1. Maintain a live and active Facebook page by posting to it daily a new tip or a link to new or existing music score.
Failed to do so at this frequency, but succeeded in posting snippets of scores and personalized news. Both of these showed immediate resuults in new likes, people talking about posts and apprecaition from composers.
2. Pursue an ongoing relationship with our customers through interaction on Facebook, Twitter and blogs.
Haven't figured out how to connect to actual customers yet, but hopefully some and more in the future of those liking us on FB are or will be customers or composers.
3. Make my pages compelling by doing the following. This will hopefully help create loyalty between customers and composers.
frequently adding photos of the title pages from our library of scores
See above
offering tips on either performance or composition by our composers and arrangers.
Didn't even try this, but still like the idea.
4. Finally, it is my conviction to be a good manager of my social media presence by monitoring statistics of visits, likes, etc. and adjusting my plan accordingly.
Still not a very good manager in this respect, but I now have the following tools to do so.
FB ad, about which I now have no fear, financial or technical. They are perhaps my best tool for new customers, especially those with whom I can personally connect.
FB insights. I still need to follow them more closely and understand them better, but I see how useful they can be.
LinkedIn
Have made many new contacts
Have joined 2 online sheet music groups. One of them has helped me finally be successful in getting permission to arrange copyrwritten music.
Results:
More confidence and hope in these marketing tools
People who have contacted me or my composers through me.
A new vanity FB address.
Much improved FB banner.
More FB likes and knowledge of how to get more.
Two new composers: one 14 year old from a music boarding school in Aberdeen, Scotland and a middle-aged hymn-writer from Argentina.
Two offers for my composers for commissioned works and 1 for publication in a sheet music periodical.
Addresses of copyright owners.
Satisfaction and appreciation from my composers
Plan for the future:
Get a partner.
Do what I should have done (above).
Possibly start paying taxes. (Until now there has been no profit.)
On July 30, 2012 the New York Times
quoted Jiang Yudui of the pro-Beijing China Civic Education Promotion
Association of Hong Kong as saying, “A brain needs washing if there
is a problem, just as clothes need washing if they're dirty, and a
kidney needs washing if it's sick.”
I don't think that helped. Here's
what's going on.
In an effort by Chinese President Hu
Jintao to instill in the youth of Hong Kong a sense of love and
respect for the motherland, talk of “moral and national education”
began. A small handbook entitled “The China Model” was
introduced and plans were made known to introduce it into the
curriculum of every school level from the youngest elementary school
grades through high school, beginning in 2012 as an option, but being
fully incorporated and compulsory by 2016.
What's in the handbook?
A description of the Communist
Party as progressive, selfless and united.
High criticism for the multiparty
systems of Great Britain, the United States and, to a certain
extent, Hong Kong.
What ISN'T in the handbook?
Any mention of the Cultural
Revolution.
Any mention of the Tiananmen
Square massacre.
Enter: Joshua Wong, a 15-year old
student and founder of The Alliance Against Moral and National
Education, or “Scholarism” (founded on May 29th of
2011). After working on this paper over the past six weeks, I feel
as though I know Josh personally, so I would like to introduce him –
and Scholarism - to you through this video. However, if you have
only enough time to watch one video, please choose the music video at
the end.
Organized by Josh and many, many, MANY
others like him, but carried out almost exclusively through social media,
protests against moral and national education began and grew like
bread dough with too much yeast. A time line might be helpful.
7/1/12 and again on 7/29/12 -
marches through the streets prove that most of Hong Kong citizens
agreed with the movement.
8/30/12 - 50 students begin what
is to be a 3-day occupation of the public park beneath the Hong
Kong government headquarters. Three students begin a hunger strike.
9/1/12 – after a concert, the
three students end their hunger strike and 10 others take their
place.
9/3/12 - it is announced that the
occupation will continue indefinitely until the government backs
down.
