Ross Hori

writer | designer | photographer

#Social Media

Discussion, observation and experience on making social media a more enjoyable place. I try to keep this positive.

Please stop sharing fake news for “likes”

Update
Monday, November 13th, 2023

Photograph of a blonde woman with a comment about fake news.

If you’re going to share an inspiring quote from a celeb, or a wonderful feel-good story, a couple of words of advice…

  • Attribute it. Tell people where you got it from.
  • Don’t change it to suit your narrative. If the quote was about oranges it was about oranges, not your consulting services.
  • Fact check it. So many fake stories running around, from an autistic kid sorting bins to Steve Jobs composing an essay on his death bed.

You can go for a quick hit and a few likes by sharing the essay Steve Jobs didn’t write on his deathbed. Problem with that is the fact checkers are on your case. Sooner or later the SEO bots and social media algorithms will catch up.

At which point all your quick hit fake shares will work against you.

I hope you’re ready.

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Is a 15 second attention span really a Gen Z thing?

Notes
Tuesday, October 10th, 2023

Confession: I've been watching scenes from films and TV shows on YouTube.

Not the whole show, just a few minutes. Like the bar fight in Jack Reacher, or the coin trick two-hander between Patrick Jane and Dr Steiner on The Mentalist. It's a condensed hit of entertainment where I know I'm going to enjoy it. 5 minutes well spent, not 2 hours [keep reading...]

Illustration of a black woman sitting in a chair watching a TV show on her phone

Can Google protect against copyright theft by Generative AI?

Work: writing, research and design
Thursday, October 5th, 2023

As someone who creates a lot of images (have you seen my Tumblr?) I'm obviously concerned about stuff getting nicked. Much of my work gets watermarked, but scraping it off is easy. Adobe Photoshop even ships with all you need to do it.

Google has come up with an idea: to embed a watermark deep into the image's code. Yes, images are also code. Each JPEG is a set of numbers that [keep reading...]

An ikea shark on a stool looking deep into the camera

LinkedIn is making our “Zoom Dysphoria” worse

Work: writing, research and design
Thursday, September 28th, 2023

Regular readers will know I have an almost pathological dislike of being photographed. I prefer not to look at myself every waking hour, soaking up the acne scars, receding hairline, bags under my eyes, wild eyebrow hair and whatever else catches my eye. It's why my avatar is odd here, and everywhere else you'll see [keep reading...]

Graphic of a twisted form of a person holding a camera to take a selfie

How do Japanese seniors use the mobile internet?

Work: writing, research and design
Friday, September 15th, 2023

This is a PDF based deck created for LinkedIn. It covers research from the Mobile Society Research Institute, a part of telco NTT DoCoMo, looking at how those in their sixties and seventies access the Internet.

I wanted to present the research with my own conclusions on LinkedIn as part of my networking [keep reading...]

Image of a hand holding a mobile phone with LINE open
Graphic showing a slice of cake on a textured background.

Image
Wednesday, August 23rd, 2023

A graphic created as a follow-up to my article on using CAGRs in business planning, and shared on LInkedIn [keep reading...]

Why I dropped out of social media’s “expat” communities

Play: photography, road trips, art etc
Wednesday, July 26th, 2023

When I moved overseas I found myself in a swirl of "ex-pat social media". Join in, went the advice, interact with people. Connect with people on Twitter. And dutifully I obeyed.

Yet within a few weeks I realised the whole experience was dragging me down. I grew tired of reading about another misunderstanding with language. Another "top 10 tips to learn the culture". The general negativity that came with it. Conversations weren't. Like any other form of social media they were just people venting and expecting others [keep reading...]

Photograph of a Mario soft toy left abandoned on a street in Nagasaki, Japan

Meta’s Threads is here. Is it the end for Twitter?

Work: writing, research and design
Thursday, July 13th, 2023

After weeks of speculation, it finally happened. With much fanfare, Meta launched its Twitter competitor - Threads - and the world of social media caught fire.

Within 24 hours of the app appearing, it had tens of millions of users. Countless words were written about how Musk's bizarre purchase of the Internet's town hall was finally unravelling. Some people yelled with joy. Others screamed with frustration. Most telling of all, "experts" in this new ecosystem promised to show you how [keep reading...]

Illustration of a blue bird sitting on a thread of rope, which is on fire.

Experiment: an image for a LinkedIn post

Play: photography, road trips, art etc
Thursday, June 22nd, 2023

My activity on LinkedIn is settling down. I'm treating it less like a social network and more like a business network. Aside from my issues with its selfie obsession, it's remained a valuable source of information, connections and sanity.

Part of my work there is to be a little more active in promoting myself (something I am notoriously bad at). I've experimented with a couple of different post formats, with carousels being particularly interesting. But there is still a [keep reading...]

Graphic designed for LinkedIn with the quote 'Google searches, ChatGPT and a business model canvas aren't substitutes for thorough market research

The selfie post on LinkedIn

Update
Tuesday, May 23rd, 2023

I think I’m going “selfie blind”.

I barely notice them now as they drift past the timeline.

Experience has taught me the post is likely to be self-indulgent, shallow and lacking in any real insight. The poster is chasing “engagement” through pithy self-revelation that lacks any meaning or depth. Far more effective if they happen to be young, “conventionally attractive”, female.

There’s more insight in the posts that share charts, illustrations and photos of work completed.

Which begs the question…

Is it just me, or has the age of the selfie started to wane?

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Keyword stuffing has no place in modern content marketing

Work: writing, research and design
Thursday, May 18th, 2023

I tried to read an article on the decline of Japan's department stores and failed miserably. 

What should have been solid analysis on the challenges facing an important sector in the local retail landscape was ruined by keyword stuffing. Content that should have informed and educated, instead frustrated with over long sentences, unnecessary repetition [keep reading...]

Photograph of the front of the old Tokyu Hands store in Sannomiya, Kobe, after it closed. The remains of the

Trust issues?

Update
Tuesday, April 18th, 2023

Screenshot from a LinkedIn survey showing how the anonymous contribution can be seen by the author

I’ve had long and heated discussions about why “anonymous survey” means I’m not telling you who said what. Nor am I letting you look at the handwriting so you can second-guess who said it.

Which is why trust issues are so easy to create when you promise responses are anonymous, and the platform says otherwise.

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