11 Sumber Ide Baru bagi Para Manajer Social Media yang Kehabisan Ide

Manajer social media pun bisa kehabisan ide. (Photo credit: bre pettis)

Bekerja di social media sering dianggap sebagai hal yang sepenuhnya menyenangkan. Tak heran karena banyak orang yang merasa performa dan produktivitas kerjanya diukur sebagian dari menghindari akses social media saat bekerja. Social media sering dianggap sebagai biang keladi produktivitas yang rendah, terbukti dengan perusahaan-perusahaan yang memblokir akses social media dalam jaringan internet nirkabel/ kabelnya. Mungkin salah satunya adalah perusahaan yang Anda miliki atau menjadi tempat bekerja Anda sekarang.

Itulah keasyikan mengerjakan sesuatu yang ‘terlarang’. Makin dilarang, makin terasa mengasyikkan. Tapi saat sudah menjadi bagian aktivitas sehari-hari atau bahkan menjadi tumpuan hidup, social media malah bisa menjadi mainan yang membosankan.

Jika Anda bekerja di bidang social media dan merasa sering bosan dan kehabisan ide kreatif untuk menghidupkan gairah dan semangat para fans di wall atau follower di linimasa akun Twitter brand Anda, cobalah 11 sumber ide baru berikut ini, yang acap kali juga saya lakukan.

Periksa kotak masuk surel

Ada yang mengatakan memeriksa kotak masuk akun email bisa membuat kita kurang produktif karena kita seolah dipaksa melayani berbagai email yang datang. Entah itu harus dibaca dan dibalas atau karena banyaknya email dengan subjek menarik yang mengundang untuk dibaca.
Maka dari itu, sebelum membuka kotak masuk, milikilah sebuah batasan waktu dan tujuan yang jelas. Bagi saya, memeriksa kotak masuk surel bisa memberikan inspirasi untuk satu hari penuh. Cobalah berlangganan newsletter atau posting terbaru dari sejumlah blog yang Anda sukai karena relevan dengan dunia Anda. Batasi waktu untuk memeriksa, misalnya 10-15 menit di pagi hari sebelum benar-benar bekerja. Setidaknya sudah ada beberapa ide dalam kepala saat hendak bekerja, dan tinggal Anda mengembangkannya lebih detil.

Jadwalkan tweet dan retweet

Tweet orang lain bisa juga menginspirasi kita untuk membuat tweet yang tak kalah inspiratif dan bermanfaat. Jangan ragu untuk beberapa kali me-retweet tautan-tautan yang menarik dan relevan dengan brand Anda di Twitter. Follower brand Anda akan berterimakasih karena Anda sudah bersedia menyebarkan informasi berharga untuk mereka.
Bila pagi Anda lumayan sibuk, gunakan aplikasi yang bisa membuat tweet terjadwal sehingga Anda bisa sedikit bernapas lega.Aplikasi semacam Hoostsuite atau Tweetdeck bisa jadi pilihan.

Baca blog orang lain

Jika Anda bukan tipe orang yang suka berlangganan artikel terbaru via surel/ email, mengunjungi blog/ situs favorit di bilah markah/bookmark juga bisa memberikan ide baru. Google Reader dapat digunakan untuk bisa membaca semua konten terbaru blog dan situs yang menjadi langganan kita.

Jawab pertanyaan

Sumber ide lainnya bisa dari pertanyaan yang diajukan follower atau fans. Jawaban itu bisa Anda jabarkan lebih panjang dan detil. Ini mungkin salah satu cara paling efektif untuk melibatkan secara aktif para follower dan fans. Mereka merasa didengarkan dan terjadi komunikasi dua arah yang positif, suatu hal yang menjadi salah satu tujuan utama kehadiran brand di social media.

Bertemu dengan sesama manajer social media

Tak ada yang lebih menyenangkan dari bertemu secara langsung rekan-rekan yang bergerak di bidang yang sama. Anda bisa bertukar pikiran, berdebat tentang satu isu terkini di social media, mengetahui perkembangan social media (yang bisa jadi Anda lewatkan). Jangan lupa gunakan Foursquare atau Koprol untuk check-in.

Rekam dan unggah video spontan

Mungkin ini adalah jenis ide konten yang bisa menarik lebih banyak pengunjung karena lebih memuaskan dua indra utama manusia: telinga dan mata. Menurut saya, video spontan juga lebih menarik disajikan karena social media sekarang sudah menjadi sumber informasi yang berbeda dari jenis mainstream yang nuansanya lebih teratur, terorganisir dengan baik , atau sudah direka sedemikian rupa untuk tujuan tertentu. Misalnya, Anda sebagai manajer social media bisa merekam video spontan berdurasi 3-5 menit tentang bagaimana suasana kerja kantor di mana CEO, manajer divisi lainnya dan rekan kerja Anda tengah menyelesaikan pekerjaan mereka. Anda bisa unggah video pendek ini ke YouTube atau Vimeo atau di situs perusahaan.

Hadiri seminar/ konferensi social media

Pengetahuan umum memang murah bahkan gratis tetapi pengetahuan yang lebih mendalam dan intensif tidak. Jenis pengetahuan yang kedua ini tidak bisa didapatkan dari membaca blog atau kursus online gratis atau mengunduh ebook gratis. Anda harus belajar dari pakar dan praktisinya.

Membaca buku

Terdengar konvensional? Internet memang sebuah perpustakaan digital tanpa batas. Anda bisa dapatkan hampir segala macam informasi di dalamnya. Tetapi dalam beberapa hal, buku fisik yang berupa lembaran kertas juga bisa memberikan pencerahan. Ada ide-ide yang bisa kita temui di dalam sebuah buku. Panjangnya juga tidak hanya 500-1000 kata seperti sebuah artikel di blog. Mempelajari informasi dan pengetahuan dalam buku konvensional juga lebih leluasa dan tak terlalu melelahkan bagi mata kita dan minim gangguan seperti suara chat, tweet baru. Bayangkan jika Anda membaca sebuah artikel online, kemungkinan besar Anda akan terganggu lebih mudah.

Berjalan-jalan ke luar kantor

Menjadi seorang manajer social media bukan berarti Anda terkungkung di balik meja seharian. Bebaskan pikiran yang jenuh dengan berjalan-jalan di luar lingkungan kerja Anda.Temui hal-hal baru, orang-orang baru di tempat-tempat baru.

Berolahraga

Ide bisa ditemukan jika keadaan mental dan pikiran seseorang sehat. Dan itu sebagian dipengaruhi oleh frekuensi dan intensitas kita berolahraga. Amat mudah bagi manajer social media untuk mengadopsi gaya hidup sedentari (kurang gerak) yang membahayakan keseimbangan jasmani dan rohaninya, yang pada gilirannya akan berpengaruh pada produktivitas dan kreativitasnya dalam bekerja. Sisihkan setidaknya 10-30 menit untuk sekadar meregangkan tubuh, berjalan cepat, atau olahraga kecil lain yang mengalihkan perhatian Anda dari rutinitas pekerjaan sebagai manajer social media.Terlihat seperti membuang waktu pada awalnya, tetapi bisa jadi Anda akan berubah pikiran setelah mencoba melakukannya dalam beberapa hari.

Kunjungi dan pelajari akun brand lain

Apa lagi yang bisa dipelajari untuk mendapatkan ide baru yang lebih mudah selain mengamati strategi yang dilaksanakan oleh brand lain yang lebih sukses dalam social media? Tentu tak ada yang bisa mengharamkan kita untuk meniru apa yang jawara-jawara ini lakukan. Kita bisa saja mengadopsi mentah-mentah. Akan tetapi saya juga setuju dengan Iim Fahima, CEO Virtual Consulting, dengan pendapatnya bahwa tak ada strategi yang sama yang dapat diulang untuk brand yang berbeda.

Prinsip ATM (Amati, Tiru, dan Modifikasi) bisa jadi kiat yang bisa diterapkan manajer social media. Intinya,tetap saja: “Berpikirlah secara kreatif”. Plagiarisme tidak akan berguna, bahkan berdampak kurang menguntungkan secara jangka panjang bagi keberlangsungan brand.

 

Kalau Anda manajer social media, apa yang akan lakukan saat hampir putus asa menemukan ide untuk konten atau strategi selain 11 poin di atas? Have your say here!

 

Koreans as Seen (by Me) on TV and Reality

As you can watch the video above, there were three Koreans talking with each other. I stealthily recorded them. There was one girl. She looked a bit chubby but ok, she’s Korean, what can I do? She looked just enchanting to me though. The other two males seemed to be her brother and father. Could NOT care less about them.

But then I decided to show off a bit. Just a bit. I collected pieces of my basic Korean scattered somewhere in the brain. A moment later, I interrupted in English, “Hi people, are you Koreans?” My opening remark didn’t work well. The father answered , not in English, but in a stattered Indonesian. Using English turned out useless in this very case. None of them spoke English. And then I broke the silence with this line: “Je ireumeun Akhlis imnida”. I was so nervous I forgot how to pronounce “Annyeong haseyo” correctly before that. But I liked it when the girl and the father (the brother didn’t even speak a word or look at me at all, which was acceptable and normal) showed surprise in their face. “Ah bisa bahasa Korea,” the girl, who speaks Indonesian best, responded. I might be blushing at that moment.

Another Korean I meet on daily basis is Mr. Ahn Bak-hyun. We live in the same rented house. This middle-aged man leads too modest a life for Korean standard of living, as far as I know. He lives in a rented room with so small size and no air conditioner in it. Even to me, his room is much too humid and smoldering hot (only having an exhaust fan and a huge standing fan). The room he’s sleeping in has no window.

Not all portrayed in Korean dramas you watch is true. Some Koreans are not as lucky as Coffee House drama's protagonist Lee Jin-soo (Kang Ji-hwan) who gains fame and fortune at the very same time. Millions of them are struggling against unemployment and poverty, TOO.

So the other day he happened to see me working on my netbook. He approached me, shirtless. Yeah, that was one hot afternoon in Jakarta.  Being topless is forgivable, of course. He asked me about my password the days before and I knew he’d ask the same question that time. My hunch was right. He came back with his 14′ Samsung laptop. The laptop looked so old. No battery was attached to it. Completely understandable as there’s no battery on earth can survive 7 years of usage. The operation system is Windows XP. When he started Skype-ing with his daughter, he had to attach the external web cam (which he’d bought after he borrowed my web-cam-embedded netbook) to chat online. With the upcoming Windows 8, XP is close to its end and I expect this laptop is about to be  kept as an artefact of the Samsung museum in a few decades ahead.

Mr. Ahn works, as he said to some of us, in mining industry. He admitted he has roamed several corners of Indonesia which I myself as Indonesian have not visited. Interesting and pitiful at the same time I felt. I mean, what brought him here? Is Korean too overwhelmed with job scarcity that they set Indonesia as their workplace?

Comparing those three Koreans and Mr. Ahn’s lives to what is served on Korean dramas I get addicted to is slightly painful.  The first time I had contact with Korean culture is through its Korean Waves stars and dramas. I got to know a native Korean too in 2006. Kang Song-hoon, my Korean tutor, taught me basics of  Korean. And when I thought every Korean used Anycall fancy clamshell cell phones, I saw with my own eyes that Mr. Kang got that Sony Ericsson candy bar phone with him. Disappointing, I know. My horizon of expectation was somewhat unmet. There’s a huge gap between the fact and expectation.

Besides, I used to believe that Koreans use high-end gadgets. But what I saw in reality is sometimes quite the opposite. Mr. Ahn proved my assumption wrong. As explained before, his laptop is old if I cannot say it antique. And his phone? It’s only a cheap EDGE qwerty cell phone. Not a glossy pricey slim Android LTE smartphone with a 4-inch screen and glaring vivid colors.

Lesson to learn? Never expect too much, you’ll be let down upon learning the harsh cold facts. LOL!

 

P. S.: It doesn’t mean I officially quit my addiction to watching K-dramas.

P. P. S. : I plan to arrange a short trip to South Korea to learn the society and culture and entrepreneurship thriving there (For God’s sake, it’s the land where Samsung and LG were born) so it has got to be fun! Look forward to having sponsors though!

Virtual Academy Batch 3 Snapshots

Virtual Academy Batch 3 : January 18-20 2012Taking notes: I was acting diligent. Not bad.

Wild Romance

Wild Romance starred by Lee Dong Wook

Latest Job Vacancy for Metrosexuals: More Korean Boys Recruited to Sell Cosmetics

 Ladies and gents, welcome the dawn of the new era of SPG! No, it doesn’t stand for Sales Promotion Girls, but Sales Promotion GUYS. As reported by english.chosun.com, in South Korea more and more good-looking boys get recruited by cosmetics shops.

So how could this happen? It looks like these gorgeous males will be employed as tools to attract more female, heterosexual customers. Besides, there’re more males out there pay more attention to their outlook (read: facial skin), and the sales promotion guys will surely provide more convincing testimonies for these potential customers. Seriously, how can you guys reject cosmetics offered by supple-skinned fellows whom you’re dying to be like!

But it doesn’t stop there. Aside from hair style and facial skin, a sales promotion guy ought to let their hands manicured on a regular basis. Sorry dudes, rough palms with lots of dead skin cells turn of the company’s female shopping appetite.

This may sound as silly as it can do but face the fact, girls. Apart from the men physical exploitation, it’s true that boys (start to) rule your world, ladies. Talk about men emancipation! (source: http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/02/09/2012020900448.html)

 

So YouTube Goes 3D?

I just spotted this video from Chris Garret’s Google Plus news feed. I have no idea when exactly Google Plus started to go 3D but it now features that “3D” button there. I already tried the 3D and it’s literally hurting my eyes so I turned it off. Do I have to wear a pair of 3D glasses to enjoy these 3D -enabled videos on YouTube? What do you think of this YouTube’s latest move? Is it cool or trashy? Have your say.

Social Media FAST (a.k.a. Getting Totally Disconnected from Twitter et. al.)

I just spent my afternoon reading this : Why Social Media is Killing your Creativity? | Julian Summerhayes.And this guy mentioned about this very tingling term: “SOCIAL MEDIA FAST” (total abstinence from something). This term (social media fast) inially was found by me in Mari Smith’s Google Plus update. She touched a little bit on this issue as she was celebrating Thanksgiving last year (2011). The term popped out and I guessed that was the cutest term ever on social media.I even cry for joy, because for your information, my life to a certain extent has been consumed by this thing called social media. It’s cheap, it’s total fun, easy to use, popular and above all, FREE. What else? It offers anything an Internet user could’ve asked for.

As I was giving a deeper thought, it’s dawned on me I , on a daily basis, am losing my creative mind, little by little. How so? You might wonder. I work (write, translate content, and whatever is required to satiate people’s thirst of online content) five days a week (or even more) on the web and mostly I am required to (re)produce content. The more the better, the faster the better it becomes.And social media, which keeps me informed and posted about the latest trends and contents on the web, turns out giving me no sufficient amount of time to sit and ponder and enjoy the creative thinking and the process to create (really create, isntead of recreating, or even worse copying) content.

I HAD IT ENOUGH! That said,what I really am trying to say is that it is SICKENING to be part of this incessant daily grind of quantity-minded content creation. Instead of being asked “How many posts or tweets or updates have you posted per day?”, I prefer being asked “How profound is the impact of the content (whether it be tweets, Facebook updates, or articles) you’ve published since this morning?” or “How far is the reach of your content?”, or “How many people are buzzing the content?”.

In short, I miss QUALITY. Gone are the days when I spent the whole day only to craft 2-3 blog posts and had enjoyed the discussion with fellow bloggers about the topic I highlighted in my posts. Of course, that was in 2009 when social media wasn’t this rampant like what we’re witnessing these days.I did NOT tweet much, updated my Facebook wall less, and managed to produce more satisfactory content WHOLE-HEARTEDLY. I poured my whole emotion in every word of the post I wrote and it in some way was relieving, purging!

Lately, when seeing the timeline or wall, what I keep on thinking is “HOW CAN I OUTRUN THESE PEOPLE?HOW CAN THEY CREATE MAGNIFICENT CONTENT SO QUICKLY?” I don’t care if you can craft crappy content faster or can generate fabulous, viral posts with slower speed, but if you can  create great,authentic content fast, that’s heart-wrenching to me! Call me wicked, but I bet anyone (who is the same shoes) would nod in agreement.

