Don’t want to be left out of the festivities as our nation’s birthday swings around? Ever wanted to get in on all the fun? Well, look no further than your own doorstep! In the weekends leading up to Singapore’s 45th birthday, the NDP 2010 Roadshows will be bringing the celebrations to a mall near you!

Also check out!!!

Date: 24th to 25th of July 2010
Time: 10am – 6pm
Venue: ION Orchard

AND

Date: 31st of July to 1st of August 2010
Time: 10am – 6pm
Venue: Bishan Junction 8

Prizes are up for grab too! Stand a chance to win the Flip MinoHD Pocket Camcorder and MXR WizQubes when you complete and submit your survey form.

“Enjoying a Digital Lifestyle” roadshow is held as part of National Day Parade 2010. You can expect many activities and happenings that day at ION Orchard and Bishan Junction 8. The roadshow is FREE for everyone to participate! To find out more about the New Infocomm & U road show, you may wish to visit Singapore Netizen page in Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/singnetizen

There are many bloggers in Singapore. Anyone can call themselves a blogger. The moment I register an account with any web log provider, I am a blogger.

But let’s be honest, what truly constitute as a blogger.

There are many reasons why you started or want to start a blog. To share your personal opinions on world matters? To blog about your own life day to day experiences? To sell things? To share your hobby with the world, be it toys or gadgets? Or to post nude photo of yourself?  (If it was the last, drop me an email, I volunteer to be your blog adviser, applicable to the females only.)

It may be due to work, companies start blogs to sell products, artistes start blog to connect with their fans, unless you fall under the Steven Lim category who starts a blog just to irritate people.

Those are the few reasons why people would want to start a blog amongst many others. But at the end of the day how many of them stand out?

Start a blog and be true to yourself. If you are funny and know what to talk about and blog constantly, your blog will naturally have readers. If you are those that do a blog post and start to monitor how many hits you have per day or per week, then you are probably losing your focus and is desperate for readers.

Worst if you start to ask people to click on your ads so that you can earn money. Unethical and spammy (Is there such a word? There should be)

Its not easy being interesting or to be funny. However when you start to write about something that you like it comes naturally, not everyone will like it, but if it is well written and compelling. People will read it. Oh and of course blog on a regular basis. Don’t put up an entry once every 2 months.

So bottom-line is, blog and be true to yourself. Don’t bother what other people think. Blog because you want to and you like it.

Social media is a medium designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible publishing techniques. It uses the Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues. Social media supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers.

However there are a few common misconceptions of social media from the masses. Hence, I have decided to clear things up by busting these myths.

1. Social Media Are For Kids

It is true that social media are far more popular with the kids but the older demographics are evolving into this space rapidly. In the last few years, Facebook’s 35 and above users now accounts for more than 41 percent of all their visitors. Here are the findings by TheAppGap shown in pie chart format.

2. Social Media Is A Fad

With the rapid rise of popularity in social media resulting in a buzz, it got quite a number of marketers sceptical. However, social media is more than what is when understood, it is a fundamental shift in communication – a medium intertwined in our current lifestyle. A video by Socialnomics completely debunks this myth.

3. Social Media Is Free

It is true that most social media tools are free to use but if you want to market yourself or your business, you need to consider some cost. It is the same as Public Relations (PR), in order to get noticed, you need to get branding, promotions and developing quality content which are all equivalent to cost; not limited to just money.

If it is free, then why are some of the Fortune 100 organizations investing a lot of money in social media? Just because it is free, does not mean it is effective.

4. Why Use Social Media To Share Ideas That Could Be Charged For?

Gone are the days when you actually ‘own’ something that you produce, stop thinking about it. These days, the more you contribute to the community, the more you will receive in social media. People recognize you for your efforts and naturally some of them will start following and promoting you without being told to.

To add on, stop thinking so much about monetizing your ideas before even starting on it. Treat income as an icing on the cake, it is not the top priority.

5. You Can Make A Big Splash Overnight

Sure, sometimes a social media campaign can produce substantial results quickly. But it works only if you are already a star. For the most of us, it will take hardwork and determination over a period of several months or years maybe to achieve results.

However, there are some gems that used Twitter to generate success. One of them is Moonfruit. Following a relatively simple promotion, their brand awareness went through the roof with traffic to their website increasing by 200% in the UK and a whopping 1000% in the US. People have signed up to try out their products in droves, up by over 350%.

6. If You Do Something Great, People Will Find It

Unless you are able to drive traffic to your social media effort, you are likened to a tree in the forest where you are not noticed. You need tools to make yourself stand out and some of them includes StumbleUpon, Digg, Twitter andFacebook but nothing works better than word of mouth.