9/7/12 – protest organizers
count over 120,000 protesters in attendance. Other reports have the
number at around 90,000, but the police say there were only 36,000.
(I suppose the lack of veracity of such reports is to be expected, given the
agendas of the differing sides. However, the pictures posted on FB
and the web site look hard to fake.)
9/8/12 – Hong Kong Department of
Education announces that the issue has been “shelved”. (Note
the significance of this date: one day before elections.)
9/9/12 – Elections are held for
Hong Kong's legislative council. Although strict and complex rules
always result in a pro-government majority, the pro-democracy camp
does very well where free voting is allowed and three very
key and powerful seats are gained.)
Date unknown – occupation
disipates.
10/17/12 – another gathering
called “The Universal Wide Awake” occurs at the Civic Plaza.
Reports say around 6,000 attend from the Scholarism camp and around
2,000 from the pro-Beijing camp. A diagram of the plan by the
police to separate the two camps is distributed via Facebook and the
Scholarism web page prior to the event and, fearing it will result
in an unproductive shouting match, students choose to gather outside
the arena. This decision is announced via the same avenues and the
conflict is averted.
As evidenced by the event just 10 days
prior to this writing, this issue is not dead. The fact that the
China Model has been “shelved” and not withdrawn will keep it
alive. As stated on the Scholarism.com web site, “red-dyed
communization” will always be a threat and a reason to “protect a
child's freedom of thought”.
Given that the movement was founded by
a teenager living in the most progressive city in perhaps the most
technologically industrious nation, is it any wonder that this
movement was perpetuated via social media? You Tube, Facebook,
Twitter posts, broadcast panel discussions, blogs and web pages seem
to be endless from the onset until the present. Perhaps my favorite
part is that each consecutive blog or post seems to have an
increasing number of comments posted below it, showing that citizen
journalism is running free even where the people are not.
Think back on the time line. Would any
of it be possible (other than the oppression part) without social
media? From a physical context, would a hunger strike have been
effective if the hungry couldn't have been posting blogs from their
tents? From a social context, would they have known how to wear the
red band over their eyes if pictures hadn't been posted on news feeds
of others wearing them? From a psychological context, would 90,000
students have found the courage to stand up for their convictions if
they hadn't seen the number of hits on Joshua Wong's You Tube video
OR if they hadn't recognized the China Model as brainwashing? Not in
a nation where such things are strictly monitored and even outlawed.
(Original Scholarism Facebook Banner)
(Post 9/9/12 Scholarism Facebook Banner)
In a place like Hong Kong where the
“rules” went from being relatively few and based on the good of
the majority to being too heavy to bear, the irony of Scholarism is
almost too much to take in. It makes me ecstatic to see democracy in
its purest form practiced so well in a non-democratic state and led
by a 15-year old, no less. His and countless other parents, his and
countless other teachers all played roles in his story, but no one –
not even himself in his own protests over being called a hero – can
take away Joshua Wong's role. Nor can we overstate the role of
social media itself. In this and so many other issues, it took on a
life of its own.
What's wrong with wanting students to
be proud of their country? We teach the Pledge of Allegiance in our
kindergartens and sing the National Anthem at our sports events.
However, we have the freedom to say that we don't want our child
participating in either of these practices and we also
have the opportunity to run for a position on the school boards
where decisions such as these can be put to popular vote.
Would this issue have existed without social
media? Yes, the issue would have. But, the resolution could never
have been possible without it. I quote from a September 3rd propaganda TV
broadcast.
(http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_P0B40FnBTI The translation is a little rough. This I know, not because I know
Chinese, but because I know English.)
“In recent days, Scholarism has
indeed become the focus of Hong Kong. However, after September 9,
when results of the Legislative Council are revealed, they will
become completely useless in an instant.
“Even as calculated as Martin Lee,
“an experienced barrister”, once lamented that he was like a
child playing on a see saw with a giant. Several more “Little Long
Hair” on the street on Hong Kong, how can they obstruct the big
wheel of Hong Kong construction?”