And speaking of social media fast, I have to say I can’t. I can’t stand it, period. I can NOT stay away from social media but if I have to view social media in a different, fresher perspective, I’d say it’ll work better for me.

How about you? Do you think you, or people in general, must limit their time on social media and fast for a certain period of time? Have your say.

The (Alleged) Correlation between Social Media and Depression

Image via CrunchBase

As quoted from this morning’s newspaper (Media Indonesia), it is found that having too many friends (or followers or followings) may trigger depression and lower someone’s self esteem. The findings are stated by a team of The Society for personality and Social Psychologists (SPSP) in San Diego, USA, just recently (don’t ask me how recent it is).

Perhaps the point on the risk of befriending too many people on social media makes sense but how about the second finding? Does it do more damage to someone’s self esteem, really? Yes, to some extent. Especially if you’re a friend of some narcissistic bunch of folks who keep telling they’re on luxury vacation while you’re doing your house chores at home  or telling the rest of the world how amazing their day has been when you’re nailed at the working desk as an overtime worker on weekends.

My hunch is backed by this finding: when it comes to self-achievement and personal life, the respondents of Mudra Mukesh’ study seem to have lower self esteem compared to those who don’t spend time on Facebook.The research, in the meantime, was conducted by a brainy doctorate candidate of Instituto de Empresa, Madrid, named Mudra Mukesh. He involved 354 people as the subjects and he found at the end of research thatwhile people think of Facebook, they feel like they have social interconnectedness and the sense of belonging to each other.

 

 

10 Reasons Why Ultrabooks will be Cheaper than Traditional Laptops « Ultrabook News and the Ultrabook Database

10 Reasons Why Ultrabooks will be Cheaper than Traditional Laptops « Ultrabook News and the Ultrabook Database.

Just found this article and site which completely focuses on ultrabooks. I love this, very informative. Though I laready have mu red Asus netbook, I still want to buy this sleek ultrabook. Very cool!

WR1-5 – YouTube

WR1-5 – YouTube.

Simply love this Korean Drama “Wild Romance”. Super ridiculous!

@tifsembiring on Behalf of Indonesian Govt: “Unless It’s Proven against the Laws, No Censorship to Indonesian Tweets is Implemented (So Far)”

Twitter, as we used to know it, was a free medium. But lately it’s going to fade.It’s not as free as we initially assumed, apparently. This is very understandable as Twitter has been allegedly intimidated and pushed in a way we have no idea about (secret service, Interpol, certain governments?) after all the unrests in North African countries,  London riot, Malaysia (remember Bersih 2.0 movement?). Even American Govt takes social media more seriously than before now. I

As for Indonesia, there’s nothing to worry about so far as the minister of communication and informatics, @tifsembiring a.k.a. Tifatul Sembiring, stated the govt will never apply censorship to tweets coming from Indonesia as a response to Twitter’s earth breaking policy.

Indonesia as a country has its own law taking care of this widely known as “UU ITE”. In particular in its 27th and 28th verse, there’s stated the censorship issue on the web, which includes Twitter for sure.

Pando Daily: Lacy and Arrington’s New-Born Baby

Serious Data Porn: Watch Wavii Grow | PandoDaily.

Pando Daily: Is it the new TechCrunch?

I’m recently addicted to reading PandoDaily.com. That is a newly launched tech-themed blog, other than the AOL-acquired  TechCrunch.com, VentureBeat.com, or the oriental Penn-Olson.com.

In spite of its being new, PandoDaily is NOT in fact that new. The witty brunette reporter Sarah Lacy, the shrewd blogger Paul Carr, and the legendary Michael Arrington back this site. Even Brian Solis writes on it. These are no amateurish tech bloggers in Silicon Valley. I simply love the sarcasm, humor and irony poured into each post there.

The reputation of the reporters here is so widely acknowledged among global technology observers startup owners and entrepreneurs that even a news ticker published on it helped Wavii, an app launched in beta version, gain more exposure, slightly better than TechCrunch to be honest. But for a new blog, it does very well.

As a blogger and an online reporter, I have to say the concept of “news ticker” on Pando Daily is simple yet brilliant. It doesn’t follow the generic rule of journalism (you know the “5W+1H” dogma) but it provides a brief piece of information. Props to Pando Daily team!