“I’ve decided to stop wearing underwear” Facebook Update Explained

Don't be confused when you see a lot of friends suddenly stop wearing underwear (on Facebook)

It’s a 2014 Breast Cancer Awareness game and you will get caught up in it if you liked or commented on your friend’s Facebook status. If you haven’t been tricked into it already, here’s what you can accept the second you respond to the status!

A message that reads as such:

LOL, you should not have liked or commented!!!! Now you have to pick one from these below and post it to your status. This is THE 2014 BREAST CANCER AWARENESS game. Don’t be a spoilsport, pick your poison from one of these and change your status, 1) Damn diarrhoea 2) Just used my boobs to get out of a speeding ticket 3) Anyone have a tampon, I’m out 4) How do you get rid of foot fungus? 5) Why is nobody around when I’m horny? 6) No toilet paper, goodbye socks. 7) Someone has offered me a job as a prostitute but I’m hesitant. 8) I think I’m in love with someone, what should I do? 9) I’ve decided to stop wearing underwear. 10) It’s confirmed, I’m going to be a Mummy/Daddy! 11) just won £900 on a scratch card 12) I’ve just found out I’ve been cheated on for the last 5 months. Post with no explanations. So sorry I fell for it too!!!!! Looking forward to your post Ha ha.

Haha, it might be funny, but when too many people do not get it, it may quickly stop being funny. Well now you know what's going on.

If you have been pranked, now at least you know why...

-- Robin Low

How to turn off video autoplay on Facebook

Have you noticed that on some browsers, your surfing speeds become reduced once you are on Facebook? As some people may have a limited mobile plan, Facebook actually autoplay videos for you.

To turn it off, the most straight forward way is to go here.
https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=videos

Don't worry if you do not have the tab. If you don't, it means autoplay does not happen for you.

Enjoy!

Remember, on your mobile phones, there is also an autoplay setting which you need to turn off.

For Apple products go to iOS settings, not Facebook. Scroll down to under app settings and then click Facebook. Click settings. 2nd section down there is choice for autoplay. Click it and change to off.

For Android, go to Facebook, click on settings. Scroll down to under app settings (Not Account settings)
Click on a section on Video-Autoplay and click it and change to off.

-- Robin Low

Facebook Facial Recognition Fail

Well the first photo is not even a person and all my other friends are ... old enough to drink.

Certainly not kids...

#Facebook facial recognition engine, you are creepy and plenty of fail.

-- Robin Low

How to Reply in Facebook like a Pro

Emoticon Name, Followed by Shortcut Code

• smile :-) :) :] =)
• wink ;-) ;)
• grin :-D :D =D
• kiss :-* :*
• grumpy >:( >:-(
• glasses 8-) 8) B-) B)
• sunglasses 8-| 8| B-| B|
• upset >:O >:-O >:o >:-o
• confused o.O O.o
• pacman :v
• unsure :/ :-/ :\ :-\
• frown :-( :( :[ =(
• cry :'(
• heart <3 li="">
• angel O:) O:-)

Enjoy!

-- Robin Low

That Annoying Facebook Sound.

Are you annoyed at the beep you get when you receive a new notification?

This is how you turn it off.

1) Go to the gear on the top right of your screen.

2) Select "Account Settings"

3) Click on the Notifications Tab

4) Uncheck the box that says, "Play a sound"

5) Save Changes!

You are now saved.

-- Robin Low

Candy Crush Saga

Candy Crush Saga is one of the biggest games currently. Available on Facebook and Mobile devices, you can play the game and your progress will be shared among your devices.

I have about 1400 friends on Facebook, and this is the first game where I have more than 140 friends playing! That is 10% of the people I know on Facebook!

I could say that the game hits a lot of good Gamification principles.

1) The game has an easy onboarding. The first 20 levels are rather easy, and although it gets progressively difficult, it did not seem impossible.

2) The game is interesting, colorful and catchy music. Its not too cheaply made, and the graphics and gameplay is actually pretty good.

3) The game gets challenging. As the level progresses, it does get increasingly difficult.

4) The game encourages social gaming. With 5 lives to start with, you do get stuck on some levels, and you can ask your friends to give you lives, or you can wait 25 minutes for a life. So the game does benefit people with a lot of friends playing and many of my friends invited me to the game. Otherwise you can always pay for more lives.

There are parts of the game that require friends to give you a ticket to continue, so you need to invite friends and connect with Facebook, which in turn promote the game and get more people to play it.

6) The game is free! Joining the game, getting the app on your phone is free. Progressing in levels is also free!

7) The paid parts of the game is tempting but not essential. I think this is a strong model as some competitive gamers that want to advance WILL pay to move forward, but for casual games to continue playing and attracting more people to play, they can do it for free.

8) Good use of PBLs. There is a good use of the points, badges and levels. You get to see how you do compared to your friends in each level which may encourage you to replay a same level to beat your friend's scores. You also get to see which levels your friends are and your friend's progress.

I really like the implementation of the game, and I think is it one of the most downloaded game on the Android store and it is also the top game now.

I wish for all its success, and unlike a lot of annoyed folks on Facebook when they receive a Candy Crush Saga Request, free free to send me lives or tickets to help me move up the levels!

-- Robin Low

Tohoku: Road to the Future Event

Preparing for an event and marketing it takes a lot of time and effort. For the event to be successful? So for a successful event, how do you go about creating awareness for it?

1) Creating a Facebook Event. (Tohoku - Road to the future - Art and photo Exhibition)

Create it, invite friends, friends of friends, Alumni, family. Invite it through emails and send messages to people whom yo think may come but have not replied.

2) Post it in relevant groups that you join to promote the event. Relief 2.0 - Japan

3) Do research online on reporters / bloggers who may be interested in the event. Write a pitch letter and send it out! Remember to include your contact information and specific information on the event.

Artitude Pitch
Singapore Business Review
Yesterday SG
Plush Asia
The Online Citizen
Life in Boston
SPH's AsiaOne

Your pitch letters may be picked up and reporters will call you for an interview, or you can submit a press release with some photos and the news / bloggers can run the press release.

4) Besides pitching to News and Bloggers, you can try pitching to TV and radio stations as well.

I managed to get on Channel News Asia and various Radio stations as well.

Put event up on event sites like Eventbrite.
And WhatsHappening.SG

It takes effort to invite people and get them to come, so regular posting of information on the event page and other groups and forums to inform people about the event does help bring more awareness.

It takes practice, patience and experience. There will be a lot of rejections, but occasionally you get a successful pitch and build your contact.

Don't give up!

-- Robin Low

Facebook changes -- Understand and appreciate

There seems to be a lot of changes to Facebook recently, especially after the emergence of Google+. Some of the changes seemed pretty minor, and some quite dramatic. Many people are unhappy about the changes as some are afraid about their privacy settings getting changed again. These concerns seem valid as Facebook has indeed not managed some of the changes well, however, the recent changes which many people complained about does not seem as bad as it appears to be -- but you need to know why it benefits you.

Firstly, there may seem to be an overflow of information but if you look at the scrolling sidebar which looks like a twitter feed or advertisement, it is actually a list of "not so important feed" Facebook calls "Ticker". All “lightweight” information is going to the Ticker, so you don't have to see your friends liking a post or getting killed in Mafia wars on the main Facebook feeds.

Besides that, the layout of how Facebook displays photos is also changed. The photos will be displayed with a big photo and 2 smaller ones on the side when you upload an album, so your friends can view the photos better on the mobile phone.

You’re going to get a Timeline (an opt in feature) — a scrapbook of your life. In a complete overhaul of its ever-evolving profile page, Facebook is introducing Timeline. This is a stream of information about you — the photos you’ve posted, all your status updates, the apps you’ve used, even the places you’ve visited on a world map — that scrolls all the way back to your birth.

Facebook Gestures is launched and you don’t have to just Like something — now you can [verb] any [noun]. So now Facebook’s partners and developers can turn any verb into a button. Also note that Facebook apps need only ask permission once to share stories on your behalf, but it will not spam your friend's news feeds as it will appear in the ticker only.

