Business 2.0: Putting the Social in Social Media
Social networking has often been unfairly accused of being antisocial, with critics believing it encourages people to develop an online life at the expense of living offline.
Attitudes are beginning to change with the growing adoption of Twitter by businesses and executives. Sceptics are beginning to see the reality that social media can be a massive asset to many employees and companies alike.
Take, for example, the idea that social media makes users anti-social by fixing them to a computer.
Social media brings people together rather than keep them apart. Like more traditional forms of correspondence, it is simply a way of locating like minded individuals and interacting with them. As humans, people still prefer physical meetings to those online – hence the many stories of people meeting through online sites, and the success of networking events.
Bangkok has seen social media bring people together, face to face, with a number of recent events, including the BKK Tweet Up.
A regular, monthly ‘tweet-up’ (meeting of Twitter users), the latest BKK Tweet-Up on August 15 was a charity event which attracted more than 80 attendees, raising funds for Bangkok-based organisation In Search Of Sanuk (ISOS).
Dwight Turner, joint coordinator of the event, told Director that “the money from the event will make a big difference”. Turner revealed that, thanks entirely to the Tweet-Up, ISOS will take a significant number of under-privileged children to watch the Harlem Globetrotters play in Bangkok. Without money from the Tweet-Up event, Turner said, the charity would be forced to take only a limited number of children.
Turner will also be involved organising the upcoming Twestival event in Bangkok which takes place on 11 September. Twestival is a worldwide initiative, with events in more than 100 cities, all funds go to charity:water – a non-profit providing clean water in developing countries. The last event generated big headlines and was well backed by sponsors and corporate donors.
Web Wednesday Thailand is an industry-wide forum for web professionals. The last event attracted more than 250 attendees whilst the group’s dedicated Facebook page has close to 650 fans.
The Web Wednesday event is arranged by a committee of high-level executives from advertising, marketing and PR firms in Bangkok, with the aim of bringing industry professionals together to discuss industry issues and socialise.
In its own words Barcamp Bangkok is “user-generated”. Promoted using social media, the last event, which was sponsored by Nokia, brought more than 700 of Thailand’s developer community together for an overnight event where the attendees chose the schedule.
These examples are all unique compared to other social/networking events in Bangkok and Thailand.
Traditionally, Thai networking events are formal with presentations, speeches and a regimented schedule – social media events bring a far more casual atmosphere with no mention of the dreaded N-word. Instead attendees are encouraged to relax and mingle freely.
Social media is affecting many areas of the business world, and events are one of the areas Thailand has adopted. There is still a way to go until Bangkok events are on a par with ad-hoc, niche events in London or Silicon Valley, but Thailand has seen a glimpse of the future of events and networking.
Details of the featured events can be found on Twitter at the following links:
