Social.

The beginning of the work week was slow so I took it as an opportunity to research social media and it's impact on companies. Where did this thought come from you might ask? Monday we had a guest speaker give a presentation about social media which sparked my interest and got me thinking about the future of our favorite media platforms. The guest currently oversees the marketing for Harbour City mall - the largest mall in Hong Kong. Her business card alone contained links to Facebook, Twitter, Twylah, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, Mobile Apps, Sina Weibo, Sina Blog, Tencent Weibo, Q Zone, Youku, and Google+. 13 in total. Wow! She shared interesting information regarding Hong Kong and social media, which spurred my interest in the future of social media... Will it keep growing and continue to run and dictate our lives? Or will it reach a plateau and eventually fizzle out? Personally, I think it will continue to grow, but become more condensed. Currently, the average person is on 2.7 social media platforms every day.

1.9 in Europe

2.1 in the US

3.1 in Brazil

3.9 in India

http://www.quora.com/How-many-online-social-networks-does-the-average-person-actively-participate-in-at-the-same-time

But with all good things, there is always an extreme. Whether you're a social media guru/junkie or if your career is the execution and management of social media for a company you could be on as many as 13 sites daily, like our guest speaker. However, updating those every day, and sometimes multiple times a day, i.e. Twitter, can be very cumbersome and time consuming. I believe in order to make our lives more efficient, a program needs to be developed that will update all of the sites concurrently so as not to waste time doing each individually. I know there are apps out now such as HootSuite that have started doing just that. There is even a setting that will make timely planned posts. This is good for when you're on vacation or don't have internet access, but have planned ahead what you want to say. I see this becoming a common theme in the coming years. In fact, here's a interesting article that I just read today regarding the future of social media. Do you agree?

Another thing companies need to keep in mind when marketing to consumers are their habits/trends. Just because one country has success marketing through social media, isn't a shoe in for another culture. For example, in an article on cnngo.com it stated that Hong Kong social media use is higher than the U.S. This, to me, would have been shocking to hear only 6 brief weeks ago. However, living here, working here, and witnessing the constant smart phone usage is a sight that can't be ignored. The majority of people I pass on the sidewalk don't even look up from their phones as they walk, or transfer lines on the MTR. And the strangest thing that I've become aware of when it comes to comparing the US and Hong Kong are the size of smartphones. In the US, we still like to have something that fits in our pocket, something compact enough, yet with enough 'sex appeal' that we have to have it. In Hong Kong, the noticeable trend is "the bigger the better". Some of the phones I see people talking on and playing games on are huge -- they don't even fit in a pocket! As efficient as the Chinese are, I am a bit surprised by this fad. The special smartphone purse seems to be the only logical solution they have created in order to carry on with their savvy ways.

In addition to the consumer usage of smartphones and social media, the executives' use can't be ignored either. Our generation is very lucky having grown up with the birth of social media, yet it's seemed difficult for others to catch on. Unfortunately, companies that don't adopt this trend will have an imminent death in the future -- only 30% of the Fortune 500 CEO's are connected to a social network, which will be the beginning of an epic fail -- Fortune 500 CEOs absence in social media effects company's future

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Even though the week got off to a slow start, the tides have turned and I'm in the heat of it now. Wednesday I compiled a prezi with a short turn around time to send my boss running off to WOW the client. Thursday, I got into work early to present another prezi to yet another potential client - this one a luxury textiles company. I constantly attempt to make the prezi's represent the company we're presenting to, with their theme, tone or color scheme incorporated. It is definitely fun to be this creative, but it is also a challenge when the creative juices aren't flowing. After I wrapped up those two, I was immediately pulled into a meeting with two other VPs who briefed me on an additional prezi that needs to be completed by next week. This one will be very time consuming as a great deal of research needs to be conducted regarding the current Hong Kong and Greater China markets combined with our company's credentials. Thank goodness they are providing me with enough time to produce a quality product. (They even mentioned hiring me as a freelancer so I can continue to work from the states -- Looks like I'm becoming indispensable afterall!)

Two weeks left...