SMP final reflections

For my final reflections in this blog post as an SMP, I shall try to detail and reflect the events and assignments of the past 12 weeks.

When I first heard of the term 'Social Media Producer', I was puzzled. What on earth was the SMP? I could only gather from 'Producer' that I was probably supposed to do some research and produce something out of it. And then when the tutors elaborated more on 'Social Media' and the upcoming task at hand, I began to understand and have a clear idea of what was going on.

With POOL developing as an ABC beta community project, we the students in RMIT were assigned to become SMPs - study the social media landscape, recruit followers, contribute pieces of 'art' and publicize POOL with a theme of 'my tribe'. We were given a 'to-do' and guide list of sorts to do an SMP back in week 3.


Summarise and evaluate your activities as a Social media producer.


1. Details of your proposed individual Social Media Producer task


a) I’m looking into the possibility of trying to tap into the web designer community that I’ve known for quite a few years, being the administrator of an online forum. I would want to get them to post up their web designs. At the same time, it would encourage other website designers across the Internet to post up their designs as well, creating a tribe in the process.

b) If Plan A does not work out, I will to another group in which I’m also closely knitted to on the forum – the photographers. Like myself, I’m an avid photographer and have my own share of networks of photographers. I will look to publicize mytribe as another outlet for them to post up their photos as well as to build up more networks.

The first idea did not go to plan and I was forced to go with plan B. It worked well...initially. As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, there are tons of photography websites out there like Flickr, Picassa etc. I wanted to apply a mass advertising tactic but decided against it. Being a forum goer myself, I know what it's like to be annoyed with random forum users promoting their webpages and websites in their posts. With the exception of a few interesting ones, the majority are not eye-catching.

I contacted all my photography peers - to limited success. I had realistically planned to 'recruit' at least 5 peers.. but in the end, I only managed to gather 2 peers and sustain the attention of 1 of them. These 2 are 'NJW' and 'rubberduck' on POOL. NJW has submitted quite alot of her photos and 1 of them has been featured on the mytribe blog:

The rest of the peers who didnt join gave me the same 'excuses': 'I'll try to join' 'I'll look it up' 'I'll upload as soon as I get home'.. One reason was pretty interesting: 'This looks like an Australian website. And I'm not Aussie.'

There lies in the one missing factor that POOL has.

Global appeal.

I know that it is in the beta stages and has to start from somewhere. But once it has managed to successfully appeal locally, surely there will be a plan hatched to try to tap into the global scene?

I hope the POOL team can look into this and expand on it. POOL has the potential to be on the same level as the other established community websites in the web.

2) Details of your individual contribution to the tutorial specific tasks

- As my tutorial is in charge of the facebook/twitter group for mytribe, we decided to have 2 people in charge of the group in slotted weeks. I would contribute by monitoring the number of people daily joining the page. To encourage people to join the group, I would stimulate interest, interaction and publicity by posting up relevant links. This will not only apply to just my allotted week, but it will be ongoing throughout the semester.

This was another task that I was very vague about when it was first introduced to the tutorial. As part of the effort of promoting POOL, there were various areas in which each of the tutorials would cover.

Most unfortunately, our tutorial was given the 'easiest' and perharps, the most 'let-down' assignment of the semester. We were in charge of monitoring and maintaining the facebook page of POOL: my tribe.

To be honest, I was stunned when I first heard of it. A Facebook page being monitored by close to 14 people? Comparing the effort to my daily maintenance of my own Facebook profile page, it was simply ridiculous. Still, we came to a consensus that the monitoring of mytribe duties would be a weekly one. 2 people would take turns to be admins of the page, promoting POOL through relevant links and stimulating interest in the process.

Being the admin for the debut week, I went into it with hardly any expectations. Don't get me wrong, I did have plans up my sleeve. However, the fact that it was debut week meant that it was the first stage of publicity. Garnering the attention of curious onlookers and make them wander what the fuss of this my tribe page. As described in an earlier blog post the week after my admin duties:

"I reckoned that the promotion of POOL shouldn't start with a BANG! or people will be wondering what is all the fuss about this POOL thingy.. rather, a slow start would create awareness. The future pairings would then have a chance to make POOL 'the next big thing'.

To kick things off, I set up a separate photography FB group and publicized it on mytribe FB page. From there, I put up a description of the group and encouraged to share their photos/works of art on POOL. To set an example, I myself logged on to POOL and posted up some of my works.

