Marketing Latinos » Social Media

Why And How To Delete Your Facebook Account

Rafael — Thu, 13 May 2010 20:17:59 +0000

There is a growing backlash movement directed at Facebook over their apparent lack of concern about their user’s privacy. People are either not happy about, or not entirely understanding, what the new changes mean. Specially, the part about how by default, “everything” is social.

How To Delete Your Facebook Account

Facebook’s most recent changes to their privacy policy are just another milestone in their efforts towards world domination. I do not agree, nor do I believe the assertion that Facebook is merely matching what their user base is demanding.

I just have a hard time believing that users/ members of the site are clamoring to have all of their data disseminated to infinity and beyond for advertising and other purposes. I could be wrong about that though.

Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, at least in the early days of the website, demonstrated that he didn’t much care for the site user’s privacy. VentureBeat has an excerpt from an IM conversation attributed to a then 19 year old Zuckerberg in which he says:

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask.

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How’d you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don’t know why.

Zuck: They “trust me”

Zuck: Dumb fucks.

VentureBeat 05/13/2010

So, apparently, since we trust Facebook with our information, we’re all “Dumb.” Sure, we can write these statements off as something that a teenager would say/ do. Surely, the more mature Zuckerberg wouldn’t feel that same way, right? I’m not entirely convinced that there’s been a complete change of heart.

Having said that, I want to point you to the instructions on how to permanently delete your profile. I’m not talking about deactivating your account, which basically means that FB can retain all your information, I’m talking delete, as in wipe out of the records and delete them from the Facebook servers.

I hope it deletes all the information, since you can’t really be sure that anything is ever really deleted online.

If you’re still on the fence and need more motivation for deleting your account, here are a couple of articles that go into more detail about how to delete your profile:

CNN: Some quitting Facebook as privacy concerns escalate
Gizmodo: Top 10 reasons you should quite Facebook

I haven’t deleted my profile yet, but I have removed and figured out how to lock it down as much as possible. Although having read why Leo Laporte says in that CNN article, I may need to consider deleting the profile in order to keep my other family members from doing something potentially bad.

Photo Credit: MaxB

Hugo Chavez Joins Twitter

Rafael — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:50:41 +0000

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has joined Twitter. Not because he wants to connect with his supporters or try to win over his detractors. Chavez joined, because he said he would, and that’s it.

I doubt that we’ll see much interaction between him and his followers. He’s got 16,000+ followers as of this writing, and he’s following 5 people back.

Welcome to the party President Chavez. Pay attention to what I’m about to tell you:

I hope that you’ll listen to your detractors instead of trying to throw them in jail. You can learn a lot from listening to your detractors. They’re telling you what you are doing wrong. You’re not infallible, no human is.

If you need help learning how to use this imperialist tool known as Twitter, just hit me up.

Hugo Chavez

Photo By: Que comunismo!

In case you want to follow Hugo, here’s the url to his twitter account:

http://twitter.com/chavezcandanga

(AOL)

Joanna Shields Joins Facebook as Head of EMEA

Rafael — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 00:26:28 +0000

Joanna Shields, who was instrumental in Bebo’s sale to AOL for $850 million in 2008 has joined Facebook as head of EMEA operations. Technically, she’ll be vice-president of sales and business development for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Joanna Shields speaks

Photo Credit: AIB London

The current vp of EMEA, Blake Chandlee, was the first Facebook employee in London. He will be vice-president of sales for emerging markets. He will focus on Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America.

I’m not sure how he will manage the Latin American market for Facebook from Europe, but that’s something that they’ll need to figure out. No word on if he speaks Spanish or not, but I would hope that Facebook thinks that speaking Spanish would be an important skill to have if you intend to grow the brand/ usage in Latin America.

This post is based on reports from The Guardian UK.

9 Temas de Social Media Que Se Tienen Que Acabar

Rafael — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:35:40 +0000

Este articulo esta basado en un articulo en Ingles, que se publico en esta pagina.
Estos son 9 temas de social media que se tienen que acabar. Se tienen que acabar por que son cosas fastidiosas. Algunas no tienen mas uso, y otras, necesitan ser usadas mejor.

