How To Create Social Media Accounts

A client is taking the long term view of social media and making a brave and sensible step in encouraging all of their marketing people to get accounts on the main social media sites where they don't have them already, and to use them to engage on behalf of the organisation.  Accompanying this is training, coaching and policies and guidelines on how to use the various sites & tools.

We will be doing the training. The people attending will have been encouraged to set up their accounts beforehand.  We wish to offer them advice on what they should consider, before setting up the accounts on say Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, Foursquare, YouTube & Flickr.

My initial thoughts are below.  I'd be interested in your views - whether additions or corrections.

1. If you haven't seen the site you are signing up to before, take a look, see what people share, how they call themselves (usernames) and what images (avatars) they use to identify themselves.
2. What username do you want?  It makes sense, unless you have specific reasons to not want to do this, to have the same name on each social media domain? e.g. mine is nickodoherty on most sites.  But nowadays most common names have been taken.  Simple ways to create an identity that people will identify as you, but that are less likely to be taken are: 
   1. Replace letters by numbers in your name. So my user-id on most sites is nickodoherty, but I could replace i by 1, and o by 0 and come up with n1ck0d0herty. Replacing e by 3, s by 5 also work. 
   2. Use a phrase with your name e.g. nickthebeekeeper or kentishnick. 
   3. Embed your name in other letters e.g. xxnickodxx.  
   4. There are still many ways you can include your real name in a user-id.  Or you can choose a complete pseudonym in e.g. pinknebulae, drybeer. goforth 
   5. In all cases keeping the user name: short - less than ten characters ideally; long lasting - something that you won't quickly outgrow and want to change; and hard to spell wrong. 
   6. Practical implications are: a)  that you may want to have the account setup screens for each site open in separate windows and get to the point of finding whether a username is available on each of them before commiting on any. 
   7. Having chosen a preferred username are there acceptable variants, if for instance the preferred names is available on all but one site e.g. in my case  I might accept a variant on that one site such as odohertynick, n1ckodoherty, nickpodoherty
3. What avatar or physical representation do you want to have?  In some cases, like LinkedIn a photo is recommended but not demanded.  Something that people who know you will associate with you is sensible, say a chess piece if you are a chess player.  My business partner Cormac uses this avatar, but has started using a photo with avatar embedded on sites or in situations where a photo makes sense.
   
4. If you have a work email and a home email it might be an idea to set up a separate email account for social media domains because:
   
   1. the volume of stuff that might come through depending on your account settings might be annoying in the other email accounts.
   2. some sites e.g. Flickr demand that you sign in with a Yahoo id, Facebook or a Google account.  If you don't have any of these, it will offer to set you up with a Yahoo id (email account) which you don't have to use for email but will have to use to sign in to Flickr in the future.
      
   3. If you are going to have an additional email account because of Flickr, then it might be better to make a conscious choice between Yahoo and Google.  I wouldn't advise on using Facebook ids to sign into other social media domains until the current situation on Timelines and "forced sharing" is better understood.  I have both a Yahoo id and a Google account, and the Yahoo id is the email address for my Google account.  Strange and with forethought I might have done differently, but it works.
      
5. Order of setting up accounts: if you do not have a Google account, you will need one for Google+, and can use it to sign into Flickr, it can be based on a Google email address (Google email account is separate from Google account) any other email account.  So the initial decision is really about whether you want a separate email account for social media. Once you have decided, I'd suggest setting up a Google account 
6. Most social media accounts request a small biography have a look to see what others have provided and having something prepared that you can cut an paste in.  Keep it short.
7. On some sites you will be asked to make initial decisions about how your posts will be treated.  If in doubt, choose the most restrictive to begin with.  So on Flickr, you can make the photos you share there available for all to see, or friends to see or just you to see.  You can relatively easily change this decision later. So why not start with friends as the default.
8. In most cases on starting a new account with these sites, the site asks if it can look through your address book for friends who are already there. It is safe to say yes, the sites above do not automatically request a connection. You have the final say. It is always useful to have a few people as "friends" or "connections" or "in circles" just to see how that aspect of it works from the beginning - so we will be recommending to our client contact that he makes his accounts availabel in this way for the first week of this activity.
9. For more information on setting up accounts on these sites, look here
   1. Creating a Google account Youtube video
   2. Facebook  Youtube video
   3. Twitter  Youtube video
   4. LinkedIn Blogpost
   5. Google+  Youtube video
   6. YouTube  Youtube video
   7. Flickr  - Youtube videos

How To Change Facebook Notification Settings, Privacy Settings And An Overview Of The New Facebook

Facebook has launched its first radical new redesign since 2009 and this time they are not giving users an opportunity to revert to the old version.

I have written in the past asking what is Facebook going to do about tackling Google+. I guess this is their first shot. Let's look at the new functionality:

Image by Photo ExtremistNotifications

Facebook have made a bit of a balls up here in that they have automatically chosen for everyone who got notications for everything that that was maybe a bit too much and have changed their setting to just receive "important" notifications. (Important in Facebook's eyes include birthdays and when someone tags or mentions you. It is this prescriptive behaviour (along with their terms and conditions, the changing of their privacy settings and Mark Zuckerberg in general) that have made Facebook a hate figure over the years.

To change your notication settings simply click the triange beside Home / Account Settings / Notifications (located on left hand side). Then just change your settings how you wish. 

Since you are doing this  I strongly advise you have a look at your Privacy Settings. Why? If your posts are public anyone can see when you have been calling your boss and asshole. To change your Privacy Settings simply click the triange beside Home / Privacy Settings / Control Your Default Privacy (located half way down the page). You should set this to Friends as a minimum I suggest. Depends of course how you use Facebook. 

Rolling Ticker

Facebook seem to be adopting the style of Twitter by having a rolling ticker on the right hand side that shows the latest updates from your network. By mousing over the content you can get more detail in a pop up. Already there have been complaints that this is distracting and there is no way of turning it off.

Top Stories Since Your Last Visit, Recent Stories and Subscriptions

In true social media fashion I asked Facebook what this was about and Igor got back with this:

You can click on the down arrow on the top right of every Top Story and unmark them as Top. That will start arranging them by time again, but it STILL has 'Recent' at the top, and then 'From Earlier' lower down, so overall the stories are not truly in time order. Also this subscriptions has been rolled out with no warning or explanation. I started subscribing to some friends because it said I was only subscribed to 'most updates' but it's all bullshit it turns out - you will still see all updates from friends as usual, it's more for controlling subscriptions to people you're NOT friends with, and are in effect following, like celebs on Twitter. I think FB could split user's actions into what they are reading, listening and watching, and you could then follow some people's tastes. E.g. I'd like to know what Nick is reading, but not what he's listening to. ~ Igor, via Facebook

Lists

Lists is the biggest sign in this release that Facebook are being on the defensive of Google+ by mimicking Circles. It can be found on the left hand side. I

Spotify

Zuckerberg has recently said that he is looking to go for "real time serendipity". What he means by this is that I can see that Nick is listening to something on Spotify via the ticker, so then I can click and listen to the same thing. 

Down the line is Timeline where you can post information in your past so users will be able to scroll through your  history until your birth - sounds a bit like a visual wikipedia entry. 

Facebook currently boasts 800 million users, most of whom are active - recently it clocked 500million users in one day!

Facebook seems to have played a defensive move again in order to consume the lion's share of the world's social networkers. It looks to be reacting and actually overreacting. Is it all really necessary?

Facebook Changes Its Policy - Just As We Predicted!

Image by FeuilluLast week I wrote a Beginner's Guide To Google Plus. I highlighted where I felt Google had got it right over Facebook and posed the question, "How much of this will Facebook copy?". Well it seems as though they are on the path of functional imitation by having changed the way in which you can share your content on Facebook.

I don't think it's a bad thing that Facebook is doing this. I guess my gripe, along with many other people's, is why does it take a giant like Google to make Facebook change it's ways? At least we have Google eh?

Here's is an overview of Facebook's new policy changes.

I'm dying to know how long will it be before they come up with their own circles idea!

Beginner's Corner: Google Plus

Google+ (or Google Plus or G+) is the tool that has been widely tipped for taking the fight to Facebook. Many believe that Facebook is unassailable but it can't be a bad thing that something is being considered a contender.

Google+ is a "project" rich in functionality, clean with its design, as well as being a bit more "plain English" about its privacy settings. It addresses the issue that you own your own data. For now I will focus on the functionality.

In a nutshell 

• G+ is more conversation-friendly than Twitter - for those of us that don't like to clutter up others' Twitter streams. 
• It's more flexible in what you can and don't want to share than Facebook.
• It's not like LinkedIn, which is a great tool, but more to do with your job and therefore (arguably less conversation-inducing).
• I think there will be people that won't move from FB but I can see me using G+ more than Twitter. Time will tell.

OK, in more detail...

Circles

Basically you add people to circles that you name. You then share stuff with the audience that you want to share it with. Most of the people in my networks are in circles named friends and social business. A criticism of Facebook is that generally you share content with everyone. You can adjust this in Facebook but G+ Circles makes it easier for this functionality to take place. 

