Why Instagram’s New Algorithm will make things better.

My IG moment of fame on National TV - Talking Point. HAHA!

I woke up in the middle of the night doing my usual round of Instagram surfing while taking my midnight piss, and I noticed my feed was flooded with images asking me to turn them on. 

I’ve never felt that popular since… Never? I was never the cool kid in school that other students needed my attention, but for the first time ever, everyone is shouting for my attention – on Instagram.

Instagram users, whether with a big following or not all stood together and asked everyone to “turn me on”. Some choose to use a nice image while others might use a simple text image to get your attention.

I am pretty sure you should have seen this by now if you have an Instagram account.

It seems like most users are giving off a very negative vibe about this change. And I start to question this myself. Is this change really bad? Or are users just unwilling to change?

And of course, some people are just plain angry. 

Before we jump and get all angry scolding IG (which is a free platform that helped a lot of "influencers" to earn money) maybe we should take a chill pill and look on the bright side. If you can't see it yourself, let Mr. Smith tell you why it is better! 

1. Your feed will have better pictures 

From Instagram:

“Your feed will soon order posts so that you’ll see the moments we believe you care about first. As we begin, we’re focusing on optimizing the order — all the posts will still be there, just in a different order … The ordered feed will take into account a number of signals such as likes, comments, and searches, as well as the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, the timeliness of the posts, and your relationship to the person posting.”

What does that whole paragraph means? It simply means the rich will get richer and if you want to be rich, you have to work your way into the inner circle. You may or may not realized it but Instagram's landscape has already changed even before the company decided to push this change. It ain't the app but it was the community. No doubt the name suggest "Insta" which means "Instant" but the truth is, is that what the community still wants to see? An unpolished and messy feed? Unless you are a international celebrity where people just want to know about your personal life, the answer to the previous question is probably no. Users only want to see nice pictures. And when the "messy" pictures get less interaction, it will not show up on your feed that much and in that way, your feed will be much nicer! Isn't that better? 

My current curated feed from Bali trip!

My feed 56 weeks ago which I updated on the fly. Which do you prefer?

2. You no longer need to unfollow your sensitive friends 

I do not know about you guys but I do have friends who are very sensitive about their feed and followers. They feel like they have the need to unfollow me back if I unfollow them or even till the point that they will question our friendship. As silly as it sounds, it happened and it will continue happening. I do not love you any less as a friend when I unfollow you but it's simply because I no longer interested in your feed and also because IG doesn't have the "friend-but-unfollow" function like Facebook or "listing" function like Twitter. So now I can still keep friends with less interesting pictures but not hurt them! 

3. Best time to post gets a little less important 

I used to get a lot more likes for a simple picture base on % of engagement simply because everyone of us were following so little users. You can see almost everyone's pictures when you turn on the app but these days an average user follows from 200 to average of thousands of users. So with or without the algorithm you will never see every picture anyway. 

And because of this, the images you upload onto IG actually has a very very short shelf life. Thus, the "best time to post" has always been very important to many "serious" IGers. What time does your followers surf IG the most? Is it before bed time? Or it is going to happen on Wednesday night? With this algorithm, your images will be served to users in a non-chronological  format which means your shelf life is effectively longer! But of course, you still need the initial push to make sure it earns its shelf time which is why I'm saying it gets a little less important, not entirely out of the picture. Take it easy and eat your food before posting it okay? 

4. You might get more followers and likes if you put in effort 

I'm saying MIGHT because I've no idea how the algorithm is going to be in action but genereally if I'm guessing it right, your image will probably stay alive longer on the explore tab as well which gives longer exposure. With longer exposure you might get more followers? I mean that is if your images are nice lah. You cannot just hope that followers are gonna rain from the sky! It's like you cook lousy food and hope that people will buy meh. 

And with reference to the other points, if your images are getting better, it gets a better shelf life and in that way longer exposure and more likes too. And the chance of people clicking on your account and look back at the previous pictures and liking them will also be higher. 