The purpose of this was to create the first awareness of POOL and have a 'feeder' photography group in FB that would act as a link. I did not just target my photographic contacts, but opened 'membership' to anyone who liked to take photos.

It went rather well. I managed to garner 63 members, exceeding my original goal of 50 members. An encouraging and fulfilling start!

On maintaining and promoting the mytribe FB page, I did a daily check on POOL and posted any interesting reads on the page through links. I was not expecting a BOOM in membership and I was proven right.

Only 13-15 people joined within the week... that was even lesser than the amount of people that joined my photography group. And as to what our tut group voiced, most of the people that joined were all RMIT students.

Another issue to think about: how to get people to 'commit' and post links/images/audio/video on the FB page at least twice a week. How do we retain their interest in the FB page and ultimately POOL. The POOL site is also full of RMIT students, making it seemingly like another school project.

One can post as many links and dive into other groups and publicise about mytribe and POOL, but at the end of the day, will people still join?

I guess the main issue here is finding a strategy to RETAIN and STIMULATE their commitment and interest respectively. I hope the rest of the tut group manage to come up with something, as do I will contribute throughout the semester.

I guess being the admin for the debut week proved to be a stepping stone for the rest of the guys in tutorial. They managed to get an overall idea of how to make the FB page look more exciting and engaging. Credits to them!

Should I have put in a little bit more effort? Perharps so. Perharps I could have been more pro-active and posted up more links. The end result could have been slightly different. Still, I am very satisfied with what I did during the week as admin of the mytribe page.



3) Personal project goals and self-assessment criteria

- Be aware of the realistic things that can be done and assess the areas that went wrong during the course of the semester.

I think I have fulfilled this part of personal goals by knowing what to expect during debut week of the admin of the mytribe FB page.

- Interaction and constructive criticism to fellow mytribe members.

To be honest, I only managed to comment on a few pieces of work. I guess I should have done more in this area - fulfilling one of the key aspects of an online community website.

- Contribute at least one piece of work to the POOL and mytribe media.

I'm glad to say that I've done more than a job in this particular personal goal. Being an avid photographer, I love to show my photos and love to have comments and constructive criticism on them.

To date, I have uploaded and shared 8 photos.


A particular photo was very well-received:


Other than having insightful comments, it got featured on the mytribe blog as well on the official POOL FB page. I felt extremely happy that my work got featured. It only encouraged me to spur on in my photography skills and achieve my dream of being a freelance photographer in the future.


- Be participative, be it in tutorial or group work

I believe I have been rather quiet during tutorials, engaging only in the occasional discussions. But there wasn't much interaction to begin with.. this perharps can be attributed to the fact that there was a bad feeling towards the whole idea of maintaining the FB page. After week 5, there wasn't much class participation as we all went into our own content producer groups to discuss our individual project.


Extrapolate what you have learnt about the role of a Social Media Producer

Despite the ongoing semester assignment, I feel that I have only attained a semi-understanding of the Social Media Producer role.

At times, I felt I was just another user on POOL. I was only uploading my own works and getting comments here and there. I didnt feel like a moderator or a promotor.. the fact that POOL was consisted mainly of RMIT uni students did not help either. Even if there were people from outside the school, they did not make themselves actively known as our own students.

I was not filling the role of the SMP - stimulating public interest and involvement. I did some individual research of the role to help me in my understanding. They all had one similar thing - be well versed in the social media network and possess a deep knowledge of the demographics of online social media users.

This online advertorial is a great example of the roles expected of the social media producer.

It was thanks to the week that i was admin of the Facebook group that I had a taste of the SMP role. Setting up the separate FB photography group and stimulating interest was a difficult task. Yet it opened my eyes to the challenges of an SMP - breaking the comfort zones of netizens in the extensive network of established social media websites and then bringing them to another social media website. The role would only get tougher as technology advances further.

A part of me feels i have not fully justified the role of an SMP this semester. If such an opportunity were to arise in my working career, I would definitely love to have another go at it.


