Social Media of Choice

Happy New Year everyone. I hope whatever you did to send off 2013, you did it responsibly and that you got back in one piece, figuratively speaking.

Anyway, I thought I'd do a quick post, soon after I did my first post in 18 months, not necessarily for the hell of it. But, I decided to do it, because these are one of my rare lazy days. So, might as well take advantage of it when I can.

Just want to get it out there that my social media of choice is Facebook. Out of all platforms that I use, I probably use and post on Facebook the most. In my opinion, it is probably the best way to genuinely keep up with the people you really care about, and it's the best way for your network to keep up with you.

I have a Twitter, but I don't use it nearly as much as Facebook, since it seems like for the most part, you're just throwing random updates up in the air, and you have to post more to be relevant. I mean, I think Twitter would be great if you actually have a nice fan base, but for someone with 200 followers or less, not really so much.

But, I'm in many platforms of social media, at least the more important ones anyway. I do have a LinkedIn, as well as an Instagram, but it is rare that I log into those (if at all). I will say though, that LinkedIn is great for networking with professionals, so it's good to build your network there to log in every once in a while.

Anyway, I don't really have much more thoughts regarding this manner. Just wanted to let everyone know that my preferred social media of choice is Facebook in case anyone is wondering. Feel free to add me there. I usually accept most friend requests (especially if there are mutual friends), and the only time I don't is when your profile looks blatantly fake. Plus, I can post a birthday video on your timeline during your birthday.

Like I said, feel free to add me on Facebook. You can do it by clicking the badge on the left.

#OBE

OBE's Twitter = Glorified Status Update Thought Portal

(@OBECorp)

A lot of people know that I haven't always been a big advocate of Twitter. I have always preferred Facebook more, because it makes it easier to keep up with people in your network. I've always felt that twitter was more of a glorified status update, and in a way, is a little colder than Facebook, because the people you connect with doesn't necessarily have to connect with you.

However, if you have been following me on Twitter during the past few days, I've been using it a lot more. Since it kind of is a "glorified status update", I will use it as a more intimate thought portal of all sort of updates. Whatever is on mind, whatever I might be doing, I will try put it in my twitter (so long as it is appropriate and won't have serious future repercussions on me). It could be about business, it could be about motivation, it could be about sports... whatever. It will even give you a more frequent, and a more intimate look of what might be on my mind, and what I like to talk about, no matter how fun (or boring) you think it might be. All my feeds will also automatically feed into my twitter (whether it be this blog, or other things I post on the internet). I'm thinking that's what the original creators of Twitter had in mind as how to use this website, when they came up with that idea.

Though I will use Twitter in this manner, I will keep Facebook a less-cluttered haven for important updates for the people I've connected with. I'm proud to say, I have met, and know most of the people on my Facebook account, and want to use that website for special updates and make it easy for the people to follow my profile and are genuinely interested in what I do to easily interact with me. On the flip side, I interact with my Facebook friends too, and having my profile less cluttered will help me do just that. I want to continue to use Facebook as a place to interact (after all, you can't greet "Happy Birthday"). 

But another "FYI" about Twitter as it relates to Facebook, I also do feed my Facebook status updates on twitter (with the hashtag #fromFB). Therefore, if you want to know about what I'm thinking on Facebook, you'll see it on Twitter too.

So Twitter will be my everything page. It's still on it's "experimental stage" but it will definitely be feeding a lot about me, and you can really get to know me (even my leisure side) from twitter. Don't worry, I will not be keeping my updates "niched" like a lot of so-called marketing experts who are only on social media to try to sell you something... (I'm sure you've seen a lot). Since I haven't been a big advocate of twitter, I unfortunately haven't gotten a lot of followers on it. Whether I get more followers from doing this or not, wouldn't be the main objective of me doing this...

The main reason why I'll be doing this, is because as some kind of "public figure", we have to find better ways to genuinely connect with the world and be more transparent. Connecting through social media provides that. And, frequent updates (no matter how insignificant it may be to the reader), will provide that kind of transparency and help us more become more relatable.

So if you haven't already, follow me on Twitter at @OBECorp. It'll be fun...

D4P...PD!!!

-OBE

"Monumental" Advice from Ted Leonsis

In my previous blog posts, I have not been shy for my admiration for Ted Leonsis, owner of Monumental Sports and Entertainment (which controls the Washington DC pro sports hockey and basketball teams). He wrote a blog yesterday that I think everybody should read, especially if you're using social media, whether for , to connect with friends, associates, mentors, or even admirers. Check it out...

http://www.tedstake.com/2010/08/07/advice-to-sports-personalities

He addresses this to "sports personalities", but I truly believe a lot of the advice he mentions in this blog applies to everyone who uses social media. He gives obvious, but great advice to be authentic and genuine, to be transparent, and to be consistent "warts and all"... just to name a few. I went to a few business conferences and some businesses outsource their blogs to others and wonder why they aren't as trusted as Mr. Leonsis is.


But also, this article shows you how to "act as if" and how to treat your activity in social media as if you are a celebrity. This sort of continues to what I was saying in my post a few days ago... you never who may be watching or who can be looking for you. And if you do anything questionable in Facebook, then you have to re-evaluate yourself.

