Privacy issues and identity theft in social media are a growing concern. Most people who post their personal information about themselves do not recognize the potential consequences of their actions, or maybe they simply don’t care if their entire life is an open book.

       According to Consumer Reports’ 2010 State of the Net analysis more than half of social network users share private information about themselves online, opening themselves up to a variety of online dangers. The key findings of the report include the following:

• 25 percent of households with a Facebook account don’t use the site’s privacy controls or weren’t aware of them.
• 40 percent of social network users posted their full date of birth online, opening themselves up to identity theft.
• 9 percent of social network users dealt with a form of abuse within the past year (e.g., malware, online scams, identity theft or harassment).

       In China, we use “manpower search” to describe people who take use of social media to search their “targets”. And post their outcome including the target’s name, address, salary, working company, cellphone number,blogs, etc on the public website. Some of these targets maybe the leading roles in the current popular topics or issues and most of themused to post their personal information via blogs, kaixin001.com. I  worried that you post information that someone sinister could use against you.

       Below are some tips from Robert Siciliano,the Personal Security and Identity Theft Expert, you may keep in mind if you use social media and regularly update your status or profile with pictures, video, or information about your whereabouts or daily routines:

• Before you post anything online,think about what a hacker, stalker, employer, or potential employer could do with that data.
• Don’t give away specifics. Don’t post your address, date of birth, kids’ names, pets’ names, phone numbers, or any account numbers or financial information of any kind.
• Do not tell the world you are going on vacation!
• Before posting pictures or videos, consider what a criminal or potential employer might see.

“Be aware of your social media use, and be smart about it.”–Robert Siciliano

       Last year, Facebook users witnessed a real-time, social media centered public bludgeoning of a multinational corporation that will serve as a case study in social media ineptness for years.

       Although most of the public missed the online contretemps, Nestle Corporation’s Facebook Fan Page was essentially hijacked by Greenpeace activists and supporters protesting Nestle’s use of palm oil and its associated destruction of the rainforest.

       So what can we learn from the Nestle social media failure? Or can Nestle do better towards the attacks from its social media platform? Here listed some suggestions:

       First of all , you should foresee the attacks on your social media platforms so you need to prepare your crisis response in advance. What you can do is your message or feedback towards the negative comments. A risk management analysis should also be conducted based on each likely attacks. And respond should be immediately and cordially.

      Secondly, you can rally your supports against the critics. Nestle has a large amount of true fans and may ask for support from them.

       Thridly,utilize the power of the social medium to engage socially. A clear name or person on behalf of the Nestle to response on social medium would be better and easier accepted by the angry posters.

      Other than having a great ecommerce website, Estee Lauder has adopted the new social networking standards of marketing by having a Kaixin001.com Account. The company has been a cosmetic icon since the 1940s, so the page is not focusing on brand awareness, but rather having a forum where customers can communicate about their product experiences as well as keeping their customers engaged. Realizing that social media has been a great medium to communicate with their customers, Estee Lauder recently launched a campaign to promote their social media presence by offering free night repair to women and providing them beauty shots to use on a website, blog, or social site. They have also managed to feature the company logo as a background on every picture.( Kaixin001 (www.kaixin001.com), a platform designed for a more mature audience of young professionals, has a membership that is heavily dominated by white collar workers in Beijing; Guangzhou, Guangdong; Shanghai; and second-tier cities.-by Thomas Crampton )

      The campaign will help Estee Lauder promote their product while helping the consumer look and feel better about themselves. Giving away a free service that helps the customer and promotes a good feeling in conjunction with your product is a great formula for success. Social networking will play a part by spreading the word when many beautiful profile pictures begin popping up with the Estee Lauder logo.

      Estee Lauder created a high level of engagement with its customers through the company’s use of multiple social media tools in China. A successful social media campaign hinges on great content that creates excitement and buzz among customers. Excellent content has five characteristics-it should be relevant, personalized, interactive, integrated and authentic.

1.Listen to your audience

• Monitor the channel they’re using
• What are they saying about your brand?
• What are they saying about competitor’s brand?
• Pre-empt reputation crises. Be ready to respond when necessary

2. Understand local netizens and how they’re different from netizens in other market

• What are their motivations for using social media?
• How do they interact with different social media channels?
• How do they   interact with each other across these channels?
• What drives them to participate and spread messages?
• What kinds of messages will they be receptive to?

3. Be visible on the right channels

Don’t simply jump on the social media bandwagon. When engaging Chinese consumers through social media, know which medium is right for your message and your objective-i.e. when to use corporate blogs vs. forums vs. social networking sites. After selecting your channels, make sure your brand is highly visible to the public.