Self assessment for your SMP task

In light of what I have done for this semester, I believe I stand somewhere between a high mark of a distinction (75% and above) and a High Distinction. Although I have not fulfilled all of the requirements, I believe my contribution to the POOL community cannot be overlooked and deserves some recognition.

week update

1) Friend from Sydney aka 'rubberduck' on POOL has not uploaded any photos since he joined. As I expected, he said that he didnt have any time to upload. Nor did the other peers I approached. Sigh...

well anyhow, I've come to realize that this is, if not, the major obstacle that every SMP has to face. Observing trends, observing online demographics, testing the waters, anticipating problems... but the hardest of them all, is to be, the 'online' people's person.

Breaking away from one's comfort zone is the hardest thing to do. We find places, we make ourselves comfortable and we make it our home. Just like tribes, in a sense. There were nomadic tribes, no doubt. But what about those tribes that didn't move all around the place? Take for example, the tribes living in the Amazon Forest. Every year, they're forced to move from place to place because of mass deforestation. Notice that they're being forced? No one asked them to move in a polite manner.

It's almost the same thing for an SMP, breaking into new territory and getting people to join a new social media community. We can think of 101 tactics, but come on! We live in a 3G world where almost everyone knows the tactics that advertising, marketing and business use to get our attention.. that's the challenge and always have been. Like I've said in previous posts, its a matter of whether we as SMPs can get commitment out of our peers/the people that we meet.


2) I uploaded 2 new photos onto POOL..

1st photo:



This drew 2 comments:

"I like your quote on how you said "no tribe is an island" ...there's always some form of connection between tribes. Really cool work"

"hey julian, i really liked the way you compose this picture, and how the bottom of the photo is reddish and the top is blueish.. it shows the contrast very well. i agree with sam the quote is really meaningful too."

The quote refers to 'no tribe is an island'... i was hoping it would have become something of a catch phrase (after the success that my tribal masks photo brought) but meh, we can't have it all our way.

2nd photo:



no comments as of yet.. but the reason why I uploaded this photo was because of the passion that these 2 showed during a production shoot. I had a theme of 'all tribes start from something, somewhere..'

oh well, I'll see how things goes..


and that's all i can reflect as of now
till then!

end of the week reflections

1) I've managed to get another mate from Sydney to join the group. Hopefully he will upload photos as his work is keeping him very busy. But on the other hand, my 'friend' NJW, who joined POOL last week, has gotten some comments on one of her photos:



It's a great start for her and I'll be encouraging her to upload her works from time to time.

2) I uploaded a photo this week:


didn't garner much comments as i would have liked.

however, my previous photo of the Noh Masks has turned out to be something of a hit. It got featured on the POOL FB page (http://www.facebook.com/ABCpool) and as well on the mytribe blog (http://blogs.radionational.net.au/360/mytribe/?p=53).

It got another comment: 'Isn't part of being accepted in a tribe that you don't have to don a 'mask'? Or, another way to think of it could be a mask is not a hding place, but an outward expression of who you are? Very provocative - I like it :D'

The user posed a question to me in her comment and I was glad that my photo had once again invoked some emotional response.

I replied: 'we all don masks in what we do in our everyday lives.. what kind of mask? its up to everyone's imagination and interpretation..'

and then another user posed this question: 'this is an interesting discussion. Let me take both your ideas and turn them around by 180 degrees - and ask another question:

If we do NOT reveal all of ourselves to whatever tribe we are joining at the moment, is this a type of mask? In other words, can a mask be that of omission rather than that of 'putting on something extra' to hide something else?

Don't we join different tribes at different times - do you reveal the same part of your face to your family as you do to your study-partners or work-colleagues? Do you actually put on a different mask, or do you just choose to OMIT parts of your persona?

jesswalker, are we ALWAYS accepted?'

My photo and short subtle text of it had achieved its objective. The user had seen both sides of the photo and had reached the depth of what i was trying to portray. So kudos to him. I suppose I can give myself 5 stars out of 5 for getting such a response? Haha :p.. no matter, I hope more people on POOL are able to provide more of these photos.

3) After giving it much thought, I think it's kind of late to start a photography group on POOL. Perharps the website is still in the beta stage and the population of photographers on POOL has not reached the optimal number to allow a creation of such a group..

..yet.

For those reading this blog, I'm hoping the admins and producers explore the idea of creating photography discussion groups in the future. Of course it will not reach the dazzling heights of Flickr and other photography websites, but it's still a start. Rome wasn't built in a day. And I know for sure that photographers are not afraid to show their works on a global scale. I'm proud of my own works and I will continue to upload my photos every week.

well, the only thing now to look forward to is the big screening on Fed Square on 28 May. Would be lovely if my mask photo were to appear - after all, who doesn't like their photos being published?

what I plan to do this week:

1) Tried asking another photographer peer to sign up for POOL, by so far, he hasn't signed on yet. No matter, must keep trying. If I can get at least 2 more people onto POOL, that would be great.