Yes, Mr. Lee, the analogy is a good
one. But though the government intended to portray themselves as the
giant, I believe they are the child opposite the giant on the other end of the see saw.
Here is Wikipedia's definition of an internet troll:someone who posts inflammatory,[3]extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[4] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
Here is a picture of a troll:
His name is Michael Brutsch. He is a man with seemingly no sense of "write and wrong". On a reddit.com website and over the course of several years he posted pictures of underage girls in their underwear, pregnant women, jokes about rape and kinds of other inappropriate material.
Not until he was outed on Gawker.com did he admit to any wrongdoing and even then his remorse was over losing his job, benefits and house, not over anything he did.
One thing that gets me, however, is that at one point Reddit conferred on Mr. Brutsch a trophy for his contribution to the site, most likely because these types of posts - admittedly directed to college students - were creating good traffic for them. Shame on them.
The good news to me is that the same media that is capable of enabling such trolls is also capable of outing them. I will ALWAYS cheer for successful self-policing of any organization.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Here are my Free Holiday Music ad screen shots. I want it to run from October 15 to October 31, so I'm going to go ahead and let it run. Wish me luck.
Friday, October 5, 2012
What a way to watch a debate?!
With iPad (tuned in to Twitter) in one hand, and the TV remote in the other, I watched the first presidential debate on Wednesday night. Here's how it went:
At first I tried watching each candidate's Facebook pages, but couldn't see any new posts until after the debate was over.
While watching, I used hash tags to see what others were thinking about the debates. I first used "#debates" about 10 minutes before they started. That brought up several interesting tweets such as offers to follow certain tags that would count the lies of each candidate. I decided I would come back to that one, but later when I tried to find it again I couldn't. So I tried #romneylies and #obamalies, which produced comments saturated with heavy emotion. I was disappointed to see how few - on either side - actually specified anything about the perceived lie, either what the lie was or any evidence that it was a lie. Most were things like, "I hate this guy. You can just tell he's lying" or "I'm so tired of his lies". I did try challenging them a few times, asking them for more, but never got any response.
I also tagged specific issues like "taxes" and "deficit" and usually got tweets from the candidates' own camps. There were some, however, who did seem to have done some homework and either quoted their own facts or refuted those the candidate was referencing.
There were a few tweets talking about the venue and the lack of audience reaction (imposed by the moderator). I found I agreed with them. What was entertaining to me were the tweets about things like neckties and smirks and who touched whose arm. There are some very funny comedians out there! The best was the post on FB that came out the next day with a Photo Shopped image of the two candicates wearing each other's hair.
The tweets I read had a surprising effect on me. Before this experience I often felt the division between those who support President Obama and those who support Mitt Romney was as wide as the ocean and that there was no in between. But there was ample evidence that out there in the country somewhere are many, many people like me who see the good in both men and even though we have our reasons for leaning one way or the other, we see that the world may not completely collapse if the election doesn't go the way we want it to.
Did what I saw change my opinions about the candidates? Yes. They were made stronger. I felt Romney won, hands down. His rhetoric was filled with nuts and bolts of the way things are and the way things could be. While Pres. Obama had some of that, I felt his responses were based more on emotion and trying to placate the various cultures in the country. It's the same concern I have with his tenure as president. The polls may not agree with me, but I still feel Mitt Romney would be the better president.
What a way to watch TV! I'll be doing it the same way for the future debate.
The more challenges I encounter in researching my context assignment the more excited I am about it. Actually the only real correlation between my excitement and my challenges is that they are happening simultaneously.
Current challenge? Translating everything from FB pages to government docs from Chinese to English. Heh, heh! What a way to spend a lunch hour!
In the meantime, I'm trying to implement what I've learned in the class on my web site, Twitter, Linked-In and especially my FB page. Not that you'll notice, but I'm trying.
