Follow the Eurovision on social media

The first of two semi finals of the Eurovision Song Contest takes place tonight in Copenhagen, Denmark. New this year is the ambition to bring the participants closer to the audience via social media.

The Social Green Room
Social media has become increasingly important as the place to read and share opinions about the contest. So to make it even easier to find live reporting from the participating countries, the Danish public service television channel DR has created a Social Green Room that collects updates from the artists official Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts. You can either follow a stream of updates or select updates from one country.

Official Eurovision social media channels:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EurovisionSongContest

Instagram: http://instagram.com/eurovision

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Eurovision and https://twitter.com/eurovisionpress

Twitter hashtags: #eurovision #esc2014

eurovision-ticktock

Like in recent years, some artists are promoting hashtags of their own, like the Ukraine’s #ticktock. You can also use the country code for each country as a hashtag, like #SWE for Sweden and #DEN for Denmark. A list of country codes can be found here.

10 things I learned from blogging for 10 years

10 kronor

Today is a very special day, today this blog turns 10 years. I can’t believe I have been blogging for a decade already. Back then in 2004 blogging had not yet become mainstream. This was the first Swedish PR blog and I have this blog to thank for a lot of things. So to celebrate a decade of blogging I decided to list 10 things that I have learned from blogging:

1. Bloggers are generous
It didn’t take more than a few weeks of blogging before I realized that the blogosphere was populated with people who were willing to help you and share knowledge without demanding anything in return. It was a liberating feeling, you had a problem and all you needed to do was ask. I had no idea how I could active the RSS feed but out of nowhere I got the advice that solved the problem.

2. Blogging is fun
I have noticed that I like to express myself through my blog. I also enjoy the hunt for new stories to share and there is never a shortage of topics to blog about. This is my little corner on the web and I can fill it with anything I want. Today that may be something we take for granted, but back in the early days it enabled a lot of people to express their opinions online for the first time, without deep technical knowledge.

3. Blogging takes time
For me, blogging just don’t happen. I don’t write about my daily life or other “routine” topics. Most posts are the result of research, fact checking and carefully crafted texts. Not that all posts are extremely long, but it takes some work, especially since I write in a second language which sometimes is a chore. It’s a labour of love, but it doesn’t happen if I don’t set some time aside now and then to write a post.

4. Blogging is networking
In 2004, there were more PR blogs in Iran than in Sweden. It was fantastic to be able to network with likeminded people across the world, even in countries where you might think that public relations as a concept barely exists (clearly it did). In fact, you may have more in common with someone on the other side of the planet than with your neighbour. Since I started this blog I have made acquaintances, mainly here in Sweden but also from other countries, that I later have met in person. Having  a blog is a great way to network.

5. Blogging is brand building
Without this blog, I probably would never have had the opportunity to work as a freelance consultant for more than three years and I wouldn’t have my current position as Social Media Manager at  a large Swedish company.

I have been quoted in tens if not hundreds of articles in media such as BBC, CNN, Toronto Star, the Wall Street Journal, Boing Boing and Tech Crunch. I have been on Swedish radio and tv several times as well, all thanks to my blog which have let me position myself as someone who knows a bit about digital PR and social media.

I have also been on the cover of Swedish Internetworld twice (headline: “Hans Kullin knows how to succeed in social media”).

6. Blogging is rewarding
Every time someone shares a post, comments or just simply reads what I write, it is a positive signal that I have created something of interest to another person and that is a positive feeling. Knowing that others can see my blog as a resource is rewarding in itself. My blog has never been one with many comments and nowadays I rarely even get any trackbacks from other blogs. So blogging has changed in that aspect that the reward now comes in form of a tweet or a share/like on Facebook.

7. Blogging is learning
I have learned a lot, not only about blogging, but about the topics I write about. Speaking out publicly forces me to do research, fact check and read conflicting opinions on topics I write about. It is said that you remember a higher percentage of what you write down than what you read or see, so the just the fact that I write stuff down makes me remember more. The blog also becomes a resource that I can go back to because I know I’ve written about something before.