So if your are obsessed with numbers, create better content, not complain about IG or ask me to turn you on.  

Why I am not turning you on. (Oh no...)  

Turning notification on might be a crazy idea. Assuming you are going to turn on 10% of 200 accounts you are following. That is 20 of them, and assuming each account posts 2-3 pictures a day. You WILL be flooded with 60 more notifications of lesser importance in the mist of your whatsapp, email and what not that are way more important. Is that what we want? And also battery life. 

At the end of the day, different users uses Instagram differently. Some just want to share their life as a live update while others want it to be a beautiful curated gallery. So take it easy and don't get all stressed up by it. If I like your stuff, I will go back to your account to see it.

Don't be so negative okay guys? Every threat can be an opportunity! 

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Creating Content You Love.

Things on social media just gets tougher each day. What am I talking about? Back then, being a blogger means having a blog and writing things you like to read and sharing things you like to share and it doesn't really matter if your friends read them or if anyone even reads them. It doesn't matter what I share and it doesn't even matter if I'm just blogging something silly or stupid. (ok fine, I still do silly things.)

Because I want to prove my point that I am a international business man but at the same time a silly blogger. Yes, this will probably "dip my shares" or "make me look less professional" but this is the whole idea of this post. 

Things changed for me when Twitter and Facebook came along. I started getting some attention from more than just friends and family no thanks to the "viral" effect of sharing. I mean, sharing got way easier thanks to the amazing UI/UX of Facebook and Twitter isn't it? So what happened next? I slipped myself into the pool of over-glorified "commercial bloggers" where we do things not just for money and freebies but also applauses. Trust me, applauses are addictive. Way too addictive especially you get some attention here and there and some blog posts that got shared thousands of times. You love those applauses, you love those moments, you love it that friends are saying that your post are awesome, you love it that your cockego gets stroke, you want to live those moments again.

Sharing this in the middle of a post that doesn't fit in simply because I can. 

Very quickly I got into the whole business of social media not just as a hobby but also for monetary gain. That's right, I became a social media "guru". (Now where's my shotgun, can I shoot myself already?). Not only did I created content for myself but also for my clients. Not only did we create content but we also try our best to read stats, (which I realllly love) forecast results, read successful case studies trying to make sense of this "new media" platform. Like many other social media experts, we see and predict the trend. What content would become better? What kind of content is more engaging, what is the engagement rate, what is the best time to post, what do my client's community want, and what gives the best social media ROI *pukes.

Some people get it easier online because they look good and all but that's not me. I'm all talent ... wait, I'm not even famous. 

What I didn't know was that all these "best practices" was eating myself up. I started curating my content, I started writing things that could get better clicks, I started taking better images, I started applying all these "best practices" on my own platforms. Of course, I start to get better returns as well in terms of being a better blog, having better engagement rates, getting more likes, more attention, getting laid and of course, getting more clients and partners who wants to advertise on this space. But what went wrong here?

I googled Cat on Unicorn and got this. NO clue who is the original created thou. Yes there's a water mark but no website to credit. 

When you start chasing stars, you tend to forget why you even started the journey to begin with. We want to listen to those applauses, we compare our blogs within the industry, we bench mark ourselves, wondering if we should be paid more than the other person, we go for "blogging workshop" and try to look expensive, creating content that are more SEO friendly, clickbait titles, creating what we call a personal branding where we show people 2% of our lives, we compare our alexa rankings, we start comparing stats as if it is as important as cup size. We start spitting venom about people buying likes or faking numbers. (Trust me, the only truth we need to know about faking or not is whether your partner is faking her Os.) We start to create an image of who we are to people, and trust me, personal branding is legit and it is thing that people do be it you are an online influencer or not and has shown very positive results. We start to let all these things get into our head and in front of us and as a result, we are killing ourselves. It became a job, it became a chore and the satisfaction of writing or sharing just fades away slowly each day. We always ask ourselves what our readers want, what would they share, what would make them engage my content or what our clients wants (conversion, every client just wants conversion generally because of ROI) but what do YOU want? Are we creating content that we love and we enjoy anymore?

I guess that's what happens when things get into your head. It is funny that I am bringing this up considering how many jobs I've been pushing away(okay lah, actually just no clients can? happy?) these days and how much silly content I pulling out of my ass now instead of answering to client's brief. I have no clue how some people runs a "blog" that has no original content but purely answering to client's brief. What's your motive of your platform? What happened to your voice that everyone started following? I mean no disrespect to anyone but if you are doing it for what you set out for and you are achieving it, good for you.

Anyway, I started this post because of Ryan's post. It's funny how you get inspiration at places you least expect isn't it? If you do not get my point, my point is simple. Stop chasing after the stars and just enjoy the ride. Do whoat you love and love whoat you do.

P.S. Yes, I am still posting this post at a more decent timing such as 11am on Tuesday where people are at their desk waiting for lunch and start to take a break and start surfing Facbook. #SocialMediaAddict #SeriouslyNeedsHelp #EveryoneHasDifferentUsers #FindYourOwnBestTiming #DontJustFollowSocialMediaGuru

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2015 Singapore Social Media Scandals

Me acting very emo because of social media scene. 

"There are so much negativity on the Social Media scene these days. I wished I could just pull myself out."

That is something I've been telling people and everyone knows that it is quite impossible for me given that it is very much my work as well as a hobby. (And yes, blogging IS a hobby. I have a decent job please.)

Many years ago, when I was first introduced to "Social Media", it was nothing more than a major confusion to me. I didn't know what are the "rules and regulations" or what is considered "ethnical or not". I spent a lot of time meeting new people, talking to them and figuring this whole scene out slowly. I surprise myself how many years I've been doing this, our once "new media" ain't exactly that new anymore. (Yes, if your company still gives you titles like "New Media Specialist", please just tell people you ran out of name cards.) How much has Social Media changed your life?

Everyone started on Social Media platform pretty much on the same level of influence - big fat 0. From blogging to twitter, friendsters, facebook, instagram, pinterest, and many others. What's your role in this web 2.0 world? Are you an "influencer" or just a lurker? Does your voice means anything at all?

What about our favourite "bloggers"? What are the major differences between me owning a blog and being labelled as a "blogger"? Does being a "blogger" make you nothing more than a marketing mouth piece for brands? I've never liked being labelled as a "blogger" when I 1st started or even until today as there are just way too much negative vibe over this whole term - "blogger" from both the mass audiences and even within the circle itself. Of course, I had no choice but to succumb to it when erm, they gave me an award and make me the ultimate cliche of all time "award-winning blogger".  (Not complaining.) If only there was some legit course out there to teach one how to be a blogger.

And I can't help but to feel a disturbance in the force of Social Media over the years. Is it a little too harsh to say that things are getting from bad to worst? 2015 was a rather "happening" year for Singapore Social Media Scene, bloggers or not isn't it?

Here is the list of my "favorite" Social Media Scandals for 2015 and you be the judge if Social Media is getting more and more negative these days.

*Basically one of the most exciting that happened was our GE but I removed that out of the list because well it is GE and not exactly something that just happened online.

9. Who Moved My $1,000

Link: Coconut Singapore

#ExplainSagaBriefly: Pretty Bloggers went on holiday and money went missing. Report shows that Bloggers wanting to abuse power and demerit the resort. Went viral with people shaming bloggers for abusing their voice.

Smith Says: Nobody knows the truth. Not much of a follow-up post from any of them (i think). If it's true that they did throw their weight around, that's too bad for them cause I personally really hate this whole "I blog you than you know" attitude. Yes, there are screen shots but to me it can be very one sided cause resort staff could have miss out some screen shots where they provoke them. So, benefit of a doubt.

