MCMC are you awake?

Dear MCMC,

Instead of thinking to regulate the social media over the coming Malaysia General Elections, I really think you should just do your real job properly and follow the lead from the US.

Sincerely,
BC

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Government Takes Legal Action Over Phone Spam

WASHINGTON — The Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday that it had recently filed eight lawsuits in federal courts around the country against companies it accused of ordering or engineering the sending of hundreds of millions of spam text messages to mobile phone users.

In the eight federal civil cases filed across the country in recent days, the F.T.C. named 29 defendants, including 18 individuals, most of whom worked for companies that were hired to send the text messages. One complaint was filed against the operators of one of the Web sites to which consumers were directed by the messages.

Super Boring CyberTeams

Most Malaysian politicos think social media outreach is spamming the same boring slogan, sex expose or mindless pantun-like pitch to their own followers / bloggers.

Then some made it a social media SOP, asking for a link or re-tweets to cover more miles… (how to extend to fence sitters voters, la? When their readers are within their little circle only?)

Recently, launch of recruitment of naivete volunteers on le rebranded cyberteam was done. (pat, pats on the backs, congratulated each other)

Oi, how to sell la when your own ‘established’ cybertroopers oops, cyber team are incapable to produce convincing messages to get buy-in from people who might be able to be tempted to find out more?

Most cyber troopers think that social media is all about agitatement, “who best agitate others wins”. And, then get agitated themselves when being asked hard questions.

Duh, if you’re afraid of what people are going to say, then maybe you should focus on straightening yourselves out first.

Like, do get yourselves trained by a social media specialist, ok?

Who’s your social media manager cum listening specialist?

Most, if not all businesses think community metrics equals revenue, ROI, brand equity.

But if you are only basing your success on retweets, influence scores and popularity then you are standing on shaky ground and bound to fall flat on your face.

If your business really want to make it in a social environment, you must

1. Be open to a mindset change

Do you have the guts to listen to what people are really saying about you and your business in the social world?

Any good social media manager or agency or consultant should have the guts and knowledge to provide you the real information, and help you set priorities and decisions for how to best embed social within the DNA of your business.

2. Get real with your team skill set and available resources

If your team doesn’t have the necessary skills to enable successful engagement, then you must either train them or figure out how you are going to obtain the necessary skills from elsewhere eg terminating employees or re-assigning them to different roles. Without the right people to do the planning, integration, execution, listening, engagement and measurement, you will be doomed to continue to struggle.

This is evident In the Malaysia political arena. Political parties’ cybertroopers or social media team would rather go about their happy retweeting, demeaning and scolding peeps whose ideals differ from theirs. It is amazing how BN (UMNO, MCA, etc) is spending much $$$ on their social media and web team to only able to produce numbers of followers, bragging about retweets and top influencers who they are engaging with.

Shockingly, the paymasters didn’t even have the gumption to realise the lack of engagement ability of their social media people.

If you are only talking to yourself all day and ignoring your target audience or leaving them out of conversation because you have no understanding of what they want to talk about or what they need, then it is highly unlikely you will ever see a solid return on that social media and expensive web team you hired.

The BN social media teams are well on their way to being nothing to nobody.

Be good to your business, it is never too late to go get yourself a top social media listener/manager today.

What if a flash mob goes seriously wrong?

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Here’s a fictitious piece by Tom Scott which drew up a worst case scenario that could happen when a flash mob goes wrong and really turns out to be a mob.

Even though it seems a remote scenario, its best to handle those social media with care, people.

Watch the youtube video here:

 

Speech for BN political leaders: Are you brand Barisan Nasional?

“… Whether we realize it or not, we members of UMNO, MCA, MIC, Gerakan, et al, are involved in the brand Barisan Nasional.

I hope the first thing you do when selecting your next role as a BN member is to unleash the potential of the coalition.

BN, while maybe not the sexiest name in the current political business, offered me an underrated hipness factor and the horizon to transform into something even more special than prior Merdeka.

All BN parties must consider to operate like a startup with the stability of a 59 year-old political vessel.

We must come out of the rough sea and work feverishly to repair our brand reputation in a giddying political demography.

BN is a great place for its members; BN members made the right choice in the first instance.

But how would new voters know all this? How would they become aware of what we can do to make lives even better for their future and Malaysia?

First task on hand is to overhaul the social media activities for our membership and install savvy customer relation efforts in our public conversations in either Twitter, blog or Facebook.

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Okkk, now over to you, Najib Tun Razak, Chua Soi Lek, Samy Velu, Koh Tsu Koon, et al. If you still need ideas to transform this into rousing speeches for your party members, please do not be too shy to ask me.

RHB Investment Bank Bhd better improve their helpdesk!!!

Just got off the telephone after being given stern treatment from RHB Investment Bank Bhd’s Helpdesk.

You see, this banana subscribed to play some shares with the rhbinvest.com. Being a banana, sometimes forgot la my password combination and kena lockout from login.

So I called the Helpdesk telephone number +60 3 9205 1300 as displayed on RHB Investment Bank website.

Guess how long it took before helpdesk answer the telephone?

20 minutes of pure ringing sensation.

The stern voice at the Helpdesk who picked up my call did not even acknowledge my distress. She just curtly told me to login again.

When I tried to find out from her why Helpdesk took so long to answer the phone, she just said many people calling in non-stop. To my remarks that RHB should hire more people to man the helpdesk, she just curtly retorted, “No, No, No.” For a second, I was temporarily teleported back to my fierce SRK teacher’s classroom.

RHB’s Cold Desk (Help Desk is a deviously clever disguise, I must say) must not forget the company giving them their salary is now doing business in the competitve social media age.