8. Blogging still has a place online
I am active on many social networks such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+ and so on. Still, there is no other platform that fills the same purpose for me as the blog. This is still in my view the best platform for long form content that includes text, image and/or video. One difference now from the first years is that back then all you needed to do to be read was to get your posts out in the RSS feed. Now, I can have the most brilliant scoop ever and nobody would know about it until I push the post out in my other networks where people can discover it. Nobody finds my blog without Facebook, Twitter, Reddit or other such sites. And Google of course.

9. Blogging is about details
I never liked dealing with html code, plugins or WordPress templates. That’s why I haven’t changed this blog at all in several years. But to get noticed and get your content out to readers you still need to know a miminum of how stuff works online, like how to install plugins, how to tag content, how SEO works and so on. You can do a lot without any coding knowledge but to get real effects it helps to be a geek 😉

10. Blogging is not dead
Even if I don’t blog as frequently as I used to, I still like to try out new things. It is quite fascinating that after 10 years, the most read post ever was actually the post I wrote just before this one. I tried to apply a bit of the Upworthy formula to a post in
order to see if I could make it at least go slightly viral. And it did. The post about how Sweden is unique was shared or liked more than 5,000 times on Facebook and sent tens of thousands of visitors my way. Blogging is still alive and kicking and will continue to be for a long time. It just needs some new ideas now and then.

Thank you all for being a part of my network all this time.

 

 

25 maps that show how Sweden is unique

Sweden is a neutral country, a fact that has helped keep us out of war for 200 years. We like to think of ourselves as quite moderate people. We even have our own unique word, “lagom“, which means not too much and not too little, rather “just enough”. But we might not be just as average as we would like to think. In many aspects, Sweden is the most progressive and extreme country in the world.

Here are 25 maps that show Sweden being ranked number one or in the very top on various facts. Click on the maps for larger versions.

1. Milk consumption per capita

Milk-Comsumption-per-Capita

Via Foodbeast

2. Global AgeWatch Index 2013

globalAgeWatch

Via GlobalAgeWatch

3. Equal distribution of income – Gini coefficient

gini map large

Via the Atlantic

4. Gender Inequality Index

Gender_Gap2_thumb

Via the Atlantic Cities

5. Social Progress Index

social-progress-index3

Via SPI

6. Number of researchers per million inhabitants

number_of_researchers_per_million_inhabitants_by_country

Source

7. Coffee consumption per capita

coffee_consumption-3

Source

8. Failed States Index 2013

fsi_basicheatmap_2013_wide

Source

9. BCG Global Innovation Index 2013

800px-Global_Innovation_Index.svg

Sweden ranked #2. Via Wikipedia

10. One of only 22 countries Britain has not invaded

the-only-countries-britain-has-not-invaded

Via the Telegraph

11. Average age at first sex

average_age_at_first_sex_by_country-1

Source

12. Heavy metal bands per 100,000 inhabitants

131112_bi_heavymetal

Via Slate.com

13. Percentage of 15-year-olds who discuss political or social issues with their parents several times per week (Sweden among lowest)

Print

Source

14. Least religious countries

800px-Irreligion_map

Source

15. Government information transparency

OBI-map-rework-forBlog

Via Washington Post

16. Global Competitiveness Index

Global_Competitiveness_Index

Source

17. Forest area in percent of land area

wb_forestarea

Via World Bank

18. Corruption index

Corruption_around_the_World

Source

19. Percentage of Women in National Parliaments

Percentage_of_Women_in_National_Parliaments

Source

20. World Press Freedom Index

World_Press_Freedom_Index

Source

21. The best countries to be a mother

The_Best_and_Worst_Countries_to_Be_a_Mother

Source

22. Map of world happiness

happiness-map

Source

23. Global Cleantech Index

MAP-OF-OVERALL-GLOBAL-CLEANTECH-INNOVATION-INDEX-SCORES-CLEANTECH-GROUP-ANALYSIS

Source

24. Research and development expenditure as percent of GDP

wb_rnd

Via World Bank

25. Fixed broadband internet subscribers per 100 people

wb_broadband

Via World Bank

And finally a bonus chart. The result of the World Values Survey shows that Sweden is quite alone in the upper right hand corner. The graph below ranks countries on factors such as self expression values vs survival values and secular-rational values vs traditional values.

wvs-culture-map

Via World Values Survey

 

Footnote: Inspired by 40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World. This is a translated version of my post that was first published in Swedish on my blog “Sociala Medier“.