4. Know the incentive for participation and engagement.

Why should Chinese netizens engage with your brand and spread your message? Is it social currency? Opinion leadership among peers? Timely and compelling content? Access to exclusive promotions? Incorporate incentives that will drive interest and participation.

5. Gain and maintain trust

Be authentic and transparent in communicating across social media. Try to add legitimate value to netizen’s online experiences. Most importantly, don’t try to deceive netizens- it will only lead to backlash and reputational damage

       Chinese Internet users are actively engaging in social media—especially home-grown social media platforms. Domestic social media platforms differ in various ways from Western platforms. 

       Rather than eliminate social media, restrictions on foreign websites and social media have resulted in a flourishing home-grown, state-approved ecosystem in which Chinese-owned properties thrive. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are blocked in China, but their Chinese equivalents are expanding. The equivalent of Twitter in China is Sina Weibo (www.sina.com.cn), and the two equivalents of YouTube are Tudou and Youku (www.tudou.com and www.youku.com, respectively).

Twitter vs. Sina Weibo

       Sina Weibo, widely viewed as the country’s leading microblog, has seen user activity levels stall while Tencent Weibo, its main challenger, appears to be catching up. Qzone, a social network run by Tencent, is also thriving – measured by both ‘sharing’ applications and clickrates. Renren and Kaixin, China’s two Facebook equivalents, are neck and neck in user activity, but far behind the microblogs.

       Similar to Twitter, Sina Weibo allows users to post 140-character messages, and users can follow friends and find interesting comments posted by others. Small but important differences in the platform have made some say it is a Twitter clone, but better. For example, unlike Twitter, Sina Weibo allows users to post videos and photos, comment on other people’s updates, and easily add comments when re-posting a friend’s message.

Source: http://www.thomascrampton.com/china/social-media-china

Social media, where consumers communicate with each other across various platforms as diverse as discussion forums, blogs, wikis, social networks, and video-,phone-,and news-sharping sites, has witnessed explosive growth in recent years. The rapid growth in social media is beginning to have a significant impact on consumers’ purchase behavior. Meanwhile, the marketing spend in this area remains relatively low.

However, when the marketers try to launch social media campaign for their products, they are always been challenged from CEO about how do you measure the performance of social media? How to qualify the return of investment? It is awesome that the article places the new approach to turn the traditional ROI approach which only emphasize on their own marketing investments and calculating the returns in terms of customer response. The new approach suggests the marketers should begin by considering consumer motivations to use the social media and then measure the social media investments consumer makes as they engage with the marketers’ brands.

The table in this article organized the various social metrics for social media by classifying them according to social media applications and social media performance objectives. It should give marketers a useful starting point for measuring the effectiveness of social media efforts because all of the metrics listed are easily measured.

Take social networking for example, when I interviewed my friend who worked as a marketing manager in Software Company for 5 years in China. She told me they would first created a profile at least two online communities, such as Weibo.com (The biggest Chinese local social networking), MySpace or LinkedIn. Then begin engaging with “friends” in these networks to understand the mass appeal. And notice how brands engage with users in these communities. Next, they combine the knowledge of social media with their organization strategy by considering about the questions like do they really have control over their brand? Or are they creating a sandbox in which consumer can play?” before they set the clear objectives for their social media strategy. However, it was hard for her to qualify the return or benefit for her social media strategy. When she submitted her proposal to the headcounter, she was asked to provide the ROI for this social media campaigns. The top management wanted to know what would be the benefits and potential risks to shift from traditional way to a new fields that they didn’t have any experience. They also concerned about the difficulty of number calculation from Weibo.com. The BRAND ENGAGEMENT in this table would provide her a clear idea about how to qualify the brand engagement performance. Go through the comments every day and figure out the active users; calculate number of “Likes” on friends’ feeds and the rate of activity. She could just follow the criteria given by the article and make further research based on the data collected. She could also use the BRAND AWARENESS to compare their own brand with the competitors by calculating the number of members/fans in their competitors’ Facebook profile, number of installs of applications. By comparing the brand awareness, she would easily track competitors’ marketing events and take reaction based on consumer’s feedback on Weobo.com.

However, several specific characteristics should be highlighted in China’s social media industry. First of all, the content posted in social media would be supervised. Some words or videos will be filtered or blocked. The data collected from social media may not be as accurate as the marketers expected. So what the marketers should know how to do data mining via different social media to get the accurate information. Secondly, social media could be as a strong power to attack your brand. Before the marketers launch the social media campaign, they should also consider the potential risks and the solution for the risks. For example, what would you do if lots of complains for your service or products? What is your action plan if you receive a lot of attacks from “someone” maybe your competitors?  You need also take the possible loss into account for your social media campaign.

From my point of view, the article really provides the marketers new perspective to evaluate the social media performance from a more rational way.