8. Stupid Blogger who hates Punggol

Link: This stupid blog

#ExplainSagaBriefly: Stupid blogger who can't stand his own estate after buying and staying in for 2 yrs. Blogged about it and became a talking point on radio. Went kinda out of hand with people defending punggol as well as finding the pain relatable

Smith Says: Mouth itchy, ownself find trouble. I thought the post was quite funny but I don't know how it escalated just like that. #SelfPwn3d (Sorry self rank but I thought this was really quite funny)

7. Return of Janiqueel

Link: Someone actually created a new blog to shame her! GASP!

#ExplainSagaBriefly: Return of Janiqueel. The blogger who wanted to put down a hair salon and got major back fire some years ago. (link) This time round it has nothing much to do with her blog actually. Just got burnt online for some bad life choices. Didn't really read everything because it's kinda lame to me. Didn't really got viral but local famous blogger Alvinology actually blogged about it. Quite a feat I must say. (not even a paid post lor)

Smith Says:  I'm really not very into this whole "create-a-blog-to-shame-people idea". Regardless if it's real or not. I'm not sure how this works.

6. Toilet Paper Vs Loose Stool 

Image from XX dot com of course.

Link: Xiaxue's account of what happened

#ExplainSagaBriefly: No Singapore Social Media Scandal list will be complete without our queen Xiaxue right? A bit disappointed I had to rank this no.6 and not no.1 cause to be honest, erm, it was kinda one sided game. Basically 2 ladies exchanging messages online that went a bit out of hand and onto the court. Oh, and this was also the saga that got me a lot of DMs and Whatsapp because XX actually mentioned me on the post. (cheap thrill, 15secs of fame).

Smith Says: I actually don't really know what to make out of this story so I guess there's not much of an insight to have besides this is like another episode of mean girls without Lindsay Lohan. Someone was trying very hard to stir shit but I'm not saying which one.

5. Durian Man vs EmmTan 

Image from Durian Daily FB page. Really like this thou.

Link: 5 stars and a moon recap

#ExplainSagaBriefly: Durian man (he runs this durian daily site not sell durian) - Donovan Choy rage over Instagrammer (I do not know who endorse this word, like should I call my mom a facebooker)  EmmTan. Slamming her up down left right for "wasting" time on IG to look good and not using her voice to do good instead, etc etc.

Smith Says: I have no idea what started Donovan. There are 100,000 different good looking IGers out there and why emmtan? On top of that, what is wrong with them looking good? Like can we judge people who spent hours playing golf and not using those hours on something more useful like trying to sew our ozone layer back? And more over, she doesn't show herself pang sai on IG doesn't mean she doesn't pang sai right? Isn't it just a hobby? I wonder if there's some bad blood between these two? And his post actually got 3k plus shares?? Whatt??

4. Facebook is mightier than a sword 

Link: Your mom's ship

#ExplainSagaBriefly: Healthy looking guy took reserved seat. Facebooker (yes! I said it) not too happy about it, ask him to give up his seat, he didn't and even gave rude remarks according to Facebooker.  Facebooker not too happy and decided to "stomp" him. Went viral within hours and original post was deleted (i think). Dude later explains that he wasn't feeling well and needed that seat.

Smith Says: It's a freaking seat. There are many many many seats out there. I am one of those dude who will tap on people's shoulder and ask for a seat to be given up to those who I think needed it more but the whole naming and shaming is kinda uncalled for? And such news went viral?

3. Kulvin or Drea?

Link: Your mom's ship (Again, I have no clue why they keep covering such things.)

#ExplainSagaBriefly: Influencer, Drea went for marathon(actually 10km lah. not like 42km. People mixed up running event with 42km marathon. Sorry I digress) and spotted by fans that name on bib doesn't belong to her and everyone feel like their life was a lie. #MindBlown

