Reflections...

It's the time of the term when everything begins to slow down in preparation for judgement day.

I've come quite far in my digital media journey, with some success and failures along the way. In retrospect, I've learnt alot and I believe this knowledge will help me way into the future. When I first started the blog, I was skeptical about social media. I failed to maintain a blog with more than 2 posts prior to this class and am very happy to say that in comparison, this one is much more successful!

I would like to summarise my 3 learning points in this digital media class. It has been tough, but I have a good feeling about my newfound grasp of this technology.

#1 - Social Media is a lifestyle.
The tools are out there for everyone to use. You can sign up for any number of accounts across various social media platforms within minutes. Using them efficiently and effectively however, takes time and practice. Personally, I started with google reader, facebook, blogger, linked in, delicious and twitter. Currently I'm only active on my reader, blogger and twitter. I struggled to find time for these tools.

The point is, new social media platforms and tools will pop up every day. Signing up for every single one of them is pointless. The important thing is to incorporate social media into your daily life and only then will these tools perform their functions and be useful to you.

#2 - Social Media is communications in the future.
Much of the class talked about PR agencies and how they fumble their way in social media, trying to figure out the best way to use this new technology. Evident from Daryl's Blog, not understanding blogger relations will lead to serious consequences. The truth is, social media is still very new and PR agencies are racing for the right to claim to be the leader in social media. So far, social media platforms haven't found a business model that ensures profitability. Even so, its influence and impact has been proven to be immense.

Social media is THE future in communications and understanding how it works will become the basis of PR and Marketing work in the future.

#3 - Social Media is powerful and measurable.
In our final class discussing social media metrics, a classmate asked a very good question. Traditional advertising has been around for many years now and people generally accept that it's effectiveness cannot be measured accurately. (Current metrics are vague and untracable) So why is everyone making such a big fuss over measuring social media's effectiveness now? This is simply because for once, people have the technology to do so. With digital media, you can relatively accurately determine how many people have viewed your advertisement, how many people have given you positive ratings, how many people have propagated your content and even how long an average person spends looking at particular pages of your website.

I am fortunate to be a part of the measurement team in class because in doing so, I've uncovered the science of social media. Marketeers and communications professionals can tell what you view, for how long and what steps you take before you make a purchase. There are so many ways to use this knowledge, one of which is to earn more profit. Watch out consumers!

I guess to end the class, I feel proud to be doing the measurement project. I realised that this is unchartered territory. Even experts cannot agree on how exactly we measure social media. To know that I am part of this pioneer group and have the potential to contribute to this whole new science makes me honoured. May my team's hard work benefit the future generations to come.

Wow, noble eh? *hah*

Social Networking with a Difference

I am going to make it a point to add some fancy gadget/zhng (upgrade) my blog every time I post. Maybe this will get me some momentum and after awhile, this place will start looking more like a blog.

Today I will begin by sharing a video with you. I can't seem to embed it so I'll just post the link.

http://en.eyeka.com/video/view/409308-Ammado-animation-MP4-web

Imagine having the ability to make a difference in the world at the touch of a button. Imagine being able to stay connected with the organisations that reach out to the people who really need help. I have to admit that I'm not a particularly enthusiastic donor myself, having been a part of our "hey-I-need-CIP-hours-so-lets-do-flag-day" system. But this ties in very much with what I'm interested in... Social Entrepreneurship. It seems as though Ammado has managed to create a platform to benefit non-profit organisations whilst earning revenue through providing software-as-a-service to companies.

I will briefly talk about what Ammado is about, if you are interested to find out more please log on to their website.

Ammado is a social networking site with a difference. It has all the bells and whistles of a regular social networking site not unlike Facebook and Friendster, but it has one additional function - the ability to make donations to its member non-profit organisations at the touch of a button.

It has a feature called the Ammado Giving Circle. It basically records your donations and categorises them into various causes, E.g. Medical, education, environmental etc. This allows your friends to see what causes and non-profits you have donated to.

Ammado also allows non-profit organisations to interact with their doners, giving them thank-you messages or uploading videos and photos of their recent projects. It makes donating much more personal and tangible, when you can see the results of your charity.

From a social entrepreneurship standpoint, the possibilities of Ammado are endless. Different types of projects can spin off from this. Mini ones include having a group of volunteers set up an account and maintaining it for their adopted non-profit organisation until they are ready to take over. Large scale projects could include consolidating all the smaller non-profit organisations and organising a charity drive through Ammado to raise awareness of both their causes and this new donation facility.

My gut tells me that Singaporeans might be more wary of making donations online since the recent charity scandals. However, I believe Ammado might be on to something new... online micro donations. A quick google search will show you the potential of this method of fundraising.

Perhaps one day online donations will become the modus operandi for fundraising in Singapore. But until then, there's always the metal tins held by students along Orchard Road to go to.

Terence Tham