Another way of sharing information is by typing in someone's name. Then you can have a one on one conversation with them. Yes you can do this with Facebook but with G+ it's just easier, and neater.

Verdict: Excellent way of managing your conversations. Expect Facebook to come up with something like it soon.

Hangouts

This has been touted as the "killer app". Basically it enables you to have many way video conversations. I have experimented with Hangouts with just two other people.  I noticed that when it performed ok with one-on-one conversation but once someone else was added to the mix all three of us suffered in terms of latency of audio and video.

Verdict: Seems like the idea is better than the reality of what normal folks' bandwidth can handle right now. Will be great one day.

Sparks

Two ways of using Sparks. One is to browse the offerings - this is a bit like StumbleUpon i.e. a way of serendipitously coming across content that you may or may not have come across before. The second is to search for something and then save the interest.

Verdict: Great way of using persistent search if don't have an RSS reader.

Huddles

A way of using texting in a chatroom on your G+ phone app. Again you can choose your audience via circles or peoples' names. Useful for where the need for silent communication or lack of broadband is an issue.

Verdict: It's probably just G+ showing off though I will probably use it in the future and go "Ahhh! This is amazing." 

Plugins

Expect to see many plugins popping up around the place. Here's one that I fell in love with, it's an  RSS Share for Google Plus™ and Google Reader™. 

Verdict: I have noticed lately that I am getting my information less and less from my RSS reader and more from Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. This I think will force me to clean out my RSS reader and use it more for following the blogs I am really interested in. The news will still come via the other sources.

Closing

Google+ solves a problem I thought I had a few years ago which was: How could I really let loose in the same networking site of my uni friends as with my aunt, or niece. (I've since fixed that problem by moderating myself as well as getting over myself at the same time.) It is great however that you can have that sense of privacy between certain networks. 

I am really excited by G+ but I know that there are those who will never leave Facebook for this. I do think that it will be more popular than Google's previous attempts have been e.g. Google Buzz.

I am left wondering many things:

• Where will Google+ go from here?
• How much of this will Facebook copy?
• Will this kill... Twitter?!
• How long will it be before copycat tools like this are used in the corporate world?
• How long before smaller organisations start using this?
• How long will it be before the corporate world realise Google+ being used to get work done?

Recommended Links

How to use Google+

http://www.recommendedusers.com/

Google+ Cheat Sheet

Facebook To Be Destroyed On 5th November

Hacker group Anonymous has released a video saying that they will “kill Facebook” on November 5, giving users’ lack of choice in privacy as its reason for the attack.

Is this possible? Probably. Is this likely? Possibly. Is it the right thing to do? I don't think it is.

Personally I think killing something you don't own is worse than any passing on any information that Facebook may or may not be doing. If you have issues with people knowing stuff about you, don't put it online.

Euan Semple posted this image on his blog recently:

Image by David Makes

I love it. Euan once told me, "I'd don't put anything on the web that I wouldn't want everyone to know." That's stuck with me, particularly since having grown up in Northern Ireland where my father once advised me, "Never say anything on the phone that you would never be prepared to say to a police officer." 

So what would happen if Facebook were to be killed off? Users would probably flock to Google+ and Twitter. Would they then be the targets by other hacktivist groups? What would also happen is that many people would lose their livelihoods. Killing off those jobs is a greater crime I reckon. What do you think?

It may or may not happen. It could just be Anonymous' way of getting you to think more about your privacy settings. Or it could be their way of promoting their group. I should say add that there seems to be cracks in the community. Yesterday @anonops tweeted: "#OpFacebook is being organised by some Anons. This does not necessarily mean that all of #Anonymous agrees with it."

If you Facebook is going to be killed off what are you going to do about it?

How Does China Use The Internet?

I have just returned from having spent 30 days in Jinan in Shandong, China. This was my third trip there and my first proper one with my business hat on. My wife is Chinese and I realise that I will be heading east possibly every year for the rest of my life, so it makes sense for me to try and get some work whilst I am out there.

Besides introducing my newly born son to his Chinese grandparents (and great grandparents) this trip was mostly about fact finding. I wanted to learn about how the Chinese use the web and work out what service I could be to some of the 1.3 billion inhabitants.

That's a lot of people. You would have thought that they are heavy web users and that everyone is climbing over everyone to get their website in front of their client. But no. It seems as though the web is ignored by many organisations that are not international.

My father-in-law runs a pretty successful decorating business and his clients seem to be high payers. I asked him if he saw his industry or his competition changing with the web. "No. The web has not affected my work at all" he explained. When I probed a bit further I discovered that he gets his work by having a network of clients who know and trust him and they know the quality of his work. Usually they invite him out for dinner and agree the work to be done and for what price.

It seems a bit old school to me. I was thinking that maybe Jinan is not the most advanced place in terms of technology then I read the story on the BBC News website about hackers in China compromising personal e-mail accounts of hundreds of top US officials, military personnel and journalists. A wry smile came across my lips when I read that the supposed hackers were based in Jinan! (I should note that the Chinese government has said that it was nothing to do with them and if such an thing happened it would have been down to some opportunists.) 

Looking at China from the West there seems to be elements of sympathy, snobbishness and maybe even paranoia directed towards it which I will now try to uncover as being unfounded.

The hackers in Jinan prove that technologically the Chinese can cut it so no need for the technical snobbery.

The sympathy I refer to is due to the "The Great Firewall Of China" which doesn't allow sites like Facebook nor Twitter to exist. I argue why should the Chinese let these Western site subsume the Chinese social networkers? It could be argued as patronising that us westerners think that the Chinese could be missing out on something by not having our social websites. Let me tell you that the Chinese are doing very well without Facebook thank you very much.

Renren is my wife's social website of choice. She tells me often how it is far superior as the culture of it is much more open. People are much more willing to share much more in her Renren network than in her Facebook account. People use Renren to effectively blog. And these blog entries are long. Very long. 

Besides Facebook isn't actually that blocked in China. I spoke up with an English lecturer from the Philipines living in Jinan who explained that she visits Facebook every day. She is able to use proxies to access Facebook no problem. She also explained that you can access any site "blocked" by the Great Firewall.

The paranoia issue of the West viewing China is a heavy one and to be honest I am not surprised some view China with some sense of suspicion. Suspicion usually derives from some factors combined: secrecy,miscomprehension and misrepresentation being three main ones. China has all that - the Great Firewall of China fuels the secrecy and, because the Chinese language is so different to the Latin based languages, there is miscomprehension. The misrepresentation that goes on is unreal. It is amazing to hear news from BBC and then compare it to the reality of what is happening. I am not surprised that the West views China with some level of suspicion.

It is within the interests of the West to view China in such a manner. China is a huge economic threat. There is one political party so it means that no western governments can get influence the opposition as well as finance them. China is pretty impenetrable and it is on the way up economically whilst everyone else seems to continue to struggle. Also a lot of money is owed to China.

I digress.

I think China is largely behind the times in terms of everyday internet usage in business. I believe that it will be a matter of time before this changes. The internet is largely seen as this thing that the younger people use. It will be interesting to see how this develops over time. Whilst I realise I am in a priveleged position to be able to get an inside view I realise that my lens is small. I am interested to hear your views on how China uses the web. Where do you see it going?

What Would You Want From A £20 A Year Facebook

If you were to pay £20 a year, for your Facebook service what would you want for the money? This follows on from an earlier post where the figure of £20 is at least partially justified.

1. ability to export all your content, in a format that enabled you put it elsewhere easily (supposes there is somewhere else)
Flickr image by animm
2. control over what third party apps can use of your content and what they can do - e.g. post to your wall, post to friends' walls (too often the app asks for rights to do everything but needs very little).  This is a more subtle requirement, in theory you have this control now.  You can refuse them access.  But this requirement is really for Facebook to push back on the apps and ask why do you need x,y, z and make them justify and articulate it.
3. control over whether you get adverts on your pages, if so what adverts, and the ability to ban specific companies from advertising on your page
4. precise control over how your photos can be shared or used - a scheme like Flickr's with creative commons should be fine
5. ability to interact, via Facebook, with people belonging to other networks

What else?

How Much Is Facebook Worth (To You)

And how much are you worth to Facebook?

A number of  IPOs (flotations on stock market) of social media companies have taken place recently, like LinkedIn and Pandora and more are planned - the big one being Facebook in 6 months time?  Facebook is currently valued at over $100billion!  No doubt only a portion will be floated.  

flickr image by Luis_MendozaSome social media commentators are asking will the social media company valuations follow the same path as the earlier internet companies and  burst like the dot com bubble?  If so, what will be the consequence?  Our man on the China desk, Cormac, says this has happened already with Renren, a Chinese language equivalent to Facebook floated on the US stockmarket at $14 a share two weeks ago, rose to $18 and then fell back below $8 a share a week later.  Some will claim that such a bubble burst will be the end of social media as a  phenomenon but the experience of the dot com bubble should put such a revision of pricing in context.  Amazon and Lastminute.com were both impacted by the dot com bubble bursting, but both had sound business models and provided for a real need – and have survived and prospered. 

