David M. Green: Purveyor of fine humour

Tag: social media

  • Twittiquette

    If you missed my piece (opinion piece, I mean. Not a firearm.) in mX last week, here it is in fabulous scanned electro-newsprint:

    And if that’s not working for ya, here’s the text version:

    For What It’s Worth
    David M. Green on Twitter Etiquette

    I followed Phil Collins on Twitter. You’d think of all people, the guy who sang “Follow You Follow Me” would follow back. He didn’t.

    But he’s a big star – even if he hasn’t had a hit in 15 years. He can’t possibly follow back all his Twitter fans. So what’s your excuse for not following back? Are YOU famous?

    I don’t think so.

    So what is proper Twitter etiquette, or “Twittiquette”?

    The ultimate insult in 2013 is to ignore someone online. It’s one thing to simply ignore someone you don’t know or with whom you have no common interests. We do this to millions of people by default.

    But unless you’re a celebrity, you’re in a genuine category of jerk if someone you’ve met in your travels follows you on Twitter, and you don’t follow back.

    It’s the technological equivalent of sticking out your hand for a high five, only to be left hanging. You’d have to truly despise someone – and want them to know it – to do that. You never leave a guy hanging.

    A Twitter following is seen by many as a symbol of power. More followers means more influence. And more chance someone will want to give you a briefcase full of money for no reason. The history of the Internet is filled with stories like that, right?

    But it’s not enough simply to have a pile of followers. The assumption seems to be: “I’ll only be seen as powerful and interesting if I have lots of followers AND I’m not following many people”. In other words, you need an impressive “power ratio”.

    There are many ways to get that power ratio. You can do what a few politicians have done and just buy some Twitter followers, which is great if you like robots. You can do a Miley Cyrus and twerk your way to a pile of followers with a controversial public stunt. You could even try actually working hard in the real world for a number of years to establish yourself as an influential figure in your chosen field… Na.

    The fastest and cheapest way to get Twitter followers is to follow a bunch of people, then unfollow the ones who didn’t follow back. And then unfollow the ones who DID follow back. Presto! Power ratio.

    Although, there is a slight problem with that. If you’re actively ignoring people who follow you because you think it’ll enhance your power ratio, you’re ultimately just making enemies. I don’t know about you, but I feel less inclined to like someone if I know they’re not interested in me. Screw the power games.

    The amazing thing is; being nice on Twitter is so easy. It’s the easiest way to be nice in the history of social interaction. Take the high road. Keep your followers. Keep following back. That’s all you’ve got to do. Even if you hate their guts.

    Of course, if you’re followed by a business that treats Twitter like a spam-delivery system, you’re under no obligation to follow back. And life is too short for trolls, bots and troll-bots (they’re the worst).

    But if you want to be the nicest person in the online world, follow back, like a status and give a retweet now and then. People will love you for life. Or at least until you stop following them.

    —

    And a big welcome to my 5 new Twitter followers!

    I may have acquired more had mX been able to print underscores properly.

    Na, they’re okay.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    @David_M_Green

  • 31 Questions with John Blackman and Dicky Knee! (and Rohan from Big Brother?)

    Here’s the YouTube link to S2E05 of 31 Questions, which aired on C31 Melbourne & Geelong 8.30PM last Saturday. This is the one with special guests John Blackman and Dicky Knee (a)LIVE in the studio. Both an absolute pleasure to work with.

    It was a tight battle between this week’s contestants, Dani and Rohan (AKA the guy from Big Brother). One of them even won.

    And man, it was pretty surreal doing schtick with Dicky Knee. I used to love “Hey Hey, It’s Saturday” when I was growing up back in the 90s, before the Internet. What a vastly different media landscape we live in now.

    Speaking of which…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CjhQNSros0

    And you can now also follow the REAL Sophie Loughran on Twitter: @SophieMLoughran

    Only 2 episodes to go!

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    We just realised Anthony, Sophie and I ALL have the middle initial of “M”. What are the odds?

  • The Good Show(s)

    It’s taken 16 months but FINALLY, we have a new episode of The Good Show, my sketch comedy podcast with TV’s Anthony McCormack.

    They say  9 out of 10 podcasts fail within their first 5 episodes. Don’t ask me who said that. I don’t know. Actually, I suppose I said that. Yeah, you can just quote me.

    Although, I’d like to see the stats on how many podcasts are put on hold due to no access to a studio AND because the hosts are too busy making TWO seasons of a TV show… Though I suspect the answer is The Good Show.

    Episode 3 can be acquired via this direct link, or on the iTune, or through this handy player thing:

    [display_podcast]

    Among sketches about cheeseburgers, tractors and expensive hookers, Anthony and I also discuss our upcoming second season of 31 Questions – the TV game show of that name.

    In fact, the Season 2 PREMIER EPISODE is on Channel 31 Melbourne & Geelong this Saturday 27 July 8.30PM! That’s a convenient 90 minutes earlier than last year’s time slot.

    At this time I can also tell you 31 Questions will air in Perth on WTV at the dangerously family-friendly time of Sundays 11.30AM from August 4, with a repeat Mondays 3.30PM from August 5. We’re apparently going for the early crowd over in WA.

    Across the Tasman Sea, catch 31 Questions in New Zealand on Face Television Wednesdays 9.30PM from August 14. And if you hop a plane to Sydney, you can watch it again on TVS Thursdays 9.30PM from August 15.

    Still waiting to get our time slots from 44 Adelaide and 31 Digital Brisbane. There may also be some extra repeat time slots, but I can assure you once I get them, I’ll keep them secret and refuse to give them to you.

    And did I mention we were on the TV Tonight website?

    Just ignore the bit where he lapses back into the press release.

    😀

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    (TV’s)

  • Burger Heaven – The spam is better at Hungry Jack’s

    On Friday 22 February, popular fast food restaurant Hungry Jack’s (The Australian incarnation of Burger King, for my international friends) posted a Facebook status:

    “Today the legendary Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin would have turned 51. Rest peacefully in burger heaven mate.”

    What exactly has the late animal lover got to with cheeseburgers? What is this “burger heaven”? Why doesn’t it have capital letters? Would Steve Irwin even go to burger heaven? Who’s to say he wouldn’t end up in burger hell? And are the burgers in burger hell still flame-grilled?

    Perhaps he wouldn’t be admitted into burger heaven OR hell – Condemned to an eternity in “Burgertory”. Ahh, Burgertory: where the burgers are plain and the service is “okay”.

    This is social media marketing: Using current events (or anniversaries of current events) to tie back into your brand, no matter how tenuous the link.

    Everyone hates ads. Especially on the Internet. When I’m watching a YouTube video with an ad at the start, my mouse-clicking finger hangs over the “skip” button, waiting impatiently as it counts down from 5 to 0 – which actually takes 7 seconds, if you’ve ever bothered to count it.

    Advertising has really invaded social media in the last couple of years. Facebook and Twitter are now awash with spam. And most of it is just lazy. Status updates from major brands can be as vanilla as: “Happy Friday!”

    And I know. Because I wrote them.

    For a short time, I was one of the faceless men who came up with these updates for companies. Last year I spent seven weeks at a digital advertising agency, writing Facebook and Twitter posts for their big name clients who wanted to sell hairspray and sunscreen and avocado dip.

    The problem with social media advertising is most advertisers have absolutely no idea what they’re supposed to do. All of these companies demanded their Tweets and Facebook statuses a month in advance. How are you supposed to make a Tweet topical and interesting if you have to get it approved by middle management 30 days in advance? The best you can do is look at an upcoming anniversary and schedule something about burger heaven.

    Hence, most companies just end up posting generic spam about their products – a sentence that will offend no one and bore everyone – effectively junk mail delivered directly to your news feed.

    Remember junk mail? It’s really amazing that businesses still persist with print advertising. This is how I deal with it:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F93H10n_JdA&feature=youtu.be

    But how do you make advertising work on social media? I don’t know. But I can tell you what people don’t like. People don’t like someone trying to sell them something they don’t want. People don’t like being bothered. People don’t like being asked by a brand of head lice shampoo what they got up to on the weekend.

    Businesses are desperate to engage you on social media. There’s an abundance of discounts on offer. Lots of restaurants are now offering free drinks or 20 per cent off your bill, just for using Facebook to “check in” to the restaurant. And even better, most of these restaurants don’t even check to see you’ve done it. So you can get the discounts anyway!

    And believe it or not, businesses may still be vying for your online engagement long after you yourself have gone to burger heaven.

    A company called LivesOn is due to launch in March. Using complex algorithms and artificial intelligence, they plan to mimic individuals’ Twitter activity to allow you to continue to socialise online after you’ve logged off the server of life.

    If your online robot is still posting statuses for you after you’re dead, you can guarantee there’ll be banks and supermarkets and airlines all too eager to keep you up to date on their latest deals.

    We may need to develop Blade Runner-esque testing to determine which Twitter accounts are real people and which ones are robots. Who knows, maybe it will be the companies themselves who use LivesOn to continue advertising their products long after the business has died?

    Robots selling robots to other robots – this is the future. Do androids Tweet about their dreams of electric sheep? More importantly, do they go to burger heaven?

    Burger heaven… wait…

    Wouldn’t burger heaven just be full of burgers?

    When we say the dog has gone to “Doggy Heaven”, presumably this is a heaven for dogs, right? Not a heaven for the people who eat dogs?

    So according to the good people at Hungry Jack’s, the late animal activist Steve Irwin now resides alone, surrounded by either whole or partially eaten, possibly sentient cheeseburgers.

    That is absolutely horrifying.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    Happy Wednesday!