Obtener mas seguidores o fanaticos.
Al menos que me puedas decir por que diablos quieres mas seguidores, por favor deja ya con el fastidio. Si no vas a hacer nada con tus seguidores, para que los quieres? A caso que la gente son como estampillas que son buenas para coleccionar y no usar? Ya deja el empeño de atraer a mas seguidores al menos que tengas un plan para ellos.
Definiciones descabelladas del ROI
Buscalo por Google. Todo el mundo puede hacer el calculo para sacar el ROI acerca del social media. Si los numeros no tienen sentido, no inventes excusas ni inventes otras definiciones del ROI
El derecho a todo gratis
Hay muchas personas que tienen gran conocimiento acerca del internet y de social media. Muchas de ellas regalan mucho de su conocimiento por que creen que hay valor en regalarlo para el bien comun. Pero, una cosa es que ellos regalen su conocimiento y otra es que tu creas que tienes el derecho de recibir el conocimiento que ellos se esmeraron en obtener por gratis. Olvidate de la nocion que el social media y el dinero no van de mano en mano. Paga por el conocimiento que quieres consumir.

Unirte a la conversacion
A cual conversacion y con que fin? Por que te quieres unir a la conversacion? Cual es la intencion detras del deseo de unirte a la conversacion?
Cual es el proximo “lo que sea”
Por que buscar al proximo Twitter, cuando ya Twitter existe? Por que en vez de buscar el proximo de lo que sea, no te dedicas y esmeras a convertirte en mejor usuario de todo lo que ya tienes disponible?
El contenido de tu pagina sigue siendo el rey
Dejame decirte, que el crear contenido no vale nada. Lo que vale es como la gente usa tu contenido. Si nadie puede encontrar lo que tu has escrito o creado, nadie lo va a usar y por ende no va a haber intercambio de valor entre tu y las personas que visitan tu pagina. Lo unico que has hecho es perder tu tiempo. Tu contenido debe de tener la meta de crear nuevas relaciones economicas entre tu y tus clientes. La unica excepcion, es si tu solo quieres funcionar sin fines de lucro.
La busqueda de constantes universales
Cuantas personas necesitas para administrar a facebook, twitter y linkedin? De cuanto debe ser el presupuesto? Que debes poner en tu pagina de facebook? Necesitas un grupo de linkedin? Deja ya de preocuparte de eso. Hay bastantes recursos e informacion que te pueden guiar en estos temas constantes. El resto de los detalles, lo vas a tener que obtener tu mismo y aprender de tus errores. Claro no puedes depender completamente de lo que ha funcionado para otras personas o instituciones. Tienes que adaptar toda esa informacion para tus fines.
Expertos de social media y charlatanes
Si tu negocio esta pensando en emplear a un “experto de social media” haz las indagaciones necesarias para poder determinar si esa persona tiene las credenciales correctas. Indaga acerca de resultados, de contabilidad, de responsabilidad etc. Y si tu eres un experto, deja la quejadera de las personas que se burlan de ti y tu profesion. Trabaja y esmerate a que tus clientes tengan buenos resultados y con eso le callas la boca a los charlatanes que solo quieren hablar de estrategia.
Social media es puro ruido, viejo, y lo que sea
Si crees que esto del social media tiene la capacidad de ser algo grande, hazlo algo grande. No anuncies como si fueras el papa que haz dejado de seguir a alguien que no llegue a tus “altos standards de conducta.” Simplemente hazlo mejor y contribuye algo de valor. Si no crees que hay algo de valor en el social media, esta bien, simplemente cierra tu cuenta de twitter, de facebook y deja la blogadera. Todo eso es opcional. El resto de nosotros, no te vamos a extrañar en lo absoluto.

Yo creo que con eso puedo concluir esta lista.

Por ahora.

Este es el primer articulo completamente en Español que hemos publicado en la pagina. Los horrores, que digo, errores, de ortografia estan incluidos completamente gratuitos. Si tienen una opinion, favorable o no, por favor dejenla en los comentarios. Gracias.

SXSWi 2010 Austin: Latino Internet Capital of the World- Video

Rafael — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:48:38 +0000

Finally got the video small enough that we could get it up on the video server for y’all to watch. I had to compress it to such a point that it’s a bit grainy, but ironically, this audio is a little better than the audio recording that I posted earlier this week.

This video is from the 2010 South by Southwest Interactive panel discussion “Austin: Latino Internet Capital of the World.” Featured in the video are Cindy Casares, and Fidel Martinez from Guanabee.com and other local speakers. Watch the video, then comment and let me know what you think about the discussion that we had.

Thanks!

SXSWi 2010 Austin Latino Internet Capital of the world video – lo res from Marketing Latinos on Vimeo.

SXSWi 2010 – Fist Pound

Rafael — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 22:16:45 +0000

Chelsea came and joined Vicki Flougher and I at the MarketingLatinos table at the BATHH (Big A$$ Twitter Happy Hour) and introduced us to the “fist pound.”

Clever thinking!

SXSWi 2010 – Scott Allen (pt1)

Rafael — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:03:56 +0000

Scott Allen sat down at the Marketing Latinos table at the Twitter Happy Hour on Thursday evening. Listen to what he has to say to Alejandro Barrera, about the concepts of the virtual Handshake.

At SXSWi This weekend

Rafael — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:02:00 +0000

This weekend, and up until Tuesday, we’ll be at South by Southwest Interactive media conference. There will be sporadic updates from the event, possibly pictures, videos, etc.

Last night, I had a great conversation with Scott Allen, Fernando Labastida and Alex Barrera. We talked about social media in Spanish and how come there’s not a lot of content being produced in Spanish that is actually useful. I have a lot of video from that conversation, I think we can have that posted sometime soon.

Go here to see a list of SXSWi attendees on twitter: SXSWi twitter list

There’s 1 session in particular that I’m looking forward to, it’s the one that proclaims Austin to be the Latino Blogger capital of the world. Can’t wait to see what that’s all about. I’ll give y’all a full report once the dust settles from the conference.

Gracias!

Mobile Connections Driving Social Media Growth in Latin America

Rafael — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:20:10 +0000

In my podcast about Latin America and social media, I touched on the question of broadband and mobile phone access being a factor in the increasing profile of Latin American countries in the social media space.

Unbeknownst to me, other outlets were talking about the increasing penetration of smart phones in Latin America.

According to Cellular News, there are over 500 million people in Latin America that have mobile phones. According to that same article, more than 91% of those phones use GSM and are on a 3G network.

There isn’t a hard breakdown of how many of those people are smart phone users, but that’s still a pretty big number of total users.

What I have been able to ascertain, is that a lot of the people that do have smart phones have either a RIM (Blackberry) device or a Windows Phone device. That’s according to this other article by Unwiredview.com.

Photo by: gabofr

According to that second article, Microsoft says that Windows Mobile, specifically version 6.5, is gaining share in Latin America and currently holds 26% of the smartphone market in Brazil and 24% of the market in Mexico.

Mexico and Brazil together account for about 250 million mobile phone users. I have not been able to find hard data on the breakdown of how many of those 250 million total subscribers are smart phone users either. It would be nice to know how many smart phone users there are, at least so we can put the Microsoft numbers into perspective.

Regardless, I feel that the total subscriber numbers, coupled with the availability of 3G data service and the increase in data bandwidth to Latin America that Global Crossing is installing, I see growth in the demand for social media, and other media rich products from Latin America.

I couldn’t agree more with this statement:

“The Latin American market is poised to sustain strong growth,” said John Legere, Global Crossing’s CEO. “The investments we are making are in response to the continued demand Global Crossing is experiencing across our global network for broadband services such as video over IP, social media and content delivery networks.”

Global Crossing, is a company that lays underwater data cables. Most data travels via underwater cables since satellites don’t quite have enough capacity and are still quite expensive.

Now, the question is, will all this growth in data requirements etc. be good for Latin American societies? Also, will the regional authoritarian governments put up firewalls to quell the free flow of information to and from their citizens?

What do you think?

How To Look Like A Spammer

Rafael — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:30:07 +0000

As a general rule, most people, spammers included, want to avoid looking like spammers. Despite that, a lot of innocent people end up looking like spammers because they do spammy things.

Here are 3 things to do if you want to avoid looking like a spammer:

Avoid keyword stuffing. What does that mean? It means avoid putting too many of your keywords in your posts. You should also avoid having your key words close together. So, pay attention to the density of your target words to the rest of your text, shoot for 2-3% density and you should be OK.

Here’s an example of keyword stuffing:

Did you notice how many times the writer of that passage ~~stuffs~~ uses the words “marketing,” “online,” and “internet”?
Avoid talking and not saying anything. This is, I believe, an acquired skill. Most people, when they speak, they have a point to make. When talking to prospective clients or when blogging etc. make sure that you say something. Anything other than “sign up to get the 20 secrets to the best internet marketing widget known to man that they don’t want you to have.” Teasing someone in the text to entice your reader to take a next step is OK, but you have got to give me a real reason to take that next step.

By the way, only scammers and spammers have “secrets” that “they” don’t want you to have.
Avoid being too religious. Let me explain, a lot of scammers and spammers will hide behind the guise of being pious. They believe that by acting and pretending to be pious that you will trust and believe them. Unless you know the person personally, be on guard any time any one tells you that they wanted to talk to you while they are “on their way to Bible study.” I feel strongly that someone’s piousness, or appearance thereof, should not be the reason that you do business with them.

Bonus: Pay attention to the comments on your blog or website. If you have a site where people can comment, such as a blog, or a squidoo lens or something along those lines, do yourself a favor and pay attention to what people are saying in the comments.

Here’s an example from the same site where I took the sample stuffing text from:

Looks like that site owner should’ve activated Akismet and enabled comment moderation.