wallydownundy

In March a new Chief Executive will be elected for Hong Kong. Without direct representation, the election is limited to a select few representatives of a 1,200 strong Election Committee. Some are appointed and the remainder are elected from a pool of candidates into these roles. In this fashion there is indirect public participation in the choice of their leader.

Yet even with limited voter participation this election features old style electioneering and ribald politics. During recent Chinese New Year celebrations candidates made visits to temples and participated in community events. There’s even intrigue as two of the three candidates snubbed an invite by village association Heung Yee Kuk to an event this weekend. He is expected to endorse the one that showed up.

With all this politicking there’s one campaign tool missing - social media.

The USA presidential election in 2008 redefined the use of social media in politics. In today’s race for the Republican nomination candidates have unleashed an army of social media advisers to tap into established networks in communities across America. iContact released a study last week on how candidates use social media and how business can leverage the learning.

So how might the Hong Kong candidates learn? Let’s take Facebook. Below is the fan page for Mitt Romney with strong graphics, videos, information. And over 1.4 million fans.

Compare this to the Facebook page for CY Leung. He is the public favourite and has a strong web page. Yet on Facebook he has 489 fans. That’s not a typo. There are 489 people who “like” CY Leung on Facebook.

At first it makes you question the penetration of Facebook in Hong Kong. Yet according to Social Bakers there are 3.7 million registered users here - representing 53% of the total population. Local amusement centre Ocean park has 314,000 fans and is the most popular Facebook page for Hong Kong. That’s a huge lead over CY Leung.

There are cultural issues at play. Perhaps locals rely on Facebook for personal interactions versus brand advocacy. Or other platforms take the lead when looking at local politics. Or instead it may be an ‘arms distance’ between the public and politicians, as there is no direct election.

Whatever the reason the use of Facebook in Hong Kong politics has room for growth, especially if the USA is an example.

Used to be the most dangerous weapon a soldier carried was his firearm. Today it appears to be his SmartPhone.

Global news is focused on the video that purportedly shows US Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban soldiers (for one summary article and a link to the video look here). The soldiers recognise a video is being taken. This clip was later uploaded to a video sharing sight - and from there spread globally.

This isn’t the first case of a damaging video going global. Few can forget UCLA Girl and her rant about Asian students in the library. Alexandra Wallace withdrew from the school, the Dean issued a blanket apology, and the former student received death threats.

Here in Hong Kong a pilot and stewardess from Cathay Pacific were fired when video footage appeared on-line of them sharing an intimate moment. Thankfully the airline determined the incident happened in an off-duty airplane - on the ground!

Clearly these incidents are all examples of violations of acceptable behaviour. The horrors of war, the stresses of study and the pressures of work all affected these individuals differently. What has turned these actions into global news stories is the presence of a SmartPhone. Instead of requiring a stand-alone video camera with uplink facilities, most people now point and shoot their phones. Whether in the field in the Middle East or in the cockpit in Hong Kong, mobile phone coverage means your next indiscretion is only an upload away.

While Hillary Clinton used the strongest language possible to decry these actions, I am sure she is thankful that in the 1990’s an intern in the White House didn’t have a Smart Phone in her purse.

On Canton Road in Tsim Sha Tsui it’s not unusual to see shoppers lined up, waiting to be granted permission to enter luxury retail outlets. It freaked Australian friends out when they visited. Ange was indignant - “I won’t queue for Chanel!”

Luckily when I snapped this photo I’d chosen the right retail outlet. Why?

Last week a Hong Kong couple tried to take photographs in front of the Dolce & Gabbana store in Harbour City mall on Canton Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. Details are sketchy, but a security guard and a sales person stopped them from photographing. It was stated that Mainland tourists can take photos but not Hong Kong locals. The man posted this on Facebook and his comments were flagged by local newspaper Apple Daily (circulation 280,000 - thanks Sunny!).

The next day, this tabloid newspaper sent a photographer - who was also sent away. Again it was explained that local Hong Kongers couldn’t take photographs, while Mainland tourists could. This was too good a story for Apple Daily to pass up. According to Wikipedia, this mix of fashion and controversy is tailor made:

“Apple Daily’s popularity as Hong Kong’s second best selling newspaper, according to AC Nielsen, is derived from its concentration on celebrity coverage, brash news style, sensationalist news reportage and its anti-government political positions.” (Source: Wikipedia)

From the coverage in Apple Daily, the issue escalated through social media. It appears the discrimination by a luxury retailer became a political issue, as some fear preferential treatment of Mainlanders means local rights are being overlooked. Others protest the power of large scale brands.

On Sunday a protest was held where over a thousand attended. Throngs blocked the entrance to the store. All carried cameras.

In response Dolce & Gabbana issued a statement denying their staff made the comments. No apology was offered. Yesterday, inflammatory remarks attributed to a D&G salesperson were widely circulated on-line. then reprinted in today’s mainstream newspapers. The South China Morning Post reprinted her accusations:

Woman claiming to be Dolce & Gabbana employee calls protesters ignorant

She used other terms - apparently labelling the protesters “mentally retarded” (see article above).

This is a classic example of a crisis that is spiralling out of control. In the absence of clarity from Dolce & Gabbana the on-line and mainstream media are making the news. In response the company needs to come out publicly and address these issues before the press. A large-scale media conference could prove unruly. But a series of in-person interviews offer a better opportunity to get the message across.

And first and foremost, this needs to start with an apology - whether it’s over the misunderstanding, the way the issues has escalated unreasonably, or the initial comments themselves. If not, D&G risks long-term brand damage.

What should have been a “one day wonder” is turning into another week of front page headlines.

UPDATE: Today ‘Campaign Asia’ ran a feature story on this issue, and quoted me. Read it here: http://tiny.cc/8szt7

On 31 December 2011 I flew into Hong Kong to live. It was a propitious day to start a new chapter. By the time I unpacked and settled in, midnight had passed in my old hometown of Sydney.

I first lived in Hong Kong from 1996 to 1999. My colleague Noel Parrott at the time said, “Hong Kong will be a great city when they finish building it.” For those who’ve been here you know the building never stops. The General Post Office in Central was waterfront when I lived here. Today it’s separated from the harbour by a six lane highway.

More has changed than the waterfront. Hong Kong is one of the most cyber-connected cities in the world. Social media consultants WeAreSocial have a dynamite presentation on the facts and figures of connectivity in this island nation. More than 100% of the population have mobile phones (that means most people have two or more devices).

Yet it’s odd to see few businesses embracing the opportunities that well-connected Smart Phone users present, such as Geo-Tagging. What’s that? It means a site that allows us to share our physical location, through the use of Smart Phones and Global Positioning Systems (GPS). These services let you “show” your friends exactly where you are – and it creates a digital trail as to where you’ve been.

The leading App in this space is “Four Square” as well as “Facebook Places”. To start download the App then create an account – if you do, search for WallyBalloo (that’s me – an old childhood nickname). Then when you go to a place you “Check In”. It’s that simple!

Geo-locating Apps will be of interest to businesses as users can also sign in to receive push notifications. Checked into a Starbucks? You can get a discounted coffee. Near a gym? They may send you a special offer. Banks may offer reduced credit card fees. Restaurants may offer “2 for 1” specials.

At the moment this is a consumer-driven application. Other Apps using this are “Instagram” – a photo sharing App that geo-tags the location of the photo taken. If you use these services you might also download “Sonar” that amalgamates all the various geo-locating check-ins and tells you who is in the vicinity (there are 3 people now checked into Kinwick Centre).

For now, here are some Instagram initial impressions of Hong Kong…enjoy!

The Australian Association of Convention Bureaux held their conference on the Gold Coast earlier this month. Attendees gathered under the banner of ‘Brain Power’. The aim was to find ways to link local intellectual assets to convention themes, such as a medical pioneer in neurosurgery and a health conference.

As part of the agenda, I was invited to present on the basics of media relations. From writing a press release to engaging in social media, there was a lot to cover in 45 minutes.

To ensure I covered all the right bases, I asked what was necessary for the presentation on the ‘Media Diplomat’ group on Linked In.  While many use Linked In for the networking connections, you can take the site to another level by accessing the numerous groups. These forums are as good as their members. Some have robust dialogues with active participants. Others are quite stale. It’s a good idea to explore the groups relevant to your industry - you can meet other professionals and continue learning.

The presentation covers the basic rules of engaging with journalists, to some core tools in media relations (writing a media release, hosting a press conference).  The end covers the basics of social media relations.

As always, the presentation is available to all on Slide Share - check out my page here for a copy of the slides.

Newcomers to Twitter are likely to assume the transient nature of the communiques mean no one will pay attention to their Tweets. Look at the medium - even if you follow a few dozen people the updates scroll down your monitor at a fairly rapid pace. It’s tough to know who reads your 140 character messages.

Same with text messages - with billions sent around the planet each day, who’s going to read them all, let along look back at the archives?

US Congressman Anthony Weiner has learned the hard way that nothing says forever like Twitter. This Democrat from the state of New York was shamed yesterday when announcing lewd images and messages had been sent by him. Earlier when the messages were unearthed he claimed his account had been compromised.

The sordid affair reeks on two levels. First we don’t expect elected representatives to be sending near-naked images of themselves to housewives. (His famous chest shot is in today’s The Australian but you have to search Google images to find his underwear image. Apologies for not hot-linking that memory.) Nor do we expect to find their text streams with porn actresses.

But once the news has been discovered, the second level of disappointment comes from the series of lies told to feebly cover the trail. Congressman Weiner claimed his Twitter account had been hacked and those images of him were sent by someone else. (Amazingly most thought photos of his near naked torso would be kept in a location safe from hackers.)

In true Washington fashion, Congressman Weiner held a press conference and apologised. His confession was coupled with tears of shame. Today the on-line and traditional media are covering “Weinergate” - see The Daily Conversation on YouTube.

For those familiar with Twitter and Facebook and texting, there’s no need for a reminder that these messages are permanent. Ask the college student who posted he was too hungover to go to work but forgot that he’d friended his boss. Ask any of the overnight celebrities made famous (or infamous) by YouTube. (Don’t cry for UCLA Girl - her video rant against Asians in the library went viral and she wound up leaving UCLA.) But for a newcomer the flickering screen of message after message leads to the incorrect assumption that these messages last moments.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Just ask Congressman Weiner. The fact that each message is saved and stored and archived means a quick review of the account brings up all a person’s postings. And it looks as if there will be a permanent, open archive of all these Tweets.

In April last year Twitter announced the US Library of Congress would archive every Tweet since the platform’s inception.  That will give tomorrow’s historians ample materials to research.

Maybe they’ll help future generations of Congressmen understand that nothing says forever like Twitter.

They say a week is a long time in politics. (Just ask Kristina Keneally who one week ago was Premier of NSW.) Yet imagine a year in the world of social media. Special thanks to my newest colleague Rob Irwin (King Under the Mountain blogger extraordinaire) for pointing out this great compilation.

Then: Twitter has 75m user accounts, but only around 15m are active users on a regular basis.

Now: Twitter now officially claims to have 175m registered users, although it’s unclear what percentage regularly user the service.  Then: LinkedIn has over 50m members worldwide. Now: Officially, Linkedin has grown 100%, now having over 100m professionals who use the platform worldwide.  

Then: Facebook has 350 million active users on global basis. Now: Facebook officially hit the half-billion member mark last year. According to figures from Socialbakers, there are now some 640m Facebook users worldwide.  Then: 50% of active users log into Facebook each day. This means at least 175m users every 24 hours. Now: Still citing the 50% active rate, using the official 500m figure, this means at least 250m users every 24 hours. This is more than a 40% increase in 12 months.  

Then: Flickr hosts more than 4bn images.Now: Flickr continues to grow at a steady rate, having increased by some 25% in the last twelve months. At the end of 2010, it was hosting more than 5bn images.  Then: Wikipedia has 14m articles and 85,000 contributors. Now: Wikipedia now has more 17m articles. The site now has an army of 91,000 active contributors.  

Then: 65m users access Facebook through mobile-based devices. Now: Users accessing the site through mobile devices now tops 200m - an enormous 200% increase in around a twelve-month period.  Then: There are more than 3.5bn pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, etc.) shared each week on Facebook. Now: Clearly, Facebook is still growing: More than 30bn pieces of content is shared each month, which is an average of 7bn pieces a week.  

Then: There are 11m LinkedIn users across Europe. Now: Go Europe! There are now 20m+ EU Linkedin members.  Then: The average number of tweets per day was over 27m. Now: Twitter now states that 95m tweets are written each day. This is a staggering 250% increase.  Then: The average number of tweets per hour was around 1.3m. Now: At the new rate of growth, its calculated that there are nearly 4m tweets per hour.

Some extra nuggets… 

• More than 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. 
• Flickr members upload more than 3,000 images every minute.
• More than one million companies have LinkedIn Company Pages (formerly known as company profiles).
• The average Facebook user creates 90 pieces of content each month.
• There are more than 2bn video views on YouTube every 24 hours. 
• There were nearly 2bn people searches on Linkedin during 2010.
• People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users.
• People on Facebook install 20m applications every day.

Source: http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/7334-social-media-statistics-one-year-later

Whitegood retail giant Bing Lee decided this week to offer $10,000 to the flood appeal. All in all it is a selfless and noble gesture. It’s been reported on Twitter that Australians are donating $3,000 per minute to the flood appeal. This seemed a good way to make a donation.

Then on-line commentary began - and it was rapid and intense and vitriolic.

On one side was a camp decrying the link between donations and “like” status on Facebook. Seems Bing Lee would donate $1 for every person who clicked “like” on their Facebook page. Prior the page was a way to access discounts.

These commentators said the company should donate regardless. The worst of the negative outcry was Tuesday - the day 9 deaths due to flood were announced, and the day a further 20+ deaths occurred.  This side felt the link between a “like” and a flood donation was a way to increase visibility off the back of a natural disaster. (Author’s Note: My comment on their Facebook page reflects this view.)

On the other side were people in firm support of the program. Their view is that any profile raising was good - and that a dollar donated was a dollar donated. They disagreed that the company was marketing off the back of the flood.

What was astonishing was the passion and the language used by both sides. It wasn’t an on-line debate - it was a digital shouting match. People attacked each other due to their views. It got bitter and personal and mean really, really fast.

And for Bing Lee the last place any company wants to be is in the middle of a shouting match, let alone the instigator. If advising the company I’d recommend a donation and a comment saying the ideal was to raise awareness and get money to flood victims - the intent was never to inflame people’s passions.

It’s good to see debate on-line. It’s bad to see such hatred.

So many businesses are using social media to engage consumers its getting hard to keep track. Cherry Coke has friends on Facebook (”It’s great reminiscing with pals”). Old Spice man has achieved cult status. And even stinker films like “Gulliver’s Travels” have an enormous budget for on-line promotion (Note to studio: Invest in scriptwriters instead).

But some businesses are having difficulties embracing social media - particularly those in highly regulated areas. In the USA, the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) puzzles over the use of social media in investor relations programs. Traditionally “full market disclosure” meant a release on Dow Jones or another news wire. Would a Tweet suffice? Probably not. But a Twitter link to a release already issued is fair.

Healthcare is also struggling with the best ways to use social media. On one hand it allows doctors to keep contact with patients remotely. It can be useful to remind patients of medication or treatment schedules. But some doctors learned the hard way that what’s said on-line stays on-line - forever. Just before Christmas the Australian Medical Association issued recommendations for practitioners using social media. Included were case studies of what not to do. Among the many howlers was this pearl:

Dear Emergency Registrar,

Thanks a million for misdiagnosing my patient’s perforated bowel as constipation and treating aggressively with laxatives. I’m sure she appreciated the subsequent cardiac arrest and multiorgan failure. Don’t worry, she just needs a new set of kidneys and a liver and she’ll be right. And with that kind of performance, I’m sure you can help her acquire them.

Kind regards,

Lowly intern

(based on an actual posting on a social networking site)

The correct use of social media isn’t easily prescribed. It can be better understood through research and smart counsel. For those in regulated industries, it’s usually better to be safe than sorry. Physician, heal thyself? Perhaps. But with some of these social media postings, a different proverb rings true: “Doctors make the very worst patients”.

Friendships are easier in the digital age. Instead of long letters to two or three people, I post an update and voila - all my friends know what’s happening. Ethan’s soccer team won on Saturday! We had a family reunion in Richmond on Sunday! Man do I hate cold Monday mornings! Too easy!

Friendships are harder in the digital age. My friend Jenny left Australia last month and she’s living now in Chicago. I see her postings and add witty retorts. She asked: “Need suggestions…..what type of car would be best for living in Chicago?” Numerous comments flowed - most of them practical and plain. I got creative:

Now it’s 24 hours later and Jenny hasn’t replied. She’s not been on Facebook and hasn’t added to the conversation. So immediately I feel a need to un-friend her. How am I to maintain a friendship thousands of miles apart?

That last question is extremely selfish. I myself have changed continents four or five times. I’ve left established friend networks to take up new jobs in new cities. And now that I am the one left behind, I feel the raw anger and disappointment that comes from losing a friend.

Friendships in the digital age are no easier and no harder. They require effort and upkeep. You lose people to new cities, new jobs, new opportunities. But you make new friends.

Perhaps the lesson is that you need to calibrate your expectations of friends. Jenny is busy settling into a new city. She has no network and is busy unpacking, finding a school for her twin boys, finding a new hairdresser - all the challenges I am intimately familiar with.

I’ll continue to send witty missives - and look forward to the day we can laugh over them together. What’s a good time of year to visit Chicago?