. =D.

So what will I be doing now? 

Some people may know that yesterday I arrived in the wonderful city of Madrid. I am in Spain to study as an Erasmus student. In a few hours I'll be getting a tour on the campuss which is located in Villaviciosa de Odon. Really exciting! 

Next to all the studying, I will continue my work for Orange Aria. I'll be mainly focussing on www.blogstars.nl , on which I also will have an account. There I will gather blogposts, video's and podcasts in a blogstar environment.

I hope to have this ready in the coming weekend. I'll update you guys about that once I have dealed with it. 

My next challenge is to get a montly ticket for the public transport, my spanish is not that good, but I think I'll be able to manage to do this. 

Hasta luego!