Pepsi’s Cristiano Ronaldo stunt on Facebook backfires miserably

Pepsi Sweden put up three images on its Facebook page before the last night’s World Cup qualifying game between Sweden and Portugal. The three images portrayed Portuguese icon Cristiano Ronaldo as a voodoo doll full of needles, a doll being crushed by a Pepsi can and lying tied on a rail track.

Pepsi is a sponsor to FC Barcelona’s Leo Messi, one of Ronaldo’s main contenders for the FIFA Ballon d’Or award, and apparently someone at Pepsi found it to be a brilliant idea to mock Ronaldo on Facebook. It was not.

Pepsi Facebook Cristiano Ronaldo

Pepsi Facebook Cristiano Ronaldo

Pepsi Facebook Cristiano Ronaldo disaster

The stunt has caused outrage among Portuguese football fans who have flooded Pepsi’s Swedish Facebook page with angry comments and images of their own, mocking Pepsi. Here are a few examples:

“Shame on you! Shame on you! You’re a disrespectful and unprofessional brand and you did not manage to achieve anything positive at all with that ridiculous, non-humorous and offensive campaign. It serves you right that 10.6M people shutted you up tonight, and will stop drinking Pepsi.” Link.

Pepsi Facebook

Pepsi Ronaldo

Pepsi Ronaldo Facebook

There are also many angry comments on both the Portuguese Pepsi page as well as the global page on Facebook. And that’s the trouble with a local crisis, it often spreads to a global scale. A Portuguese anti Pepsi page has also been created and it has currently attracted more than 40,000 followers. The story has already been covered in both Swedish and Portuguese media.

Pepsi has now been forced to delete the images from Facebook and to apologize:

“We would never want to put the sport or the spirit of competition in a negative light. We regret if people were offended by the posts; they were immediately taken down. We would like to extend our apologies to all concerned.”

Mocking someone else’s idol can never be a clever way to promote your brand. Pepsi has learned that the hard way.

Teenage girls sentenced in Swedish Instagram defamation case

instagram logoTwo girls, aged 15 and 16, were today sentenced in Gothenburg, Sweden, for defamation of 38 teenagers on Instagram. The two were responsible for posting photographs of mostly girls on Instagram, calling them out as “sluts” with claims of different sexual activities. More than 200 teenagers claimed to have had their photographs published on the “hate accounts” on Instagram, which at one point led to the so called Instagram riots outside the Plusgymnasiet high schoool in Gothenburg late 2012. The case eventually involved 38 plaintiffs where the evidence were strong enough to press charges against the girls.

The younger of the two admitted to publishing the photos, but the older girl had denied that she has been involved. During three days in December 2012, the Instagram account “Gbgsorroz” published names and photos with slanderous comments of more than 200 teenagers. The convicted girls asked others for tips, photos and comments via the messenger serivce Kik, and then published this information on Instagram.

The two girls have now been convicted and sentenced to youth care and youth service. In addition, they shall pay damages to each of the plaintiffs to the amount of 15,000 SEK, or 570,000 SEK in total (85,000 USD).

The information about who was behind the account was obtained from Microsoft and local internet service provider ComHem, according to the district court. They then tracked who used the actual IP number that had been assigned to one of the accused parents, according to SVT.

The entire sentence can be found here in Swedish.

Sweden is the 4th most socially devoted country on Facebook

Socialbakers have introduced a concept called “socially devoted“, aiming to describe brands and pages on Facebook that excel in fan engagement and social customer care. That same label has now been applied on a country basis to see what countries are the most socially devoted. It turns out that Guatemala is ranked first in Q1, 2013, with an average Response Rate of 93.54% for local brand pages.

Norway is ranked second, followed by the Netherlands and Sweden in fourth place. The complete Top 25 country rankings, based on percentage of answered questions, can be found below: