Send me a WhatsApp ... on IG

We love IG.  Arguably, Instagram is Jamaica’s most popular social media app.  Its got a plethora of ever-expanding features to deliver up multiple dopamine hits with every use.  In short, Instagram is addictive.

What do you do when you have a hit product everyone loves?  Well, you mess it up of course.  Remember Classic Coke?

We should have seen this coming when Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg led the multibillion-dollar acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.

In a move that Instagram users are likely going to hate, IG owners Facebook are reportedly considering merging the backend with the equally popular WhatsApp and waning in popularity Facebook making the three apps interoperable.

The result: three stand-alone platforms across which you can send messages to any user.  Users of any and all apps would be able to send a message to users on another platform, without leaving the app.  Sounds cool?  I don’t think so.

WhatsApp supports End-to-End (E2E) encryption for messages.  Currently, Facebook offers limited E2E encryption for messages, and Instagram does not offer the feature.  E2E encryption keeps messages secure from the government, law enforcement, hackers and advertisers; the last of which is key to Facebook’s business model.

“We want to build the best messaging experiences we can; and people want messaging to be fast, simple, reliable and private,” explained Facebook in a statement to the UK based Guardian.  "We’re working on making more of our messaging products end-to-end encrypted and considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks. As you would expect, there is a lot of discussion and debate as we begin the long process of figuring out all the details of how this will work,” they added.

Beyond message privacy, there is user data privacy.  Facebook’s challenges with this topic are well documented.

Privacy aside, the proposed interoperability among three of the worlds most popular apps used, often daily or at least by me, by billions of people and businesses around the globe raises anti-trust questions.

Of note, the founders of both WhatsApp and Instagram have resigned from Facebook within the last year.

What can we do?  Perhaps it's time for us to redirect our digital addictions to a different platform.

Ready to up your Instagram game? Use Stories

You don’t have to be a business or a brand to use Instagram effectively.  But here are a few tips to catapult your Insta Stories to a whole new level.

First off, Stories are images (photos or 15-sec videos) that once posted ‘disappear’ from view on your account 24 hours later.  Of course, ‘disappear’ is relative.  Stories can be highlighted to keep them accessible to your followers.

You can add text, GIFS, filters, mentions, stickers and a myriad of other overlays to your photos and videos to increase interest in your content.  You can even draw or handwrite over your story post.
Instagram is always adding features to Stories to keep us interested and engaged.  Some of the best features include polls and share posts to Stories.

To get started with Stories, click on Your Story with the plus sign in the top left side of your Instagram app.  To get started quickly, just press the big circle.  To get deeper into the feature set, keep reading.

You can control many Story settings by clicking on the gear icon on the upper left corner.
At the bottom of the screen are several options, so many that you need to swipe left just to see the full menu of options available.

The first square in the lower left is our camera roll.  Tap here to see the last 24 hours worth of videos and photos on your device.  To the right of that square is a lightning bolt trapped in a  circle, these are your standard light/flash settings.  Hit up the two arrows to the right of the Record button to switch to/from selfie view.  Then feel free to add filters and effects by tapping the cute face with two plus marks icon.  This will launch a new menu with more options, enough to make your head spin.

Below all of that is another menu.  This menu includes Type for text-based posts, Live to ‘cast’ your content in real time, the ever popular Boomerang and additional features like Superzoom, Focus, Rewind and Handsfree.

Once you’ve created your original content, you can post to Your Story or just share with Close Friends.

Wait, we are not finished yet.  You can then swipe up for stickers, graphics, GIFs, sliders and polls.  Sliders and polls are a great way for your followers to interact with your posts in addition to liking and messaging, which are additional features.

Then, let’s not forget that you can share Instagram posts to your story.  You can share your own timeline posts or shout out to another Instagrammer by sharing their post to your account.  To do this, click on the paper aeroplane at the bottom of the post you wish to share.

Instagram archives your Stories by default, so you can always have access to them which is really helpful if you wish to highlight your post so that all your followers can view all time.  These highlights come up on circles just above your timeline photos.  Feel free to highlight individual stories and group stories into collections.

And imagine, all of this related to but one feature of Instagram - Stories.  Go forth and tell your story on IG.

How to Spot Fake News

Sadly, fake news is not new; it’s just topical.

