Social Media Archives - Steven D Rowe

Rethinking A Social Media Strategy

The past couple of weeks regarding Mr Musk’s takeover of Twitter have been a total gong show and now he has reinstated Mr Trump’s account.

Seeing how this has unfolded has given me time to review how and what platforms I wish to engage on, so this is my line of thinking.

Twitter

I have stopped tweeting on the platform, locked my account and left basic information on where to find me in the future. I’ve also deleted links to Twitter from this website; links to my account and for social sharing my posts.

Mastodon

I am pretty happy with the way things are going on Mastodon, it is a wonderfully sane platform with many interesting people to collaborate with and learn from. It is an open-source platform run by volunteers which creates a feel-good factor for anybody who is coming on board. Twitter is a business but Mastodon is a community. I know which one I prefer.
https://mastodon.social/@stevendrowe

Facebook

I do promote this but my activity there is virtually nonexistent, about 95% of my friends have stopped interacting on that platform. Personally, I am aware of the platform’s privacy issues and I’m careful what I do on there now.

Instagram

It’s best to use Instagram on a desktop computer with as many ad-blockers as you can find. Adverts and recommended content will be invisible if you have ad blockers. I don’t think the photos I have a very wide reach, there are too many celebrities and influencers on the platform that detract from regular people like me, so I don’t go to any effort in putting new work up, just now and again.
https://www.instagram.com/stevedrowe/

Vero

This is an Instagram-type platform but much better and has additional features that would be attractive to many users. It seems to be mainly for professional photographers and against their work my content is just naff. Either way, I still get some feedback and likes, and there is also a lot of inspiration for me to do better at my photography and photoshop.
https://vero.co/stevendrowe

I have actually placed more information on LinkedIn lately, I had cut down to about one item every 6 months, about the frequency I used to log into the platform. However, you never know who might pick up information that will benefit my clients.

Blog

This is the place where I need to focus my best efforts. I haven’t posted much recently and that needs to change. I enjoy this the most.

Summary

I take it as a positive step that the Twitter gong show has woken me up to look at what I do online and come up with a plan to focus my best efforts on.

Steven2022-11-20T06:04:34+00:0020 November 2022|Social Media|

Twitter An Uncertain Future

This week the Social Media company Twitter was privately purchased by Elon Musk and now faces an uncertain future.

Introduction

There are many things I don’t care about Mr Musk and some of them are:

Picking a fight with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine
Tesla’s connection with Xinjian, China and the draconian repression of Uyghurs
Some Pro-Russia bias
Seeming to side with US right-wing radicals and extremists
The tendency to say insane things

So, for Twitter the fears are:

He will place the whole system behind a paywall
Trump and other right-wing characters who have previously been banned will be allowed back on
The platform will be a free-for-all for hate speech creating an exodus of users

The First Day

As soon as the procurement went through Mr Musk already fired some of Twitter’s leadership simply because, so I understand, he just didn’t like them. However, there have been some legal arguments between them so maybe that was the case. Also, some regular employees have been dismissed too. Musk already said he’d fire 75% of the staff, I guess in order to make the company more financially viable that would be necessary.

Paywall

Currently, the company has Twitter Blue which users subscribe to have access to advanced features. Will those subscribers vanish given that they don’t believe in Musk’s lack of ethics?

A paywall will mean the end of the platform for many users since they just can’t afford it given the economy the state is in and rising prices. The more that unsubscribe from Blue the less income the company will have.

Trump

A number of human rights organizations have written to advertisers that use the Twitter platform urging them to boycott should Musk open it up to hate speech and disinformation. Certainly, if there are fewer users on the platform they less likely they will be to sell their products anyway.

When Trump was banned from Twitter it was applauded by many, some complained it was too late and if it had been done earlier the 6th January Insurrection wouldn’t have been as bad as it was. One can block Trump and even mute words containing that name but users will still provide commentary on everything he says, which I could not take.

