5 tips for people who want to get into Social Media

I have been sifting through CV’s for a large part of this weekend, and the disconnect between expectations is increasingly apparent. I hope to address this somewhat so here are five tips for students/ grads keen to work in social media at an agency.

1)     Build your portfolio

A degree illustrates competence, but experience speaks to drive, willingness to learn and ambition. ‘Experience’ as an abstract concept is often daunting, so set small goals. You aren't going to walk into BMW and demand they listen to your great idea. But you can get involved with a community publication and take it from there. I cut my teeth writing ad copy for a community radio station. You are not entitled to anything. Go out and do some volunteer work.

2)     Cultivate a social presence

Social Media is a minefield of ‘gurus’, ‘mavens’ and a whole slew of expedient creatures who consider themselves ‘strategists’because they've listened to a TEDtalk by Seth Godin (the irony of this piece is not lost on me). It’s easy to get caught up in this stew and dole out your opinion like ‘flyers for Doctor Hakim’ at a street light. Are you adding value,or are you just contributing to the noise?

3)      Think before you post

I will check your social media accounts before I call you in for an interview, therefore, don’t post anything you may regret later (especially if you favour taking half-naked selfies in the bathroom) Grammar and spelling are paramount so 'iF I c u typinz like dis dn ujus wastd ma tim'. 

4)     Jargon is not as important as actually knowing what it all means

This one seems pretty obvious, but creeps up in 90 percent of interviews. People drop a lot of jargon, in an attempt to impress me, but when I question them on it, they fall flat. It’s all well and good to tell me that ‘I always consider Edgerank when developing content’ but if you don’t know the three factors that make up Edgerank and how to leverage it, then what’s the point? An extension of this is when someone paraphrases Mashable’s stories from that day to show me that they are in the know. I'm a simple guy, and I like simple explanations where possible.

5)     Measure, measure, measure

I have a curious mind and I am constantly testing hypotheses. Social Media allows you to experiment at relatively little cost, so there is a rationale behind every post and there is something to learn from every update. Therefore, reporting and interpretation is a key part of the position. Can you pick up on trends and spot potential opportunities or problems? When is the best time to post? What sorts of posts work best for your audience?  I question 'best practice' all the time. 

This is by no means exhaustive so please leave a comment with  any questions. If you think you have what it takes, you can apply here 

MJ

Ramadan 2012 - Week one

I need a place to collect all my Ramadan thoughts, concepts and ruminations. I like the word Ruminations. Its like Rumi without adding 'beloved' to everything.

Have you noticed how much stuff gets retweeted without references in Ramadan? The shayateen might be locked up, but the haters are out in full force. Oh well. Thanks for taking credit for my 'Concerning Taraweeh characters' akhi. Let's write it off as sadaqah. Let's change the tone of this piece. It seems angsty. But its not. So here are a few thoughts from the last few days. I will be compiling them once a week, maybe. 

Sometimes the saffs fill up like tetris and we wait for a skinny child to fill the gap


#deathbymusk


"This Hafez reads too fast", "This Hafez reads too slow"..Great! didnt know I was reading tarawih next to Goldilocks.

This one is dedicated to the Legend himself, who is now a synonym for the word 'calm'.

 And just when you thought it was over...

Concerning Sequels

I was going to name this blog '10 awesome sequels besides Godfather 2' but I feel like the 'concerning' thing is my thing. 

So - here are a few rules.

The movie has to be a sequel and not a reboot. It can however be a sequel to a reboot. 

I must have watched the preceding movie in order to judge fairly (this one seems obvious)

The list is in no particular order thereby alleviating the pressure of actually having to choose a winner.

It has to be the second in a series. I know this excludes movies that kicked ass in the third act (No Matrix, sit down, your third act sucked!) but its more fun to think about the second as opposed to the third, or fourth or seventh if you're into Police Academy. Or Saw.

10. X 2

The original X-Men was pretty cool, except for Storm's dealbreaking line when she electrocutes Toad. But X-2 has this great Mutant agenda issue that I really liked. Nightcrawler was pretty awesome. So was Mystique. Mystique rocks.

9.   The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended edition)

Most of you will know that this is my favourite movie of all time (even though if I had it my way the entire trilogy would be one long ass comrades marathon of a movie.) I love the sense of despair. There is a scene where Wormtongue sees the Uruk army and is filled with overwhelming fear. Nom. The scene where Aragorn falls to his knees. More nom. His will was resolute but his legs were like 'to hell with this'.

8. Big Momma's House 2

Yep. You read right. This movie was vastly superior to the original and reminded me of a time before Madea came along and ruined it for black guys in fat suits everywhere.

7.   The Dark Knight

God I love this movie. Well, everything except Maggie Gylenhaal. But then she died and all was right in the world. Here is my parody of the Dark Knight

6. Blade 2

Blade is iconic. Blade is trendsetting. Blade is a boys night in movie. Blade 2 is action action action. Even the word processor agrees with me as there are no red squiggly lines underneath the repeated words. 

5. Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom

Chilled Monkey Brains. The more I think of it, the more I can't really remember the first flick except for the scene where the guy does the elaborate sword display and Indy shoots him. But chilled monkey brains is where its at.

4. 28 Weeks Later

This was the first movie that I saw with Waseem D so it has that warm fuzzy feel to it. Adding to the warmth are Zola Bud Zombies who run around like Chatsworth kids on Sugars. 

3. Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

I didn't like the first Narnia movie. I don't know why. I wasn't into the Ice Queen. Maybe because I have always imagined Kate Blanchet in that role (retrospectively I mean, I never read the books) Maybe if I have some time I'll go back and check the spelling of Blanchets name - I wouldn't hold my breath if I was you.

2. Addams Family Values

This is tough - I loved the first but this one seemed darker and just more fun. The Bambi scene - good stuff.

1. Saw 2

There are more Saws in the world than there are ice cream flavours at Mozart. Saw 2 remains my favourite because everything was contained. This was not a bunch of random folk who were getting their comeuppance for not paying their TV licence or opening the door for a Cancer patient or whatever ridiculous justification the Bald dude needed to torture them while touching himself. I like how they had to work with and against each other. And lets not forget the needle scene. You can't do that shit in SA - You will get AIDS and die!

So yeah movie buffs - by all means correct me, endorse me or just add some that I might have overlooked (because I thought they were crap

MJ

List of memorable sequels that I am just listing for Waseem

Godfather 2

Jackass 2

Final Destination 2

Grudge 2
Terminator 2

The Hills have eyes 2

Ice Age: The Meltdown

Mission Impossible 2

Spiderman 2

Underworld 2

When Muslims take over TV

I can't believe that its been a year since I wrote my When Muslims invade Hollywood blog.  Time for a quick follow up.

There seems to be a lot of money being thrown into various sectors by rich oil Sheiks (The English Premier League remains a good example) so what if a bunch of rich Jamaat brothers decided to take over TV. I can imagine a few of the shows would look like this

Johnny Barelvi
 This show will follow the exploits of Johnny B, a naath loving, kheer drinking muscular guy whose catch phrase 'Oh MAZAR' should be familiar to any salaami standing audience.

The J Team
 This show will be about four brothers who go forth in the path of Allah, travelling from town to town in their Black and Red Corolla correcting people's deen and bringing them closer to Allah. The teams muscle, BA Barakah will be responsible for much of the laughs including his catch phrase, "I aint eatin no jalebi"

The T Word
We can take their horrible 'L word' show and make a soap opera out of it - T standing for Talaq.

Band of Brothers
This mini series captures the angst, drama and triumph as a small jamaat make their way up to Laudium for the Annual Easter Istima.

Modern Family
No, there are gays. cancelled!

How I met your mother
This one day, at Halqa...

American Idol
Shirk. cancelled!

The Oprah Winfrey Show
Women! Cance...hmm ok, we will keep the show if she promotes Fazaail Amaal as book of the month. Every month.

Jozi Shura
This weekly magazine show will weigh in on all the important matters that we contemplate on daily, like 'How big is fist length' and 'detailed miswak techniques'

Men Performing Bid'ah
This will be a take on the popular British series, 'Men behaving badly' and will zone in on many erroneous practices that have crept in over the years. Guaranteed to be a barrel of laughs.
 
MJ

Chime in with your own suggestions :)

(This isnt an attack on any subcontinental school of thought. I dig all the respective  walking and all the standing you guys do).

Concerning Young Ones

There was a #sheistooyoung hashtag that was doing the rounds yesterday so I decided to join in - one of my tweets "if she doesn't remember Marlena being possessed by the devil in Days of our Lives" really took off and I got over 50 retweets on that (most I have ever received since my 'Yo Momma's iman is so weak the only time she says bismillah is when she is singing bohemian rhapsody') 

I then get a mention from trendsmap stating "MJ Khan, @concerningmj is now trending in South Africa.

Good stuff :)

Here are some of my #sheistooyoung tweets from last night. Will add more when I get a chance

#Sheistooyoung if she still keeps half day fasts

#Sheistooyoung if she carries a plastic money bag around on Eid Day

#Sheistooyoung if she has a black 'jusdaan' embroided with little mirrors and gold thread

#Sheistooyoung if she compares mendhi patterns with her cousins on Eid

Sheistooyoung if her first phone was not a Nokia 3310

#Sheistooyoung if she calls it the Mr Price Pro instead of the Gunston 500

#Sheistooyoung if she's never sent a 'Call Log on Mxit' Call Me text before

#Sheistooyoung if her first Leon Schuster movie was Mr Bones

#Sheistooyoung if the first time she watched Titanic was two weeks ago

#Sheistooyoung if the first time she heard Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer was during a Castle Light ad.

#Sheistooyoung if she never tasted Rascals or Perky Nana

#Sheistooyoung if she never owned a childcraft and has used Wikipedia for every assignment

#Sheistooyoung if she never owned shoes with flashing red lights on the heel

#Sheistooyoung if she can't remember a time when Spur was not halaal

#Sheistooyoung if her first books were written by JK Rowling and not Enid Blyton

#Sheistooyoung if she has played 'angry birds' on her cellphone, but not 'Snake'

#Sheistooyoung if she knows John Stamos from Glee, but not from Full House

#HeIsTooYoung if he never collected and built a glow in the dark Tyrannosaurus Rex

#Sheistooyoung if she never had Scotts Emulsion.

Its quite a lot of fun - I'll be dumping a few more in the comments section. Do play along. I feel it works better if you're subtle. And please be original. MJ hates people passing off stuff as their own.

MJ