The internet has morphed what we once knew as propaganda into what we now call fake news by reducing the cost, time and possible litigation related to creating and disseminating intentionally deceptive, biased or blurred truth stories.  Wow; that was a lot to say.  Fake news is, after all, a complicated affair.

For this discussion, I am not including deliberate and obvious satire like The Onion, but rather the divisive, intentionally misleading and potentially destructive lies masquerading as genuine news.  

The growing problem of fake news proliferation is exacerbated by “the filter bubble”.  Popular (social) media sites often employ algorithms to retain visitor interest by prominently posting content we like and burying posts we don’t.  We are therefore responsible for our own “truth filter”.

We must employ our own “truth filter” and halt the spread of fake news.  Excuses like, “I’m just passing it on as I get it” and "I'm not sure its true but sharing anyway," are just plain irresponsible.

The potential consequences are just too high.  The well-cited story of the 2016 shooting up of the Comet Ping Ping pizzeria by a 28-year-old North Carolina man who was “self-investigating” a bogus news story about Hillary Clinton running a child sex abuse ring out of the location, is an excellent example of the real dangers of fake news.

More recently and closer to home, images of a woman’s body being cut open allegedly as part of a local organ theft ring were circulated widely via WhatsApp leading to wild conspiracy theories and fear.  As it turns out, the video was taken from a 2014 autopsy video causing much distress to the young lady’s family.  

Let us not be a party to these kinds of atrocities.  Let’s spot and stop fake news!

Read Past the Headline

Headlines, by their very nature, are designed to draw us in.  So too, the first paragraph is written to entice us to read further.  If we stop there, we may not have the information necessary to effectively analyse the article.  Often the body has little or nothing to do with the headline, has a disclaimer, has poor grammar indicating the information is not credible or has obvious clues the story is false.

Confirm Source, Date and Time

Some fake news sites try to fool us into believing the site is legitimate with official-sounding titles, copy cat URLs and look-alike pages.  Check the source of the material very carefully.  Take a moment to read the “About Us”.  If the language is over the top, absent or poorly written, then the source is possibly not credible.

Take a good look at the dateline of the story and other date references.  Some fake news stories and old stories or old content which have been regurgitated to appear “new”.

Questions Links, Sources, Quotes and Photos

Real journalists include citations, attribution and relevant images to enhance their stories.  Fake news writers avoid citations; they don’t have credible sources, and they steal and reuse unrelated pictures to make their points.  Be on the watch for these indicators.

Links to reference material litter real news stories.  Follow the links used to support a story and make an evaluation if they are relevant.  Look closely at the sources quoted, if any, in a story.  Do a quick internet search of their name and title to determine if they have the requisite authority to make the statement or if their quote (or a similar quote) appears on trustworthy news sites.  Finally, be sure that the image is related to the story and not just a picture transplanted from another place and time on the web page.  Google offers a reverse image search to inform if the picture has been used elsewhere on the internet.

Determine Bias

Lots of websites have declared biases; some do not.  But we need to know what we are dealing with.  Peruse the site a news story appears on to see if there is an agenda they seem to be promoting and then, take the information presented with a tablespoon of salt.

Seek Corroboration

Before you take the first link as gospel, take a moment to find out if other news organisations are reporting the same news.  Get the facts before you spread what's false!

If ever in doubt, visit the RJR News Centre for consistently credible news.

Sources

• The Telegraph UK
• Wikipedia
• Huffington Post
• Pizzagate
• Jamaica Gleaner
• How Stuff Works
• Sunday Morning Herald

#MyBestAdvice for #GettingResults? #Focus.

PSOJ Social Media Business Conference
‘Not just marketing’ How to get actual business results

#MyBestAdvice for #GettingResults? #Focus.

Social media is, as they say, ‘huge’.  There are almost too many variables and parameters to consider.  So don’t.  Don’t spread yourself so thin that your massive efforts yield minimal results.  Instead, #Focus.

Social media is a powerful, cost effective marketing tool.  A well developed and executed social media plan can secure remarkable results.  The first annual PSOJ Social Media Business Conference has laid out comprehensive case on the potential benefits of this still evolving promotional option.  Participants will leave the Conference feeling empowered; ready to harness the power of ‘social’ to build brands and promote sales.

The best results come from a detailed plan, but you can hit the ground running if you stay focused on a trio of key factors: the message, the platform and the team.