Perhaps the bigger question is how long are we willing to not pay for the services provided by these companies?  As observed a year ago "if you're not paying for something, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold".  Facebook's valuation is presumably based on the products that they are selling, that is, us.  With 500 million users and a valuation of $100 billion it seems that each one of us is worth $200 to Facebook.  This is for the information we give them, the rights to use our photos, the advertising revenue they can get from third parties, who use the information we provided, to target us, and perhaps to use our photos as part of their advertising.

How much would we have to pay Facebook to compensate them for the expected loss of earnings from advertising, using our information etc?  $20-$30 a year?  £25 a year?  I pay about £15 a year for my Flickr service.  I would pay £25 a year for complete control of my Facebook account and information.  Maybe younger people and people from poorer countries would not be willing or able?

But looked at this way maybe the valuation of Facebook is not so stupid?

Twitter, Facebook, Courts And The UK

Twitter and Facebook have both featured in court actions involving UK citizens recently.

Facebook because JoanneFraill, a British juror, used it to correspond with a defendant in an ongoing court case.  The fact that it was done on Facebook is almost incidental and makes the news because it is the first reported time Facebook has been used by people conspiring to derail British justice, and threaten our jury system in this way.

Flickr image by John LinwoodTwitter's involvement with the British justice system has been more interesting.  In the first instance, a British court asked Twitter to name the individuals who had broken the super injunction against Ryan Giggs.  Twitter quietly ignored the request.  Not unreasonably as  its terms of service say "All claims, legal proceedings or litigation arising in connection with the Services will be brought solely in San Francisco County, California, and you consent to the jurisdiction of and venue in such courts and waive any objection as to inconvenient forum."  Ryan Giggs could I suppose claim, if he doesn't tweet, that he had not agreed to these terms, but they seem a fairly big statement of Twitter's intent when it comes to court action.  And there may have been another reason why Mr Giggs' lawyers advised against travelling to California.

Another court case did take place in California.  South Tyneside council asked for the names of people behind Twitter accounts that they claimed had slandered their councillors and staff. I think that the basis of the court action was that the parties involved wanted to sue for slander and couldn't until they knew who to sue. So the US court instructed Twitter to hand over the names.  Twitter as is its avowed intent, asked the potentially defending party if they wanted to contest the initial court action requesting their name.  They declined, possibly on grounds of expense.  (South Tyneside paid £250,000 to get the name in question so contesting would presumably have risked costing this and more.)

This seems a strong indicator of how US based social media companies will behave in future - working with US courts but ignoring others.  This plays well for freedom of speech as the US courts value this more so than British courts.  Ryan Giggs' lawyers could probably have got the names of the injunction breakers by going to the Californian court, but would have had to admitted in court that injunction breakers were correct to name him.  

One unsurprising lesson to be learned from this is that social media companies are not going to protect your anonymity against all comers. So if you want to whistleblow but would prefer to be an anonymous hero rather than a named martyr, selective use of internet cafes, once only email accounts and short term Twitter accounts would seem sensible.

Facebook: Privacy and Educational Issues

Privacy and educational issues arise again around Facebook as 12 & 13 year old students use Facebook posts to accuse their teacher of being a paedophile, and more. 

Flickr image by _Max-BSome of the 15 students who commented in similar vein have been suspended for a few days and two have been offered a choice of expulsion or appearing before an educational tribunal, where harsher penalties can be handed down.  If the terminology is unfamiliar it is because it happened in the USA.

Most commentaries I've seen suggest the punishment is harsh.  The pupils admitted they had acted stupidly and offered to apologise.   It seems that unless the Tribunal offers a lesser punishment than the alternative offered the parents will seek supporters to provide  money to take further action.

Constitutional law experts in the States say that if the students were older real legal issues would have to be untangled but because of their age, most courts would throw out any action against the children as "hyperbole"!.

One of the main issues this story surfaces is: Is posting on Facebook the same as publishing?  UK courts say posting on Twitter is publishing  - because unless you have a closed account, you are making your tweets available to anyone.  Facebook is diferent, and if you use the privacy features to limit your posts to being viewed only by friends, and if you are selective with your friends (and don't have hundreds) then you could, perhaps naively, claim that you are not putting this information into the public domain. 

For me the main questions that the story raises are?

• When are we going to prepare children for the sometimes harsh realities of life that accompany the fun of social networking.
• Who is going to do it?  Is it the role of parents or teachers or others?

I'd welcome your opinions.