Social Media Round-Up [January, 2019]

“(This) isn’t the only show to have taken a step backward in scale and manufacturer attendance though its symptoms are perhaps the most severe. The disruption and opportunity provided by the internet and social media has (these) companies re-evaluating how best to connect with consumers, with the relevance of ‘traditional’ events like (them) under the microscope.” Should you be thinking about this quote then perhaps knowing it came from the editor of a popular car magazine, referencing the annual Detroit car show, may surprise you. Across all industry groups the impact of the internet and social media is beginning to be felt and the pain is not going away any time soon. Well, at least, not when it follows a tried and true formula that are familiar even to the most jaded of NonStop enthusiasts for as long as they have been members of the NonStop community.

However, there are internet and social media web sites that are failing to live up to expectations even as new web sites appear. Apps that can be downloaded to smartphones and tablets that provide meaningful insights into any product remain popular and retain a sizable number of followers – how many of us, for instance, track the group “Seeking Alpha” for insights into HPE business performance?  On the other hand, it’s not that cut and dried as different generations prefer different modes of interaction and some among us gain their insights from networking, yet there are others who simply google everything – in our latest visit to Australia the local media decrying one family’s choice of first names for the newborn of Google: “As anyone who works in a school or childcare center will attest, Australian parents come up with some pretty weird names for their offspring – including Google, Tron and Hippo.”

And yet, is “the disruption and opportunity provided by the internet and social media” truly having NonStop vendors “re-evaluating how best to connect with consumers?” Poorly done, events and blogs can perform badly; there is no magic formula here other than content. Unveil exciting cars and car enthusiasts will show up. Take the wraps of a new way to compute and there will be a lot of interested parties, as the recent talks on Quantum did at both HPE Discover event in Madrid and the SIBOS Sydney 2018 event so clearly demonstrated.

It’s really all about that all-important ingredient for success – content! Deliver the goods and there will always be an audience. Social media is no exception and requires as much advanced planning as any other activity and a follow-up program that builds on the initial focus or theme is every bit as important as the initial entry on the internet or in social media channels.

Recently, LinkedIn has had to backtrack from earlier positions it took on LinkedIn Groups – there really are over two million LinkedIn Groups, and climbing. Microsoft owns LinkedIn and it’s back and forth approach to Groups has not only confused the marketplace – it tried to pull Groups out of LinkedIn completely, giving Groups their own separate App to access, but that has led to many LinkedIn users turning to other forums for information. However, in an article published five months ago on Tech Crunch, LinkedIn to relaunch Groups in the flagship app as it looks to reverse ‘ghost town’ image:

“LinkedIn, the Microsoft-owned social networking platform for the working world with over 500 million users, is making a significant change as it continues to look for ways to make its platform more useful (and used).

“The company is relaunching Groups by rolling it into its main app by the end of the month after quietly pulling the standalone app earlier this year, and it will be streamlining the service by cutting out several features, including an ability for Group administrators to pre-moderate comments; and a way to email send Group posts as emails to the whole group, while also adding in new features like threaded replies and the ability to post video and other media.

“Groups are also going to have a rich media infusion: users will be able to edit posts and share videos and other non-text formats. This is a very long overdue feature, considering how central video and rich media like GIFs have been on other platforms in getting people engaged in a service, and also considering that LinkedIn’s been showing video in its feed for a while now.”

If you have noticed an uptick in participation by HPE on LinkedIn even as there has been an uptick in participation on Twitter, then you aren’t mistaken. HPE has lifted its game when it comes to participation in social media channels and it’s become very obvious to those spending time on these channels. HPE has focused on providing useful content including a lot of information that comes directly from HPE Labs. HPE CEO Antonio Neri is a regular blogger and likes to interact directly with the HPE community.

But again, if you really have a vested interest in the future of NonStop and of HPE then it’s probably a good idea to rethink the time you plan to devote to social media as news is now breaking in the digital world long before you ever see it reported in print. While NonStop Insider is just one digital publication providing a forum for opinions and commentary, it’s not the only place to go, but for the NonStop community, it continues to be a source for content that cannot be found anywhere else.

If traditional events are losing ground to the internet and social media, are all events in decline? “Conversely, younger conventions like the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas are going from strength to strength as manufacturers infatuated by connectivity and technology seek to spruik their products and services to a new audience (where) CES dwarfs that of even the largest motorshows despite showing products as diverse as TVs and drones, to washing machines and massage chairs … so what does the motorshow of the future look like? The glitz, glamor and crowds of CES has to be close.”

To some extent, HPE Discover is becoming more like a mini CES event. On the other hand, there will always be a need for NonStop team to hold their own events to provide detailed product updates and NonStop Technical Boot Camp fills this niche.  However, even as shows like HPE Discover and even SIBOS Sydney 2018 attracted very large audiences comparable to former big-tent events targeting all of IT, even HPE itself understands all that glitz, glamor and crowds as it can be found at CES, as was the case with HPE’s showcasing its car connectivity initiatives under the banner of cars, connectivity and IoT.

Ultimately, it is a digital world and if it’s the real world of computing you need to understand then it will be the virtual world of social media where you will find all the facts, as is with the history of all such big events, content remains king and if you must access fresh content right now, then social media has to be the way to go!

Just one more thing … when it comes to social media then let’s not forget the inherent value of feature articles published in blogs. If you want an update on what current users are doing with NonStop then check out this post of December 25, 2018, to the NonStop community blog; you can check it out with this link:

http://itug-connection.blogspot.com/2018/12/what-did-you-do-in-this-season-of-joy.html
@RichardKBuckle