2) Upload more photos as usual. I've been drawing comments - which is a good thing. As they say, people keep learning. I'm looking at my photos and always struggle which one to upload. I have the objective of uploading intriguing, emotional and subtle-message-hidden photos. And I'm always trying to make sure the next photo is better than the last.. quite the uphill task. Nevertheless, keep trying!

3) I'm pondering on whether to start a photography group within the mytribe group in POOL. I don't know if this is true, but ever since I uploaded my first photo (http://www.pool.org.au/image/julianlow/the_only_remaining), it seemed to spark (and inspire?) others to upload their photos and share their story. Either my separate FB group or the promotion of the online feature has worked effectively... but no matter, I am seriously pondering this as there are the pros and cons. Will ask kyla about this

4) Keep in touch with my other assignment - content producer stuff. It's week 8 and not much time left till the end of the semester. We've got good news on the front and hoping to start and end (hopefully) next week.

5) Repeat to dos 1 and 2.

analysis part 2

A few days ago, I posted up some sort of tribal mask photo from one of my travels.



I've been proven wrong partially it seems.

While users do get captivated by emotional invoking photos, it doesn't necessarily have to be in black and white. With the correct usage and contrasting of colours, it will be more than enough to draw in one's attention.

I did have comments as well:

1) What a particularly beautiful photo - the use of color is amazing :-)

2) this is a gorgeous image and a very thought provoking entry ... thank you

I had 2 other comments which were almost somewhat similar:

"I like the way you involve the viewer by asking a question. You do it in a subtle way in your other posts, too. I don't think I'm ready to answer your question, and perhaps it is rhetorical - you don't want an answer - or maybe you want to start an interactive discussion group - this is also part of your question. Thank you for waking up my mind."

"Hey, I really like this photo, but I just want to make sure what community are you interested?"

From these 2 comments, I'm giving it some thought on MAYBE starting a group within POOL? A photography group with relations to the theme of 'my tribe'? For that to happen though, I'll have to garner more 'support' from fellow peers and make sure that they have the commitment to publicise the group.

I've so far managed to successfully ask one of my peers to join:

http://www.pool.org.au/users/njw

She's all the way from Toronto, Canada and was fortunate to meet her last year on my travels. She's already uploaded 7 photos and some of them have gotten comments. A good and encouraging start!!

some analysis

Hmm alright.. So I've gone ahead and posted 4 of my photos so far on POOL. Quite pleased that 3 of my photos have received comments. Let's have a close look:



My first photo uploaded and it received this comment:

'Thanks for sharing and welcome to Pool! This is an amazing story and another example of how the outcome isn't always what you expect, but sometimes is far better than you ever imagined. Great image and looking forward to more work from you'

A welcome message, but nonetheless very encouraging. I was indeed eager to post up more of my works.



My 2nd photo and one of my favourites in my photo collections. And so far, it has gotten the most attention.

1) 'Such a sad photo and such a sad story...no animal deserves to live it's life behind bars because of mans inhumanity and selfishness.

Were they trying to rehome this beautiful one do you know? I do so pray they were.'

2) 'You convey a lot with few words. It's an evocative piece and a haunting photo; the viewer inevitably brings so much of themself to the story.'

3) 'So sad ~
Being a homo sapiens is extremely embarrassing.'

1st comment: The meaning of my photo got through and it prompted interaction between me and the anonymous user.

2nd comment: The user allowed the phto to speak to him/her and embraced its full meaning. An excellent comment!

3rd comment: A casual comment that's commonly seen. In a word, it was not solid enough. I was very 'embarrassed' after drawing 2 good critiques.




My 3rd photo uploaded and another one of my favourite landscape works.

'Hey julianlow - I like the image - but can you explain how you see it is relevant to the theme, 'my tribe' ?'

Another chance for interaction with a user on POOL. Perharps he/she could have looked at the photo abit more and grasp its meaning. This time however , I opted to give an explanation.

'perharps i wasn't clear enough..

Pilots are only allowed to land on this beautiful runway.. if you want to experience such a feeling, you'll have to join the tribe of pilots - only those with the specified qualifications will join the ranks.'

the third comment and I certainly did not expect it to be this way:

'Oh, what a shame that the reality is not as romantic as my imagination! Kyla, I rather liked it better in my head before you asked the question and Julian explained the answer!!!! Sometimes things are better not explained (well, I think so anyway - maybe I am in a tribe of one).

I was imagining romantic trysts!!!!!!!! And I thought Julian was referring to the tribe of all those who are lucky enough to have been with a special person (or a secret person) in an isolated and romantic setting.

Maybe the pilots take a 'friend' - a 'very good friend' - so maybe we are all correct!'

She had a different meaning compared to mine! But that by no means is bad, it shows that indeed, a photo tells a thousand words. In this instance, it was best that the photo was left to viewers' imaginations.



My 4th photo uploaded but hadn't garnered any comments...yet. Hopefully there will be soon as I particularly enjoyed the emotion brought forth by my subject in the photo.


What I've noticed is that people tend to look more at emotion-invoking photos and leave comments. It's pretty obvious from my 2nd photo - the bear trapped in the cage. The look on its eyes is very much haunting and conveyed alot of emotion. Also, I'm pretty sure that the black and white colour scheme had a lasting effect. Yes it may not be all colourful, but photos in black and white tend to convey more meaning. Perharps i should a black and white photography group on POOL? A project of some sorts? Hmmm.. interesting.

For now I should do one more colour photo upload and see what kind of comments i can get:




Tribal masks!... or so you think ;)

FB week reflections

So to reflect on last week's task of managing the mytribe FB page:

1) I set up a separate photography FB group and publicized it on mytribe FB page. From there, I put up a description of the group and encouraged to share their photos/works of art on POOL. To set an example, I myself logged on to POOL and posted up some of my works.

On duties of being the Facebook Admin (and being the first in the tutorial group to test waters), I went into POOL and publicized some works that had been uploaded. I reckoned that the promotion of POOL shouldn't start with a BANG! or people will be wondering what is all the fuss about this POOL thingy.. rather, a slow start would create awareness. The future pairings would then have a chance to make POOL 'the next big thing'.

Still, I was secretly hoping that there would be a BOOM in numbers.

The initial response was encouraging, with 30 members joining within the very first day. However as the week dragged on, the members multiplied twice and it stood at 60.

Looking at the stats, the average number of people that joined after the first day was 5-6.

I had one member that PM'ed (private msg to inbox) and asked me: 'Hey Julian, what's the function of this group? And how is POOL different from other community websites like flickr and youtube?'

I answered but couldnt really make a strong argument about POOL. I told him to think of a 'new hybrid of flickr and youtube with the chance of getting your works being featured by ABC'.

The member went 'oh. That's in Australia right? But I'm all the way back here in Singapore...'

Reflecting this, it is really abit of a problem. Besides appealing locally (which probably will not be that huge of a problem), what are the strategies that I'm gonna look into and employ to reach out globally? Competitions with the incentive of prize money? Hmmm...

2) The number of people and who the people were that joined the mytribe FB page.. was, in a word, quite demoralizing? Only 13-15 people joined within the week... that was even lesser than the amount of people that joined my photography group. And as to what our tut group voiced, most of the people that joined were all RMIT students.

Another issue to think about: how to get people to 'commit' and post links/images/audio/video on the FB page at least twice a week. How do we retain their interest in the FB page and ultimately POOL. The POOL site is also full of RMIT students, making it seemingly like another school project.

One can post as many links and dive into other groups and publicise about mytribe and POOL, but at the end of the day, will people still join?

I guess the main issue here is finding a strategy to RETAIN and STIMULATE their commitment and interest respectively. I hope the rest of the tut group manage to come up with something, as do I will contribute throughout the semester.


Ok I somehow think that the 'chance of getting your work being featured by ABC' is not strong enough. Could future pairings explore into the possibility of a competition with prize money involved? People are motivated by monetary gains... cos i would be too. If resources were available, I would put 1000 dollars as first prize, 500 as second and 300 as third. Combine this and your work being publicized.. suddenly it looks enticing.

In a nutshell, though the results weren't as positive as I would like it to be, the most important thing I can take away is having a strategy timeline to reach objectives. If given another chance to be admin of the facebook page for the week, I would do it. But this time, with some tricks up my sleeve.