Disinformation

Twitter is currently full of disinformation and hate speech, a day doesn’t go by without seeing something that will shock and disgust users. I wonder what the likelihood is that Musk will do something about the fake accounts. Will it get worse under him as he opens the floodgates to anybody? I reckon the latter is more possible, unfortunately.

Alternatives

On Twitter, this appeared to create shock waves for users:

Some users have already vanished
Others said they would be closing their accounts soon as they can
Some are saying “I’m not going anywhere” suggesting they will not be bullied off the platform
Many have been talking about how awful Musk and Trump are
Those on the right wing have been celebrating “oh, he’s one of us”.

So, if people have to go, where should they migrate to:

It appears that Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, is coming up with a new social media concept called Bluesky Social, currently reaching Beta.
Mastodon looks very similar to Twitter, I know a couple of people who have created accounts there – my profile is here. I notice the European Commission is on there so it must be attracting some high-profile people.
Counter Social looks like TweetDeck, not very user-friendly at first but worth checking out – my profile is @stevendrowe, profiles are not public unless a user pays for the subscription, also, certain “high-risk” countries are banned.

Summary

I’ve been on Twitter since 2008, that is 14 years, and have picked up a great bunch of connections both business and acquaintances, it would be a shame to lose them all now. That is the way it goes I guess.

Steven2022-10-28T23:46:49+00:0028 October 2022|Social Media|

Instagram vs Vero

There have been complaints against Instagram lately and many professionals are choosing to abandon the platform to go to Vero.

Vero vs Instagram

There are advantages and disadvantages on both platforms, just like any other social media I guess.

Here are my thoughts on the platforms

More distractions on Instagram such as adverts and recommended accounts/videos that one is bombarded with
Photographers don’t necessarily produce videos and that is now, according to the CEO, the general push on Instagram
Instagram is better for portrait rather than landscape format whereas Vero accepts both. I personally find it difficult to take photos that are in portrait format.
Users will go to Instagram for video content, like TikTok, but start to become dis-insterested in still photography, unless of course, you have celebrity status.
Little chance of being spammed or receiving vulgar comments on Vero
The algorithm in Instagram will distract from your content, for example, I might subscribe to your account but there will be little chance of me seeing your posts.
There are more features on Vero such as recommending another user, a book, share music and so on.
The disadvantage of Vero is that one might find it difficult to gain followers if the quality of your content isn’t on par to photography enthusiasts or professionals, which has been my experience. I will just never be able to produce the same quality photographs.

Tips on using Instagram

There are ways of attempting to make Instagram more palatable, such as:

Use on a desktop computer
Ensure you have as many AdBlockers on your browser as possible
Either use a private browser or something like the “Facebook Container” extension in Firefox.

The above will ensure you don’t see the many adverts and receive the barrage of recommended content from accounts you don’t want to see.

My Strategy for Photography/Video Media

Firstly, I try to create the highest quality content that I think users on Vero might be interested in. Of course, other users’ work is inspirational to me in that process.

Now that the material is in the best shape that I can get it in, within my meagre skillset, I then post it on other social media accounts.

The highest engagement I receive on any social media platform is Twitter, so that is always a priority. Then, Facebook and Instagram, for which I receive very little engagement if anything at all.

All of my content is uploaded on my website, I get more visitors there than all my social media accounts combined.

So, my strategy is to upload it on all possible platforms for maximum exposure as you never know who might find it, someday.

Summary

I’m so chuffed that anybody likes and/or sends me positive comments on my work.

Please visit my Vero account.

Steven2022-09-10T20:59:32+00:0010 September 2022|Social Media|

Twitter Blue Review

A subscription add-on to the Twitter service started here in Canada recently so I thought I would check it out for a while.