You can watch TV and movies, listen to music, and read news with your friends — all within Facebook. Facebook has partnered many other side and after F8, there are a lot more things you can do without ever having to leave Facebook.

When you understand some of these changes are actually improvements to help you, perhaps its time to embrace the change and learn to appreciate it more.

-- Robin Low

For more information on Ticker, Timeline and Gestures, here are some relevant links.

Facebook Changes Again: Everything You Need To Know
What Should Facebook Page Admistrators Do After F8?
Facebook Timeline Redefines User Profiles

Facebook Privacy Change

With the competition coming strong from Google+, Facebook innovates on the complains heard from many Facebook users about privacy.

On Your Profile

Your profile should feel like your home on the web - you should never feel like stuff appears there that you don't want, and you should never wonder who sees what's there. The profile is getting some new tools that give you clearer, more consistent controls over how photos and posts get added to it, and who can see everything that lives there.

Looks like there will be finer controls on sharing your information.

Another problem I faced often is getting tagged in random pictures. I welcome some of the tagging, however I really hate Facebook stores that tag you on their products to get your attention.

Well, it looks like you now get a chance to approve tags on either profile or photos.

(You can find more detail on the profile settings here: http://www.facebook.com/about/control)

Content Tag Review

Before: Anyone who could see your photos or posts could add tags to them.

Going Forward: You have the option to review and approve or reject any tag someone tries to add to your photos and posts.

Tag Locations in Posts

Before: You could only "check in" to locations using the Places feature on a smart phone.

Going Forward: Now you can add location to anything. Lots of people use Facebook to talk about where they are, have been or want to go. Now you can add location from anywhere, regardless of what device you are using, or whether it is a status update, photo or Wall post. Of course, you can always choose not to add location at all.

Other changes include:

In line controls - each item on a user's wall has individual privacy options, such as public, friends and custom
Tag takedown - the ability to remove tags of self, ask the person who tagged you to remove it, or block the tagger
Universal tagging - users can tag anyone, not just Facebook friends. Other person can choose not to accept the tagged post on their profile
Profile view - the option to see how others view your profile is added above the news feed

I welcome the new changes and hope to see it soon.

-- Robin Low

For more information, visit the FB Blog.

Social Media Budget. (Malaysia Toursim under fire)

Yes, companies are spending a lot of money on social media and advertising these days, but a recent report on the Malaysia's Government RM1,758,432 spending on 20,292 Facebook is starting to raise eyebrows.

In this article, "Tourism Malaysia under fire for FB spending" it shows the importance of a good solid plan to measure ROI, as the results from the marketing from Facebook may have even yielded more tourists who spend more that that amount.

I do not agree that a 6 year old can start a FB page well, but I'd agree that the budget was a little high. "You need RM1.8 million to run Facebook pages and applications? A six-year-old can start a Facebook page," said Loke.

I personally think that while it is good for an agency to help your business get started in Facebook and Twitter, ultimately, it is your voice online, and you should not outsource it to a third party, internal training and a good social media policy to get corporate wide support and involvement may prove to be more effective and REAL in your engagement, and people can tell if you are genuine.

I went to check out the FB pages, and felt that "http://www.facebook.com/CutiCuti1Malaysia" is a pretty ok page with decent interaction, however, if you are a tourist going to Malaysia, Would you even think about searching for such a name? (Especially if you don't know Malay)

You need to understand what you are spending on and how it will help you. Get empowered by knowledge and information.

-- Robin Low

LinkedIn vs Facebook / Twitter for Events management

Recently, I've done a survey on my 500+ connections in LinkedIn on "Is LinkedIn a better platform to promote Industry Events?"

Thanks to my network and their replies, I have some good feedback. (The answer was basically -- YES, but...)

1) LinkedIn will allow you to target your audience and industry. There is a higher chance of response when you ask questions or promote your events in LinkedIn groups.

2) Most users on LinkedIn do not check it daily. Do not expect a lot of discussions from a lot of people. Some LinkedIn users login once a week, and check their groups maybe once a month. Facebook however has a lot of traffic, and a lot of people check it daily.

3) LinkedIn allows you to looks at the credential of your audience. When someone asks a question, you get to see his job description. You can also tailor your response depending on your audience.

4) A Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn Hybrid is great. Facebook and Twitter is used to drive traffic to the LinkedIn Group Discussion by posting interesting articles or questions to entice people in the relevant Facebook groups to participate.

As LinkedIn is not used daily, event promotion must be done early, and even after the event, Facebook can be used to upload photos of the events, to keep groups active and engaged till your next event.

Thanks for your great responses.

-- Robin Low

Facebook overtakes Google in Internet Traffic in Singapore

Singapore: Social Networks continue to trump Search Engines



The popularity of social media is definitely growing as more and more people get onto Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. More companies are also getting into engaging the public with social media, with some doing very well, and others missing the point.

The high Internet penetration of about 75% in Singapore makes the growth of social media easy as there is much availability of 3G enabled devices. It is no wonder local companies are getting onto the bandwagon.

The major media channel -- XINMSN, a collaboration between Mediacorp and Microsoft is recently launched to try to get into video sharing and social media.

When Google (search engine) has lost out to Facebook, and with the popularity of social media still growing, it is imperative for corporations to think about social media policies and make social media one of their channels of communications.

With large companies, with plenty of market research getting onto social media, if your company is in South East Asia, shouldn't you jump on the bandwagon too?

-- Robin Low

10 Reasons to be on Social Media

After giving several talks and lectures on social media in Singapore and the region, I realize that social media seemed to be still very new in Singapore, especially amongst the Gen-X and baby boomers.

In Singapore, there are more than 1 million Facebook users, and there is a growing importance bloggers and other social media influencers play in our daily lives.

With twitter gaining popularity, the number of users greatly increased after celebrities start to use this social media platform. Micro-blogging is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user.

With the gaining popularity of mobile social media applications and devices in Singapore, users who were previously using sms-es are starting to get on social media in a big way, participating in Foursquare, updating their Facebook and Twitter Statuses, or viewing videos on YouTube.

Many people want to know why are there so many people getting on social media, and here are some reasons that I can think of.

1) Networking - You can find all sorts of people on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Web 2.0 allows you to build up a strong network of people that share similar interests which you can find in groups. You can sometimes rely on the expertise of these people and as they come from varied backgrounds, having these people in your network is definitely great if you need to seek advice on a topic you do not understand.

2) Updated news - I could not believe how fast some of these news show up on twitter. Being on twitter, the news show up real time and unlike certain newspapers of news source, the current events you get from twitter is varied and may give you a very balanced or skewed new on a certain topic. I found out the winner of the recent F1 race even before the race ends on my live TV - talk about real time report!

3) Friendship - Updating your status or what you are doing can allow you to stay connected with your friends and family. Reading about your friend's tweets and status updates about their newborn lets you stay in touch with them, even when you cannot be there. You can also make new friends, and people with similar interests.

4) Information - You definitely get a lot of information about your industry or interests. You can find almost everything on the web, thanks to search engines, and search engines today are even trying to keep up with the real time content of social media networks. What's even better, you can post a question to your followers and sometimes they will reply you with a link of what you need!

5) Entertainment - There are tons of quotes, jokes and funny picture or video links. Endless entertainment on Facebook and Twitter. You can also follow celebrities and know what they are doing or are planning to do. Its fun!

6) Events and meet ups - Tweetups are getting more and more common, and it is quite funny that many people who are usually not social butterflies, fell more comfortable to come to a "TweetUp" or a twitter event to meet their fellow friends whom they have never met in real life on these events. It is a great way to go out and meet new people. Local events are also getting common on Facebook, and you can search for open events in your area to participate to gt to know more people.

7) Job Search - In this financial crisis, any new source where you can find a job would be a bonus isn't it? Just do a #Jobs or #Job search with #location for more specific jobs on Twitter. There are a few groups on LinkedIn just dedicated for job searches and job openings as well. It is a great place to meet others and possibly, land a new job.

8) Find someone to chat - It is easy to go to a trending topic of interest, find who is talking about it and start a chat. You can always find a friend online on your Facebook page and start a chat if you are bored or just need someone to talk to.

9) Develop Weak Ties - Weak ties can be powerful, but challenging to build across cultures, languages, and preferred sites. Weak ties are powerful because they can give you what close friends and community often cannot (e.g., different ideas, connections, resources, models, etc)

10) Personal Branding - As the information on social media is searchable and for public consumption, your ideas and your values can be shared and you can become a thought leader in your field if you share your thoughts and opinion professionally. Giving your opinion on current topics, sharing your knowledge about your industry can provide good information for people searching for it. Being open to discuss these topics can allow people to discover your passion and brand yourself as an expert, as well as create more awareness for your company and its services.

-- Robin Low

Facebook vs. Twitter comparison

Some statistics:

Facebook US and Global traffic ranking: 2
7 day Average daily time on Site by Users: 32.2 minutes
# of users 400 million

Twitter US and Global traffic ranking: 12
7 day Average daily time on Site by Users: 7.8 minutes
# of users 75 million

It is hard to say which is better as the uses of these 2 social networking sites are different.

Facebook Strengths:
Organize events
Sheer number of active users
Include photos, videos and other information in feed.
Direct communication (instant messaging)


Twitter Strengths:
Market research
Viral messages (RT function)
Great Internet reach. (Can follow others without them reciprocating)
Real Time information. (trending topics)


There is not really a question when it comes to which one to use for a corporation. The best practices from successful companies show that as the number of channels increase, overall engagement increases at a faster rate. So why not use both?

There are many tools that allow you to have your accounts linked, but I would recommend just "cut and paste" relevant status updates for the other platform as not all information are relevant, especially RTs.

-- Robin Low

Facebook profile vs. Facebook Fan Pages.

Table to explain differences.

Facebook Profile Page	Facebook Fan Page
5000 friends limit	No Limit
Need friend Authorization	No Authorization required
No mass messaging	Can click to message all fans
Friends send you message to join games	No messages to join games
Can be tagged	Cannot be tagged
With phone authentification can get username	Needs at least 25 fans to get username
No insights	Insights of where comments are from
Share Video, Photos	Share Video, Photos
Use RSS, Flickr, YouTube and Picasa by default	Need applications to use RSS, Flickr, YouTube and Picasa
Extensive information can be input (personal information)	Minimal information can be input. (Mostly just webpage and company info)

-- Robin Low

Social Media Rankings

Social media marketing has a direct effect on search engine rankings and engines are using social voting systems and bookmarking trends to determine quality sites. So, can you use search engine rankings to determine the popularity of the company in a certain industry?

As more people are getting on Social Media, many companies too are not missing the boat. I often get thess questions: "How to I determine the success of Social Media of a company?" or "How do I determine the Social Media Ranking of companies?"

I came across this article which does not answer the above questions, but it is an interesting read.
--> Link <--

There is no doubt that when you engage the public, and as you gain more influence, there will be more blogs and forums talking about your products and services. But how does anyone determine whether you are more successful in Social Media than someone else?

In my opinion, there are very simple rules to follow on how successful a company or someone is, on Social Media.

1) Number of Fans/Followers/Subscribers - This is a very basic information. The more the number is, the more people you can reach. As with the rankings and ratings, this is a numbers game. Whether this truely reflects the quality of the crowd, you need other ways to determine.

2) Number of Comments/Feedback - This reflects on how many people actually liked the post so much that they have to give feedback. The more influential the company, the more the comments there will be. This is often correlated with number of followers and subscribers, but I have seen cases where the audience is so targeted that several hundred fans give more comments than another company with several thousand fans.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I often ask myself, why bother with the numbers game. I guess the reasons I can think of are often, "Ego" and "Justification". Many companies who go into Social Media often like to think that they are doing well by searching rankings and ratings online to please their "Egos" and to justify the time and effort spent.

I strongly feel that the effects of Social Media efforts are very long termed strategies. The information on the Internet will be there for years to come, and if the information is of value, people will appreciate it and companies can treat it as a form of Corporate Social Responsibility, a good way for them to give back to the public and the industry. Good Social Media Strategies provide value and long term sustainability, and eventually, this will help branding of the company more than any short term rankings will.

-- Robin Low

Training of Social Media at Aitken Spence.

Aitken Spence in Sri Lanka was very much into Social Media and giving great customer service, converting customers into agents to spread word of mouth. And to do this effectively, they have contacted Digital Media Academy to provide training at their premises.

They have a very informative Facebook Fan Page (http://www.facebook.com/ASHSriLanka)

I was very impressed in their eagerness to help in spreading the information on the interesting travelling locations and tips for Sri Lanka and other places where their hotels are located, and I find their passion in the travel industry and their willingness to share information on travelling, to help the travel industry very encouraging,

Aitken Spence Social Media team is trained on leveraging Facebook, Twitter and Blogs to provide their company as a thought leader and create more awareness on their products and services. By leveraging on their satisfied customers, Aitken Spence hopes to better engage their customers with their accessible channels on Social Media to stay in touch with their customers and provide a more engaging relationship, and hopefully leveraging them for word of mouth.

This strategy has been proven very successful by many leading brands and companies, and being the first to enter fully into the Digital Media Space to engage their customers in a large scale is seldom seen in Asia. I would say that they are probably leaders in the Social Media for the traveling industry, and it would take some time for other companies to catch up with the system.

I'm sure the progress they make in Social Media realm would become a success story and used as a case study for many to follow, and I would love to learn from them their stories of customer satisfaction and engagement which is not seen in any other Hotels in South Asia.

The training was completed and there are many strategies in place to enhance the company's image and branding through the use of Social Media. Though they lost the Cake Challenge in class, for getting less fans than Singapore's favorite cat, they progress a lot since the start of the class and I wish them all the best for their Social Media Endeavors.

Class of Oct 09, at Aitken Spence Hotels in Sri Lanka.

-- Robin Low

Insight and tips on Facebook.

Facebook is not easy to understand as there is constant innovation and changes done all the time, to leverage on it, you need to understand it.

Remember, in Social Media, most successful campaigns are word of mouth campaigns. Facebook is one of the most impressive user acquisition channels on the Internet and most users spend more than 20 minutes per visit. Even when it is almost impossible to broadcast to everyone on Facebook at the same time, there is nothing preventing you from trying to reach out to everyone relevant to your business.
 
In addition to your personally-defined set of social graph connections, you also have a set of connections defined by your participation in Networks, Groups, and Events. A Network is a group of people that are part of a common workplace, geographical location, or a school. This is a formal affiliation as defined or approved by Facebook, and typically you need to have an email address to participate. A Group is a collection of people similar to a Network, except it’s user-defined and members can be selected, invited, or simply join to participate. An Event is a time- and or location-specific occurrence, that also may have a collection of associated individuals who have RSVP to attend.


On Facebook, you should simply look at simply conduct activities that would engage your fans.

The aim of Facebook fan page is to celebrate your customers, provide them a place to interact and spread your brand to their friends.

As a social media platform, “selling and offers” are frowned upon like spam, and will become a big turn off for many people.

Cleverly sculpted messages which include these information can sometimes be seen as informative and it is essential that your fan page provide more valuable than your sales pitch.

Facebook makes money, tops 300 million users

For those who still doubt the effectiveness of social media in reaching out to people, this is just in. Well 300 million people is not that much people to some, however, it is the largest Social Networking site, and its success means it is here to stay.

Facebook is now generating enough cash to cover its operating expenses, as well as the capital spending needed to maintain its fast-growing service.

From operating out of a dorm room 5 years ago, Facebook is increasingly challenging the Web's established powerhouses like Yahoo Inc and Google Inc.

Well, Facebook offers a lot of services, and individuals and companies can definitely benefit from the services. It creates networking opportunities in the form of groups, and helps you connect with your old friends and lost friends.

For companies, Facebook is a platform which allows the companies to show their capabilities, services and products, and allow the users to come in and comment, as a free feedback channel. Organizing events reaching out to fans is much easier as well.

I would like to congratulate Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg for the success of Facebook and the success to come.

--Robin Low