Message
It seems obvious, yet lots of brands don’t focus on the message.  Building a brand identify and leveraging that identity for reward is a comprehensive task.  Advertising, corporate communications,  branding, POS and yes, even social media MUST reflect the same core message.

Staying on message across various media formats requires both commitment and flexibility.  In the case of commitment, a disjointed message can confuse and deter target audiences.  Similarly for flexibility, the message must suit the medium; it must fit in the space.

Finding the balance between seemingly opposing requirements is an art.


Platform
Resources are always finite, so limit them to where they will be most impactful.

The Conference has offered up a plethora for social media platforms where targets lurk.  The standard bearer Facebook and its baby, Instagram both have a significant portion of the limited attention of potential customers and consumers.  Google+ has integrated their social media efforts into their flagship products.  Twitter remains popular and SnapChat continues to gain ground.  Then, let's not forget online services like YouTube and communications tools like WhatsApp that, technically, are not social media.  But technicalities have little bearing on popularity.

Yet, there are many more platforms; some growing, some dying.

Unless your an international conglomerate, don't try to rule them all.  Talk to customers, clients and colleagues; figure out which three are most prominent in your target network and then deploy your resources to those three.

Making a point beside fellow PSOJ Social Media Business Conference Panelist,  Stacy Hines.

Team
The pre-Conference survey revealed that, "45% of respondents say that digital is their primary marketing channel; yet 53% of respondents said that it was less than 10% of their marketing budget." This is a shocking revelation.

You wouldn’t trust the execution of a multimillion dollar marketing campaign to interns, neither should you trust your multimillion dollar brand value to the inexperienced.  Even new media requires some tried and true principles to be successful.

The social media strategist is an essential member of an organization.  The social media department is a critical success competent.  Hire the best to get the best results.

Social Stardom In a Real Sense

Event organizers Corve DaCosta and Shane Bennett

The irony is, it took a social media event for me to meet a social media star.

Thanks to Digital Media Week Jamaica #DMWJamaica, I was able to meet in person and physically mingle with a few social media stars that I follow or converse with regularly.

#DMWJamaica is an “unconference” that seeks to share social success stories and highlight Jamaicans excelling in the social media space.  The four-day series of events included a panel discussion at the trendy ATL Showroom on Tuesday, June 29, 2016.

RJR’s own Krystal Tomlinson, a star in her own right across multimedia media formats, hosted the panel on The New Rules of Social Stardom.  The group of experts included “certified student” @OneRomone, multi-tasker @NicoleMcLarenCampbell, fitness and nutrition expert @IAMKimilaMcDonald and transformational coach @PatriceJWhite.

#DMW Panelists Kimila McDonald, Nicole McLaren-Campbell,  Romone Robinson, Krystal Tomlinson (Host) and Patrice White.

Real is often overused these days, but “real” is exactly how the conversation is best described.  The presenters were revealing and raw while sharing their personal experiences, challenges, and successes.  Here's an interesting point, their least favourite platform: Snapchat.

The panel was preceded by an eye-opening keynote by Dr. Anissa Holmes of Jamaica Cosmetic Dental Services.  The audience who clearly had a preference for Instagram (IG) was schooled in benefits of Facebook.  Dr. Holmes opening discussed her methodology and impressive returns on her investment in the platform.

Dr. Anissa Holmes

She clearly illustrated the power and potential of the world’s most successful social media network and provided tips on how others good navigate the platform for their own success.  Notable, she said, “You have to have your business right first!”  Social media can’t make a business better, more efficient, or more appealing.  Start with a good business model and then leverage social media to draw attention, engagement and profits to that model.

#DMWJamaica continues with a Women in Digital Tech charity event this evening at the Courtyard by Marriott.  Congrats to @CorveDaCosta, @iamsgb and the team for a stellar event.

Tech4Life airs on @RJR94FM.com every Wednesday morning at 8:15 am.

IG Panic

So, Instagram (IG) announced that it was experimenting with changing its timeline.  Instead of the reverse chronological order we’ve all become accustomed to, they now want to tweak the algorithm to show the “most relevant posts” first.

Sound familiar?  Well, it should.  Facebook, the largest social media platform in the world, tweaked its timeline back in 2009 to ditch the chronological model for an “interest and tastes” model designed to ensure that you’re not bored by a bunch of random posts (from say, the errant cousin you can’t unfriend because their family) and leave the platform.