Smith Says: you might question me how did this get onto top 3 of the list. Simply because this is one topic which is very close to heart as of now for both the "blogger" and a digital marketeer in me. (Nope, i did not eat both of them for breakfast... it was last night's supper.) Does it matter if she did the run? Does it matter if she completed the run? A lot of time people forget that "bloggers"/ Influencers wear more than one hat. We( used loosely lah. cut me some slacks, I know I'm not famous or pretty like drea) are not just story teller online but we can also be actors in client's videos, ambassador for products, models for shoot or even like I said earlier,  marketing mouth piece for brands. I know Xiaxue brought up the whole ad-masking thing from the saga last year but what if for this shoot, Drea is simply a model to promote the run? Not like she blogged about how she enjoyed the run right? I mean we know celebrities who endorse certain products but does that means they uses ONLY that ONE product or only wears that ONE brand of clothes? And we do know that people change brand for endorsement as well right? My point? My point is that as readers, we do not always need to seek the "truth". We have to be savvy enough to know what we are reading and make out what it is all about before kicking a big fuss. This is the media world. Don't be a cry baby. P.S. This is for discussion sake. I have no idea if she did the run or did not, but it doesn't matter to me in this case cause she was simply the ambassador and not writing a run review or "Top 10 runs i completed in 2015"

Do not get me wrong that what I am saying here is that it is okay for bloggers/influencer to lie to their readers. In fact bloggers/influencers' biggest power is not about how good they look like in a picture but it is about personal branding and credibility. Who wants to read a food blog that does nothing else besides paid listicles telling you top 10 food type but they taste like crap? My point is, readers should be savvy enough to eventually know who to read and believe and who to ignore.

2. Congratulations! It's Your WEDDING!

Link: Dailymail.co.uk (UK OKAY!!)

#ExplainSagaBriefly: Local blogger blogs about a bad wedding (by her standard) blow by blow. Got viral like really viral. Like it was international news viral!

Smith Says: IT COULD HAVE FKING BEEN ME?? I bitch about such shit all the time on my twitter back in the days like how bad the emcee was, how erm.. not pretty enough are the bridesmaid. It's those things we think about in our head but not so cool to share it on the internet especially with the internet users all faking being very prim and proper these days? Like I always say, it is okay to pay $198 and listen to an hour of racist jokes but it is totally not okay for me to crack one on twitter. #SuchIsLife We all need to know when to say what I guess.

1. COME AT ME BRO! 

Link: I do not even know which to paste. Like newspaper or sites or blogs. Just google it yourself

#ExplainSagaBriefly: Dude made Youtube video and challenged our PM to sue him. I shall skip the content of the video and fast forward to the fact that it became a major world wide news. People in Hongkong started a strike for him, he was on CNN (or was it BBC), he went to jail for it and with all these, i do not see anyone being able to top him any time soon. I hope not actually.

Smith Says: erm. *insert slowclap.jpg* I have no idea what else I can say about this.

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People (Mass Audiences) have been very harsh on bloggers/influencers/online personality (whatever you call it, same difference to me) over the years and especially 2015 if I may. Just look at the list above and I'm not even surprised myself. It started off years ago with cliches like "Bloggers are Beggars", "Bloggers get free food", "Bloggers are just people who wish to be famous" and many other things. The sad part about this is that although it doesn't applies to every blogger, but even as "bloggers" many of us know that it is some what true which leave us feeling helpless. Saying more just make bloggers sound defensive but question is, where are all these "hate" coming from?

But with social media platforms like Facebook getting more and more popular, are "bloggers" the only people with a voice online? As much as we always point fingers at bloggers and saying that they need to be more responsible for what they post online because young people are reading and idolising them, what about people who are sharing the articles or posting status updates on Facebook? Shouldn't everyone be just as responsible? How can a post go "viral" if nobody is sharing it? So how is ASAS going to help in all these? How is declaring blogger's rate going to help? What if I do not blog commercially but I post things on Facebook for a price tag? Can ASAS regulate me? I think the bigger issue here ain't just about dollar and cents but about one's integrity. Can we regulate that? Is regulating "cyber bully" more important or trying to regulate their payroll and hoping that it will help with their integrity more important?(Or even possible)

So what is the point of this post? Did I write this post for a greater calling and teaching all bloggers what to do? Nah. I'm just another face in the crowd (maybe a bigger face cause fat) and I'm not in that caliber of teaching you what to do yet. I am writing this to hopefully create an awareness to every user. Influencers' voice is nothing without you guys. You might not have created the fresh piece of content but the content is nothing without your support and always think twice before you share. One time too often, we share things without knowing the "truth" and this action of sharing unverified news is just as bad as creating one. On top of that, it encourages creator to write more similar content because it boost their ego? The best way to disagree with any content online is to simply ignore and not share. right?

You like to be a judge? At least do your role properly then.

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Why Facebook Makes Me Sad

So last week I was happily traveling around Koh Samui (which I will blog about it. Soon. I hope) and I saw this "viral" post about "Facebook Makes People Unhappy" and I thought that was a pretty interesting post and I decided to click on it despite being overseas.

Me and my travel mates trying out the whole eat pray love thing. Nope, I'm more of a drink play fuck guy i guess.

GUESS WHAT? They only tell me it makes people unhappy but never state WHY! LIKE WHYYY!!!

So smithankyou decided to make a detailed study with our sample size of - 1. Here's some reason why I am unhappy on Facebook.

1. Envy

My life was pretty awesome until I saw how awesome other's life is and than I got sad. I might not be the most religious person around but I do agree that Envy is a very big pain in the ass sin. We are often shown only how good others' lives are on social media but who shows you the negative part of it right? That being said, we can't help to feel a bit unbalance when we see our peers life being super awesome, having good food, traveling, buying new bags and all. But truth is we can't measure their happiness based on what they are showing (off).

And I always try my best to be humble on social media. I've never whip out my dick my awesome collection of fats and show off. (so not to make my skinny friend sad.)

2. Facebook Etiquette 

Facebook is brilliant when it comes to helping you stay connected with friends and even getting laid making new friends but with friends comes complication just like every community regardless of online or offline.

We live by different rules and nobody ever told you what's acceptable and what's not. Excessive tagging you on products, pasting nonsense on your wall, sending you game request (which can be turned off), asking you to like their page, excessive sharing like 1 post every 5 mins because he is at a concert or because he got a new child or even uploading disturbing images etc etc. How do you deal with it? Thank Facebook God for the unfollow function. Remain as friends on FB but not seeing their feed. Sounds about right, but generally the whole social effect leaves life too much to chance on how we can easily annoy each other.

3.Cryptic 

This could have been a sub point under point number 2 but I thought this is a bigger thing on its own. It's really irritating how people will put a cryptic message right after have some disagreement with you, wait for your confrontation and gives you shit like it ain't about you. COMON. If you have the balls to post it on Facebook status, you should have the balls to say it in my face. And yes, being passive aggressive and cryptic makes me sad.

P.S. when i say "say it in my face" i don't me you go write a post and tag that person and wash dirty laundry in the public. Call that person or private message and sort it out?

4. Witch Hunting

Images from Mothership.sg who got it off Facebook.

We all remember this one I supposed. Else, here you go. The whole naming and shaming game has became so easy with Facebook. Snap a picture and tell a one-sided story and it pretty much goes viral instantly. So much empathy and love isn't it? I do not understand how this works. We all know the "one-sided story" term but yet people jump onto conclusion and felt like there's a need to judge who is right or wrong instantly. Who are we to judge?

And guess what? more often than not such post has nothing to do with everyone who commented. Like I always say, everyone has a voice but apparently not everyone has a brain.

I do not even blame the person who started the story because he or she was there or saw something that did not go so well with her moral and emotions rush in but what about everyone else who sits in front of the computer sharing and commenting irresponsibly? That's just appalling isn't it? I am no saint and I probably done something like this before as well but I hope this serves as a reminder that we should all think before we share.

5. Idiots, Idiots everywhere. 

I'm just gonna leave this here.

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So yeah, Facebook is fun and all but there are just way too much shit on it too isn't it? But funny how I'm still drawn to clicking that blue icon each day. Thank you very much for ruining my day, every day.

And here's a post that you might want to considering reading before posting anything else - 5 QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE POSTING ON SOCIAL MEDIA

So, Facebook makes you...

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