7. Social Media Takes No Effort

Merely throwing up a blog will not get you traffic and writing about things that pop in your head is not likely to make you an authority on anything. It takes actual effort to make it work! Ranging from branding, promoting and coming up with great content; all examples of work.

8. There Is No Clear ROI

This video by Socialnomics is enough to debunk this myth.

9. Employees Will Waste Time

A research done by MIT shows that 40 percent of employees’ productivity is strongly linked to the amount of communication they are carrying out with others to discover, gather and internalize information. Employees with the largest digital networks are proven to be 7 percent more effective than their counterparts.

10. Social Media Can Replace Networking

If you are good at connecting online but stutter at the sight of another stranger, chances are, you are not going to get far with networking. Networking still involves physical interaction which social media does not offer. Social media can only complement networking but not replacing it. To be a successful networker, you must use both together.

What? Me write about Technology?

See when I was first given this topic to write about, the first thing that buzzed in my mind was, why me? What do I know about technology that I can write about? Me? Spotting the trend in the fast moving world of technology? I can tell you what you can eat for lunch, but not what will shake the world after the iPad.

But since I am at it, might as well share what I like to read when reading about technology on blog, be it reviews or unboxing.

Pictures

No, not your picture, unless you are some hot babe. Yes I love to see the picture of that Blackberry or Nokia you are reviewing. Don’t give me a 500 word review with executive summary of a hand phone or laptop that I cannot see.

I want to see the keypad, the led screen and how many fingerprint I can accumulate on a product before I declare it dirty.

Got videos even better, but please speak properly, don’t give me some Singaporean ah beng English. I want to hear it as Blackberry not brackbelly.

Also do remember, I am watching a video review, not Blairwitch Project. So keep the camera steady and focus on the product. I have seen reviews that focus on the reviewers throughout the whole video.

Content

I am 32 this year; I do know how to read. If you were to give me a title like; Acer Netbook Review and I see nothing but pictures, no words immediate #Fail.

Come on; give me little review like how it feels on the hands, the weight, and the initial touch of it.  Things that would be useful to even what you like to read. Put yourself in the shoes of someone reading it.  Also if you want to try to type a review, do it in proper English. Blog engines now have something called spell check. When you type wrongly, it underlines it in a red and wavy line, rectify it. I have read blogs with English so bad; it makes my grandmother’s English Cambridge standard.

So, I am a simple man, simple things make me happy. And if you stick to the above 2 rules. Your technology review will probably be a popular read, but don’t quote me on it.

PS: Apparently I was just informed that I will be assigned to do reviews. Wow that would be interesting, lets see me, myself committing the above mistakes.

[Cool photo above credit to .digitalight]

Many bloggers in Singapore have been actively engaged by many of the PR firms and also the media buy or advertising agencies. With both parties coming onboard offering different opportunities to the self-taught and unregulated bloggers, many are lost in these many transactions.

Some of the often spotted situations include:

• PR agency/ company invited bloggers to a press event, with food and drinks and prizes to be won. At end of event, blogger given press releases in a goodie bag, he left and went home. At home, he copied and pasted the entire press release in his blog with some accompanying photos from the press event and labelled his post an Advertorial. Clearly in this case, the PR agency/ company will be scratching their heads wondering what to do next.
• Another scenario: PR agency/ company invited blogger for a fun day out at their attractions with food and drinks provided. Blogger went home with nothing physical but a fun experience with fellow bloggers and friends. Armed with tons of photos and thoughts to share, blogger blogged and shared about it. And… labelled the post as Advertorial!!
• Ad agency paid blogger to write about their product, and to enhance the content of the post, invites blogger to dinner and explained the product in detail with demo of how it is used. Blogger went home with the product (which he got to keep), some product information and a cheque payment waiting after he posted his blog post. Blogger crafted a nice entry after trying the product and gave his own opinions on it. Blogger labelled post as Advertorial.

Based on your understanding between a PR engagement/ media invite vs a paid advertorial/ advertisement, can you spot what’s the difference between the above examples? Yes? Good for you! You’re on the right track (or almost there)!

We could have crafted a long post explaining the two, but thanks to @victortan’s tweet, it got us writing this immediately! (Which was by the way, long long overdue.)

So if you still can’t figure out what’s wrong with the three examples above, head over to Social Media Explorer to read what Jason Falls have to say about “What bloggers should know about PR and Advertising“. Some key points from his article…

• Soliciting Money For Your Blog Is Advertising Sales
• Public Relations Is Not Paid Media
• PR Should Not Pay For Coverage
• Bloggers Have No Obligation To PR
• A Bloggers’ Obligation Is To His Or Her Audience
• The Traditional Method Has Merit
• Bloggers Are Bloggers, Not Marketing Consultants

Strongly recommend all of you to head over to get some enlightenment.