The detail of the algorithm is a closely guarded trade secret, but presumably, they take your likes, shares, comments and several other factors into account to make a guess about what you want to see and what you don’t.

Despite MUCH initial rebellion, the modified timeline was eventually accepted by the near 1.6 billion users.  So successful was the final roll out of Facebook’s modified algorithm, microblogging site Twitter attempted their own tweak earlier this year.

If unlike me, you’re following 10 accounts on Twitter, you probably won’t have a problem.  But, the more accounts you follow, the more tweets are going to fill your timeline, the more likely that you’re going to miss some tweets during your periodic social media check in.

Twitter introduced “While You Were Away” a collection of tweets it determined are most interesting to you based on your previous favorites, re-posts, mentions and the like (no pun intended).

On Monday, March 28, IG users were flooded with “Turn On Notification” posts imploring them to guarantee no missed posts from their favorite accounts.  Celebrities, like John Mayr, issued statements appealing to IG to abandon their new policy.  The thing is, it's not policy.  It is an experiment.  IG never announced that it was actually changing its initial reverse chronological timeline.

Still, mark my words, a change is coming.  And we better jump on board.

As social networks get more popular and by extension more crowded, we need ways to filter out content that is just not relevant.  Algorithms do the heavily lifting aka filtering.  If you think you can manage to do the digital social media filtering on your own and still have a physical social life, by all means try.  IG will likely make the algorithm optional for its 400 million users.

Either way, there is no need to panic … unless of course, you have no data/wifi.

Tech4Life airs every Wednesday morning on @RJR94FM.

Tech4Life: Security vs Convenience

Certainly, security can be a pain.  Having to remember multiple, long, complicated passwords is stressful for some.

Yet, as stressful as it is, passwords are not necessarily enough to protect your important data.  Enter two factor authentication.  Two factor authentication (2FA), in effect, adds another level of security for your data.

At its best, 2FA requires both a knowledge requirement such as a password along with a possession requirement such as a code sent to a mobile phone.  With 2FA, if a hacker gains access to your passwords, they are still unable to enter your online accounts without the mobile phone code.

This is similar to what happens at an ATM.  If a thief gains possession of your bank card, it is relatively useless without knowing your PIN.


Fortunately, many popular website sites offer this extra level of security and offer it for free.  Popular email sites like GMail, Yahoo! and Hotmail (now Outlook) have all implemented optional 2FA.  Cloud based storage and collaboration sites like Dropbox and Evernote have also provided this option.

Social media sites tend to store public data - images, comments, videos and other content often posted for public consumption.  Yet, they remain a target for hackers as they also host something most valuable - reputation.  As many celebrities have found, hackers may use their social media accounts to post unfavorable content.  So, even social media sites must be protected with 2FA.  Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and LinkedIn, among others, all offer the extra layer of security.

Each site offers 2FA in different ways, so consider which sites you need to protect and then visit the site to that site to follow their instructions.

It wouldn’t hurt to use the opportunity to change and strengthen your passwords to add extra “umph” to your enhanced security and be safe online.

Jamaican Tech - Artekal

Streaming music services are great.  They offer listeners an opportunity to hear songs they may enjoy based on other songs that they enjoy.  The success of  the service is based largely on the scope of it’s database and it’s ability to deliver.




However die hard reggae lovers find popular music streaming services like Spotify and Pandora lacking in their range, while residents of Jamaica are geo-locked from the services all together.

Neither scenario is a problem for those who are Artekal.

Developed by a Jamaican for Jamaicans and Jamaicans at heart, Artekal is an online reggae music streaming service and app for lovers of reggae, ska, mento, rock steady, lovers rock and dancehall.

The innovative use of sliders allow users to select which path their journey through music will follow.  Decide on whether you want something more or less spiritual, faster or slower, more modern or classic and more heavy or upbeat.

Skip through songs that don’t quite appeal to you or add songs you love to a variety of playlists for later listening.

Artekal serves up music with album art, album title, song title and artiste along with a direct link to buy the track if it is available on iTunes.  If you like what you hear, you can share with your friends thanks to the built in social media and email integration.

The app is free to use, but a US$0.99 payment to the Apple App Store can get you an ad free experience.  Non iOS users can stream the services from the web browser of just about any internet enabled smartphone.

RJR's Tech4Life airs every Wednesday at 8:15 am.