Internet Humblebrag: When You’re On A Last Name Basis… On Twitter

The name is: Chemali... @Chemali ...in its majesty's service, and by its majesty I mean Twitter.

For those of you who have no clue what twitter is and how nauseating  it is to be back in high-school with a lot of cool kids and wanna be divas, that must have sounded like a total gibberish. But for the few well versed in the art of 140 character essays, I am sure you are probably already nodding in approval or shaking your head in dismay (some cultural differences in body language  may apply)

I still surprise myself sometimes thinking about the huge responsibility that I have taken upon my shoulders when I committed to using @chemali as my twitter handle back in April 2009.
What cosmic power gives me the right to assume ownership the name that so many carry through generations? Will I be up to the responsibility? What do other Chemali family members feel when they try to get the same handle as they make their baby steps onto twitter and discover that I have already nabbed that one. How much negative karma do they send my way?

Sure, I might be tucked away safely behind a name that no one ever will coerce me into giving away, like what would have happened to accounts such as @FBI or @CIA since they are US based government entities, but in today's regressing world into tribalism, what assurance do I have that the Chemalis won't spawn an organism powerful enough to threaten my existence in order to acquire an official voice?

My only solace is in the possibility of an alternate spelling to my last name. Statistics have shown that 62.3% of people whose last names are "شمالي" (which means litterally Northener in Arabic) are taught at school that their name should be spelled with a Y at the end in the latin form, thus: Chemaly.
Further statistics have revealed that 84% of population will accept both written forms this including banks and some official institutions in the Middle East, so please anyone out there...go pick on the owner of the other account i.e Chemaly.

Finally, I would like to send some non-tungstene light to @Fida Chaaban without whom this piece would have not been possible. Thank you for providing me the motive and the inspiration for this introspection I badly needed, through your article published today:  Internet Street Cred: When You’re On A First Name Basis… On Twitter

Facebook Launches Instagram Connect for Select Pages

I am sure many of you are already familiar with the twitter connect inside Facebook which allows you to connect your business page to a corresponding twitter account by visiting this page: facebook.com/twitter

With the rise in Instagram's popularity and after it was acquired by Facebook a question lingered on on whether deeper integration was going to happen. This question is still hanging although we saw several areas where the knowledge exchange took place. Brand, however, were still obliged to jump through several hoops inside the Instagram app to connect and share to the brand with no equivalent to the Twitter connect page (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iiq43A0v6-s) .

A few days ago, while accessing one of the page that we manage, I was surprised by a prompt that appeared on top of the page inviting me to click to link the client's Instagram to the Business Page.

I followed the link and landed on this page:

The Connect Page with the client's page name hidden

The page is accessible via the following link: https://www.facebook.com/pages/instagram/
At the very bottom was the client's page name listed next to the "Connect to Instagram" button but I have chosen to obscure that name for the time being.

Interestingly enough the link is not generally accessible and other pages could not be connected to Instagram using this technique. When asking a friend who shares no common pages with me to try the link out he obtained the standard Facebook 404 page not found.

My best guess is that Facebook is rolling out this feature as part of an A/B test or for select high profile pages. I should mention that this specific client has well over one million fans with a very high engagement rate.

We have reached out asking some more info from a Facebook representative, no answer has been received yet.

Have you also encountered this? Did you connect your Instagram? Let me know in the comments.

Chocolate Wars: KitKat vs Toblerone

It's always a treat for us consumers when brands take jabs at each other while trying to sway us on one side or the other. A rare commodity in today's world where we feel we have become just tiny chunks of big data.
No matter how much people preach that businesses need to, have become and should remain customer-centric, we still feel too tiny in front of big brands. unless they pull off something like this on Twitter.

When I saw a glimpse of @KitKat's powerful reply to @Toblerone and @Mrugesh15, with a picture containing both chocolate bars in a surprising layout, I felt compelled to check out the entire conversation. Much to my delight, it was yet another duel of the giants. Both brands remained classy and gave it their best shot, but judging by the number of ReTweets and Favorites each reply received, it would be safe to say that KitKat walked away with this one.

In your opinion, who do you think deserved the win? Let me know in the comments section below. Personally, I think Toblerone would have won me over had they used the dark chocolate bar.

UPDATE

Shortly after I tweeted about my blog post mentioning these two amazing brands KitKat came back with a reply and I must say this has been pure enjoyment. Almost as good as having a chunk of each bar...

UPDATE 2 (2014-03-05)

The cherry on top of the beautiful social media exchange came today from the awesome people behind Toblerone. It seems that Cupid (pretty much like everybody else) is also hooked on Chocolate and thanks to these two great brands we are all love-stricken.

TV interview on Seven with Serge Zarka on MTV Lebanon

I recently had the privilege of being invited by the distinguished Serge Zarka to appear on his show "Seven" on MTV Lebanon to discuss various topics related to my work in Social Media. I had been a big fan of the show for a long time and, more specifically, of Serge's professional and courteous approach to various subjects. The show always allowed guests to offer the best they had, while keeping the entire conversation dynamic and interesting. This was exactly what I got during my interview and the professionalism in every aspect leading up to the filming and throughout the interview was felt. I must infinitely thank Serge along with all his staff from MTV for for the invitation, the gracious welcome and reception; An experience I will cherish dearly.

Social Media Fail by Alfa Telecom

As I sat in the auditorium watching someone present a really uninteresting piece of software, I could not help but check my twitter timeline.

It was on March 19th right before the ArabNet Beirut event. Alfa Telecommunications, one of Lebanon's two (duopole) mobile operators had been trying to boost their twitter following after their direct competitor Touch had overtaken them.

I cannot speculate whether this heightened interest in getting more followers had been instigated by me reaching out to some very high "powers that be" within Alfa pointing out how badly their social media is being run.
I had been part of the original staff that worked at Cellis which later became Alfa and I felt bad to see them trailing behind Touch after I had personally and single handedly launched them into social way ahead of their competition.

A first infographic sent on Jan 20th 2012 after Touch had debuted on Social Media

Without digressing further, Alfa was giving away valuable tickets to attend ArabNet to its follower base. A normal and fair practice that normally gets you to do something engaging in return for a prize.

What was not normal for me was to see the community manager behind the twitter account attributing the ticket to one of alfa's own employees.

I easily recognized the name based on my long period working there but I was not about to let my past relationship with Alfa cloud my sense of Right and Wrong.
Someone was taking the public for a ride. Whether it was intentional and malicious or simply oblivious it did not matter any more.
Using the most basic cognitive reasoning techniques I compiled the following image and fired a tweet at our dynamic and twitter-active Minister of  Telecommunication Mr Nicolas Sehnaoui

https://twitter.com/chemali/status/313959045935529984

The person on the left was confirmed as an employee.
The person on the right was an unfortunate coincidence and resemblance

The tweet went viral quickly and people tweeted back at Alfa expressing their discontent. Bloggers also took over the story with posts appearing on Plus961 and Blog Baladi

Alfa eventually took corrective measures in a format that suggested they were as surprised as everybody else by the fact that the winner was their own employee (even though his twitter bio pointed to linkedin where his job at alfa was prominently stated).

In retrospect, being caught with their hand in the jar could have been the best thing to have happened to Alfa as all other maneuvers were falling flat on their face. This made many people realize that the number 2 operator was on twitter and perhaps made Alfa realize that social media was serious business.
Billboards, TV commercials, brochures and the occasional sponsoring tactics were no longer enough to make themselves noticed. And this time the people could shout back their opinions.

Welcome to the era of Social Media Marketing!

At the time this post was written Alfa still had  46799 followers versus Touch with 70617 followers