What Twitter Blue Includes

Bookmark Folders – users already have access to store their bookmarks but upon subscription, they are able to file them in folders.
Undo Tweet – a tweet is sent on a delay giving the user time to review before it is sent, like the delay you can set on emails going out. A user can stop it being sent and change any of the text. Once the tweet has been sent you cannot undo it.
Reader Mode – able to read long threads in a newspaper-style format
Icons – some more icons available for the user to choose from
Support – Twitter promised a faster route to obtain support

Cost

For Canadian users, the service is CAD$3.49 per month which, after-tax in British Columbia, works out to be about CAD$3.91. So really, that is $4.00 a month just about.

Review

The only benefit that was moderately useful to me was the Undo Tweet feature, but that turned out to be a bit of a nuisance waiting for something I had already reviewed to be sent. You can’t set up a delay on each tweet just on all tweets going out. Twitter has pitched this as an Edit feature but falls short of actually editing an entry once it’s been posted, in which case you have to delete it and post it again.

The bookmark feature is moderately useful but I tended to actually place them somewhere else outside of Twitter.

Icon. Well, that’s just silly really, I don’t really care about what icon is there on my iOS screen.

Support. I never noticed any route to gain faster support, felt I was the same as anyone else.

The Twitter blue service isn’t even available on Desktop, even though I had access to it via my iPad and iPhone. Since I use my Desktop the most I wasn’t even benefiting from it for most of the time I was on the service.

What Made Me Cancel

I wasn’t impressed with the service at all. If they are going to charge they really should have been more imaginative. All users should have access to the Undo Tweet feature anyway, it may make people think before they tweet anything offensive.

If I had many thousands of followers and a business I would find Twitter Blue useful, but I am just an average user with not a large impact on there.

Also, today, Sunday 1st August, Twitter has been down all day and felt I wasn’t going to pay a special price for something I can’t even access from hours upon end.

Steven2021-09-12T04:09:07+00:001 August 2021|Social Media|

Twitter Etiquette

I have learnt plenty of lessons being on Twitter for quite a few years now and have built up my own social media etiquette.

I think of Twitter as a newspaper, I am the Editor responsible for my own content and ensuring it reflects my brand and thoughts, but at the same time hopefully of interest to other people. There are certain areas I am a subject matter expert in but I tend to share a large breadth of commentary on a large range of content. I am trying not to pick up bad habits of others on the platform and I detail some of these here.

Retweeting/Sharing Content

Twitter Stress I’m asked quite often to share, or retweet, other people’s content so it “becomes viral” for them. I don’t take any notice of these requests.

If the posting is awesome I will share it without being asked and I’m sure others will do the same. I also believe in reciprocal arrangements on social media, if someone is constantly asking me to share their content, but they don’t share any of mine, then it’s not really collaborative.

Retweeting Your Own Tweets

There is one newspaper that does this constantly, I see the same article at least 5+ times a day. They do the same on Facebook too. I have actually muted people who do this as it becomes tedious to see so many repeats in my timeline.

Having said that when people strategically retweet at a certain time this can generate more clicks and engagement. However, there is always a danger that while more clicks might be gained there is always a possibility that you would lose followers.

Be Strategic, Not Angry

There are certain tweets or users on Twitter that I certainly want to keep at a distance because they are either always angry and often offensive.

There are certain behaviour patterns I don’t care for and I will either mute or unfollow:

Shouting (writing in caps)
Name Calling
Putting down others looks, weight, sexuality, gender, ethnicity etc
Extreme views on politics
Constantly complaining
Negative views
Arrogant
Judgemental

I rarely tweet on the fly now, I type it out, schedule it to go out in advance, think about what I said, and edit it if necessary. If I say something that is not quite correct which someone points out to me in a constructive manner I will give them my thanks and send out a correction, just like a newspaper would (should) do.

Cite Sources

For me it’s important to cite sources of the content or research that I am referring to in my Tweets, someone has gone to a lot of trouble working on something and I want to be able to give them credit it for it. I will definitely link to their website if they have one, and their Twitter handles. I see this more in the scientific community as there is a code of practice when writing research which I try to reflect on social media.

There are many who call themselves “subject matter experts” on Twitter, but they clearly aren’t, who will steal work and not provide credit to the original author. I don’t like this practice at all especially when many could have the imagination to create their own work.

A profile is Anonymous or Lacking in Detail

I try not to follow or engage with anonymous people. If people are proud of their work they should be upfront in who they are. There are many anonymous profiles on Twitter because they have legitimate reasons to avoid the authorities, but they could be bots, or more likely they want to be vulgar producing a huge array of obscenities.

There is a huge range of guidance online to help beef up your brand on Social Media and elsewhere, it’s worth doing to come across as a more credible resource and someone you would want to know.

Emoticons

I am not an emoticon person and many people have a deluge of them in their tweets. As an older geezer, I have no idea what they all mean so I don’t read the tweet. I will sometimes use emoticons in bullet points on twitter from a visual appeal perspective, but not to form parts of a sentence. I guess it depends on how wide people want their tweet to go since there is a certain part of the population would, maybe, understand all these emoticons.

Hashtags

There are quite a few naughties around hashtags, these are my “prefer people didn’t do” list:

Hashtag every single word
Hashtag incorrectly, not on keywords
Place trending hashtag’s on a tweet just to get it seen by others. So, the trending hashtag could be #banana but their tweet is about apples, but still use #banana.

Flashing GIFs or Videos

Sometimes Twitter users will share high speed flashing gifs on social media but they can trigger epileptic seizures in others. Some do this on purpose but hopefully, the majority of people are unaware of the effects of these gifs. It’s worth just thinking about this when posting graphics online.

Me, Me, Me, Me, Me

Constant self-praising and saying how fabulous they are can be fairly tedious on Twitter. Telling people how awesome they are is less self-indulgent and viewers will think “oh what a kind person he/she is” which encourages them to follow.

On Twitter, I’ve seen someone: a. I wrote this, isn’t it fabulous, it what everyone should want to read, b. retweet the same thing, c. retweet again saying “the article is talk of the town, I’ve received so many positive replies on twitter” (which they didn’t), d. wait an hour and retweet again saying how fabulous it is…and so it goes on.

Follow to Advertise

Many companies are now following others online just to grab their attention to their product or service. Then some will follow them back. In turn, the company will then unfollow them as the deed has been done – generate more followers.

I don’t follow anyone back unless their content aligns with my interest groups, I am not tempted to “follow back” on auto-pilot.

Unnecessary Direct Messages

These fall into several categories:

DM to say thanks for the follow, these are often automated
DM to say “please follow me”
DM to sell something to me

My personal preference is to receive DMs from existing friends only. I don’t like talking to customer service departments via DMs, companies should have their own self-service website that provides me with a tracking ticket number or at least live-chat via a logged-in environment.

Steven2020-08-25T21:56:47+00:0025 August 2020|Social Media|

Facebook Alternatives 2020

Many users have been asking themselves whether they should remain on Facebook due to the number of controversies surrounding the company and subsequently looking at alternatives.

I don’t want to recommend any alternatives to anyone, most can discover those on their own, but I will run through what I currently use.

The last straw for many people was Facebook willfully allowing misinformation and divisive content to proliferate on its platform leading to walkouts from staff [Business Insider – 2nd June 2020]. A group of civil rights organizations are asking big brands to boycott advertising on the platform during July 2020 because Facebook allowed incitement to violence against protestors fighting for racial justice in America [Mashable – 17 June 2020]. These are a mere drop in the ocean of controversies Facebook has been involved in. As a result, the majority of friends have stopped posting on Facebook to see how these pan out until the US election is over.

So what are the alternatives I use?

Twitter
Keeping in touch with people and experts

Far from perfect, lots of fake accounts, people tweeting before engaging brain first, and way too much politics.

However, this is how I organize my account:

Add subject matter experts to Lists
Place those lists into streams in TweetDeck and/or Hootsuite
Only view/engage with those in the lists as this keeps your account on message and for a large percentage avoids toxic political messages

I rarely engage with those who are not identifiable as a real person or company/organization. Identifying oneself adds a layer of credibility.

Telegram and Skype
Replacements for Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp

I was getting a huge amount of spam on Messenger, including adverts from companies I didn’t know and fake users.

Telegram has a better layer of security, although nothing is 100% secure, journalists are known to use the platform as well as activists around the globe. Nothing is 100% secure and the negative thing about Telegram is the lack of my own contacts on there.

As I have Office 365 I use Skype quite frequently but mainly for business. Now and again I do receive spam invites but they are easy to detect and block.

Groups

I haven’t really found an alternative to groups although many online applications do have them. In Facebook I belong to a couple of technical groups that are not emulated anywhere else, which is a shame. Google+ was the best forum for groups but that met it’s demise over a year ago. MeWe was one of the replacements but didn’t impress me at all, I left.

LinkedIn has some groups but I have noticed the level of engagement on the ones I subscribe to have considerably dropped, it’s hardly worth going back to see if there is any new content there.

RSS Feeds
Replacement for following news organizations in Facebook

I was following a couple of media companies but not for long, I quickly deleted them. I didn’t like the comments that came along with them and the offensiveness of the engagement on there.

I’ve been using RSS readers for as far back as I can remember and will follow news organizations there. Many news websites do have RSS feeds even though they may not advertise them so it’s worth playing with URLs in a reader.

There are many RSS readers on the market, I use the following:

News Blur is the best if you want to read your feeds on a device as well as on a desktop, however, there is a subscription if you exceed a certain number.

Instagram

I haven’t found an alternative for Instagram either although there are quite a few tools out there.

I was on Flickr for a while but no one else I knew was and they have a subscription model if you go over a limit.

I am still on Ello, I joined in its infancy but it seems to have died a death with exception to some artists. It’s certainly not for the every day person in the street kind of tool.

What I could do is start to increase the number of photos on this website which I have been thinking about for some time.

Steven2020-06-21T05:02:45+00:0021 June 2020|Social Media|

What Not To Say on Social Media

What you say on social media can lead to ruining your privacy, reputation and brand. It’s always best to engage brain before hitting “Post” on your device, in other words, “planning”.

Most organizations will have a strategy in planning their social media in advance to coincide with their projects, goals and timelines. Most likely they will go into review by other members of staff including those on the senior leadership team and marketing. It’s helpful to keep this in mind for your own individual posts. If you aren’t careful what you say you could either lose followers or the worst case scenario be your own risk to reputation.

We’ll just dive into what I think people should not post.

You dislike your job
You dislike your boss or work colleagues
You dislike your customers or complain about their looks/ethnicity etc
You dislike your life partner or shame him/her over social media
You dislike your family or shame them over social media, even in conversations they are not a party to
Constantly shame other people over social media (being a troll)
Don’t be an emotional vampire
Don’t provide details of when and where you are going on vacation (tells the world that your property will be empty)
Don’t provide details of your daily schedule (again tells the world that your property will be empty)
Don’t say that you are having an affair
Don’t reveal your financial status, whether you are poor or rich, need or have loans, in serious debt
Don’t reveal or give any clues as to what your usernames and passwords are
Scams about how many followers people can make if they listen to you
Photos of you being too familiar with other people than your partner
If you are going through some legal investigation don’t say anything that might jeopardise that for yourself (friends could let slip about something you have mentioned on Facebook)
Your toilet habits
Medical records or photos of your condition
Extreme views about politics or people ie racism, homophobia.
Photos with documents that users can zoom in to in order to find confidential information about yourself or loved ones
Photos of strangers in embarrassing situations, obtain people’s permission before posting
Post too much on yourself, show you are considerate of others too
Death and other threats
Lies
Steel someones work/data and say it’s your own (always cite your source)
Repeat the same message day after day or constantly retweeting yourself. Always come up with new and exciting stories to keep your visitors engaged.

Steven2019-10-01T00:52:09+00:001 October 2019|Social Media, Technology|