If you look at it, you have to act like your important, because once you do, that's how you'll be viewed. And ultimately, how you are viewed (and how you view yourself) determines how you will be respected by your peers, and by yourself. So what I'm saying is, even though you aren't under the public eye like say... Kobe Bryant, you have to watch yourself like you are. That might sound cliche, but there's a lot of truth to that if you think about it.


Before I have read this... I have been trying to apply most of what he said here in my pages. I don't set my Facebook or Twitter profiles to private, and keep them all public, because I want people to look me up and find me after seeing my work and/or seeing me talk. Therefore, I have to watch myself and carry myself in a way that is not detrimental to myself or my reputation. I can't be saying things like I desire to have sex with a certain girl, or post and argue something that make others who visit my page question my intellect.

The most notable thing that he mentioned here that I'm working on now is to be consistent and to blog and use these internet outlets everyday. As you can see during the past week, I've been working hard to do that.


So if you have the time... please read Ted's post. There are tons of social media "gurus" out there that claim to know how to use social media for business or for general use, and the information they'll give you is no where near as good as what you'll read in Ted's post, in my opinion. (Believe me, I've seen them, and I know). So, check out the post when you can. You won't be disappointed. Again, here's the link...


http://www.tedstake.com/2010/08/07/advice-to-sports-personalities/


D4P...PD!!!
-OBE

R.I.P. MySpace

I have to admit, I have really neglected this blog during the past few months. When I started this blog last August, I posted dozens of posts in that month, and afterward, I have just seemed to have gotten a little negligent. Well, those days are going to change. It's not likely that I am going to post as much as I did at that August, but I do promise to post a little bit more than I have been. And it all starts right now...

As I said, I haven't been posting much, but when I have been posting, it has mostly been to eulogize some of the notable people that have died at that time (such as Ted Kennedy, Abe Polin, etc). And this particular post will continue in that tradition, and will be to eulogize something else... which is MySpace.com.

I know that I might be a little bit late in saying this, but during the past few months, I personally experienced how far down MySpace has fallen...

In the mid 00s, MySpace was the biggest thing going in Social Networking, beating out the likes of Friendster, AsianAvenue, BlackPlanet, Bebo, and whatever else was out there (even Facebook, when they were strictly just for schools, colleges, and alumni). I started a myspace personal account in 2005 to connect with some of my friends in high school, and some other people I've connected with on the Internet, and thought it was pretty cool. About more than a year later, I started a music profile to promote my motivational CD "The ULTIMATE Crash Course". I was able to build the network in that particular profile to an astounding 25,000+. And from there, I was able to let people listen to snippets of my CD, promote some of my motivational pieces/videos, do a R.A.P., and even sell a few CDs here and there. What I thought was cool about myspace, was that I found a way (using a friendbot) to greet everyone a happy birthday the Monday before there special day. And with that, I gained a lot of appreciative "friends" who truly wanted to connect with me.

But herein lies the problem. MySpace had a flaw in their system, which made it easy for people, hackers, and advertisers to put viruses in your computer (whether knowingly or unknowingly) through scripts, and other technical jargon I don't understand. People started getting abusive. Therefore, MySpace had to make drastic changes to their system so people who abused it can't get as much out of it anymore. Problem is, they took away a lot of what some of us law-abiding users deemed beneficial. For example, people with more than 5000 friends can't view the birthdays anymore, so not only can the friendbot that I used pull out who has a birthday in a week, but I (the human being) can't even see who has a birthday anymore. This, among a lot of the other things (like the fact that a lot of their "new(er) stuff" like application integration, status feeds, and "the lite version", was late to the party and discovered by Facebook months beforehand) made people not really care about their site anymore. Personally, I've only logged onto myspace twice THIS MONTH. I used to log into it everyday. And, when I do log into myspace, all I get in my inbox are hundreds of event invites to events that I'm not going to, ingenuine messages that I can't read, as well as spam that everybody (including myspace themselves) send out. Arrgh! I used to get tons of meaningful messages everyday from people thanking me for what I've done, and I don't even get those anymore... because I couldn't really give them a reason to.

Not to mention, MySpace is too commercialized now. Even more-so when Rupert Murdoch bought it. Facebook is commercialized too, but all these pop-ups and blatant sponsorship ads in videos and music players on myspace totally get in the way and take away from the experience. In Facebook, most of the ads that lag your computer are in the applications. And, you don't have to add those if you don't want to.

It's really a shame that MySpace fell as far as it did. Don't get me wrong, people are still using it, and it's still ranked pretty high in alexa.com (with a ranking of 17). But, twitter has now officially passed it (with a ranking of 12), and Facebook is destroying it (with a ranking of 2, only behind Google)! It stinks too... because like I said, I have built a 25,000+ following on myspace because it was the next big thing in 2006. But, since nobody really cares about myspace anymore, and not as many people log into it... it doesn't matter as much. You can't really connect with people as well on there anymore.

In closing... I just wanted to say R.I.P. Myspace. Kind of makes me wonder if MySpace inventor Tom has a Facebook.

(Feel free to add me on the other social networking sites out there...)

Facebook: http://facebook.com/Obedoza

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ObeCorp

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-obedoza/19/742/ba0

D4P...PD!!!

-John