Well??? What do you think?

What grades your social media efforts are interactions, how useful your tweets or facebook posts are, how it helps people, how it relates to others. Social media is building a relationship, with your friends, other personalities and brands. If your social media efforts do not help, or build relationships, then why bother? Now some people will add that hey, they are just trying to broadcast information  useful to their followers, this is also building a relationship because your followers then begin to trust you for quality content and in some cases understand you may not be able to reply specifically to them. The fact is trust, in social media people trust you for your content (opinions, blogposts, videos, photos, news, etc,). Changing or adjusting your content for better rankings or seo is not the aim, the community is the aim, build your community, word of mouth is a better recommendation than any search engine.

In all of your efforts, reporting, etc remember people first, ask yourself, are you helping someone or are you just pushing out useless content on a daily basis? It doesn’t matter if you have x amount of followers if they are bots, or you have no interaction, find your niche and provide for it.

Since then people have been killed, injured and kidnapped in Egypt as demonstrations continue.

Earlier today Kenneth Cole, a popular clothing brand released this tweet:

Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KCless than a minute ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®Kenneth Cole
KennethCole

Here is an image just in case the tweet is removed:

I will put this in my books as what not to do for social media marketing. What do you think?

Update! Kenneth Cole has tweeted this in response to the uproar on twitter:

Re Egypt tweet: we weren’t intending to make light of a serious situation. We understand the sensitivity of this historic moment -KCless than a minute ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®Kenneth Cole
KennethCole

I am not sure if that counts as an apology, is there any way for them to recover from this blunder?

Update 2! A fake account has been created on twitter: @kennethcolepr which is tweeting more scenarios that Kenneth Cole tweets could disregard history. The smoke is building, will this go viral? 2700 followers in 2 hours.

More and more brands are jumping on to Social Media. Overall this has been received very well in Jamaica and the rest of the world. The idea of a brand using Social Media is to be interactive with customers, get better feedback and to be real time As brands log on to the web I think they should also help promote the medium they are using for their new campaigns.

In a developing country like Jamaica or other Caribbean Countries, it is essential to also promote social networks in order to increase the user base. After-all the more people using these social media networks is the larger your user-base to interact with. As more brands come on board the ratio of brands to people will become distorted, making the opt-in nature of social media feel more like advertising. The point of social media is to interact with friends to share content. Brands are supposed to follow this trend by providing content for fans to interact with. By advertising social media more people will sign up, enhancing the networking aspect of social media. The more people use social media is the greater the opportunity for brands to interact with customers, whether existing or prospective.

I think brands should develop programs to help increase internet and social media use in Jamaica, thereby increasing literacy and reducing the barrier of computer illiteracy. A person may not be willing to take a computer class, but by using Facebook or Twitter more often they can develop typing and communication skills. Other benefits of increased internet usage are more exposure to world culture, new technology, business opportunities, better English skills and more. I don’t see any negative factors compared to the current trend of education in the majority of Jamaican schools. Exposure is key, let’s get more people exposed in order to help boost business, the economy and education.

How can a brand help? Sponsor wifi for a rural community, computers at a local school, computer literacy classes at community centers, help to get more internet kiosks around the island. Brands can also help sponsor free internet access at local restaurants and cafe’s, as well as giving away old internet capable PC’s from the office to staff or members of the public. Additionally we can lobby the Government to make IT mandatory in high schools. This is not an overnight project, it will take years to develop. However the return on investment will be huge, never before has technology been so influential, people will only use it more as time progresses. Let’s not leave Jamaica and the Caribbean behind, let’s get ahead of the curve. Act now.

Tweet

2010 is a pivotal year because I plan to make this, a year of fruitfulness. Taking all of this online experience of trying different things and actually making it work. In December 2008 I launched my first major website RaceJamaica.com I was surprised at how quickly it took off and honestly was not prepared for that level of growth. During the past year it has had its ups and downs, with issues updating content fast enough and the quality of content on the site. The difference between this site and others before it, was that it is designed with social media marketing in mind. User contribution was supposed to be the main content generator for the website. Unfortunately my user base was just not ready to contribute. This year I plan on re-launching the website for the 2010 Jamaican motorsports season. Not only am I relaunching RaceJamaica.com but I am also launching a whole new online assault.

Besides all the goodies I have planned for RaceJamaica.com I am also working this year on properly branding myself. Recently the main question people ask me is “What is this social networking thing and how can it help my business?” followed by “Do I need to be on Facebook and Twitter?”. There is no basic answer. As a Jamaican I appreciate social networking, because that is how most business deals are carried out locally on a who-you-know and who-knows-you basis. People are the main reason why companies constantly support each other, whether it be a family, social, or background tie. Online social media works the same way.

What else is in the works? Well I have four main projects this year, that I plan to stick to, as time goes by and they are further developed you will hear about them. You can also check out my Official twitter page @dmitridawkins or keep checking this blog for updates, but the majority is yet to come! Don’t worry though, if all goes as planned, you will be hearing about it.  Ciao! Thanks for reading!