This is the latest Learning English With profile of this season, She’s Cristina Azcárate, Jaime’s sister: She’s 29 years old and She comes from Zaragoza, Spain. Since 2010 She has lived in the UK. She started working as a Nurse in Sheffield (South Yorkshire) and then moved in 2012 to London as She got a place to study midwifery at City University of London. Currently She works as a Community Midwife in one of the East London Hospitals.
Como Community Manager siempre es de gran utilidad analizar el estudio de redes sociales que IAB Spain publica todos los años. Confirmas intuiciones que ya tienes en el día a día, aprendes cosas nuevas y también sirve para reconducir estrategias en marcha. Así que una vez más, gracias y allá vamos con el análisis del estudio.
¿Segmentar este estudio es posible?
En primer lugar, lanzo el reto a IAB Spain para que pueda hacer este estudio por comunidades autónomas ya que cada zona puede tener sus pequeñas particularidades. Ojalá lo veamos pronto sin duda. Os recomiendo por ello, el reciente post sobre el uso de las redes sociales por los jóvenes de Vitoria Gasteiz.
Snapchat: ¿aún sin consolidarse?
En segundo lugar, tenía la impresión que Snapchat iba a estar mejor posicionada en cuanto a su uso y aún veo que le queda camino. Veremos en los próximos meses en qué queda.
La época hyppie de las redes sociales ya paso….
En tercer lugar, he observado que la época en que aparecían redes sociales como champiñones ya ha pasado. Ahora, el mercado está muy reducido al imperio Facebook (que incluye WhatsApp e Instagram), YouTube y Twitter. En línea por cierto, con el nº de redes sociales que usa la gente en su día a día.
Algo que me sigue llamando la atención es que YouTube o WhatsApp no se perciben como redes sociales para la gente. ¿Quién tiene la razón: los expertos o el público? Desde mi punto de vista, la diferencia no es muy clara sobre todo con WhatsApp de ahí que haya tanta confusión.
El mundo WhatsApp
Unido a ese punto, ¿qué hará Facebook con WhatsApp?, ¿cuándo abrirá la tarta del mercado publicitario a las marcas? E ahí la cuestión. De momento, los medios de comunicación ya empiezan a usarlo cada vez más como canal de contacto con sus audiencias además de servicio de atención al cliente.
En cuanto podamos seguir por WhatsApp a las marcas que nos gustan, hacer compras y estar al día de lo que hacen seguramente quedará más claro que WhatsApp es una red social al 100%.
¿Cansados de las redes sociales?
Cambiando de tema, me llama mucho la atención la caída en las horas que accede la gente a las redes sociales (excepto con WhatsApp) a la semana. ¿Saturados? ¿Spam? Como community manager considero que hay que hacer autocrítica y no estar todo el día por estar. Eso acaba cansando a la gente y hay que recordar que las redes sociales son gratis. Por tanto, si hay hartazgo, se irán como cuando cambian de canal de TV.
¿Cuándo debo publicar mis contenidos?
Por otro lado, uno de los datos realmente útiles es saber cuándo se conecta la gente y por medio de qué dispositivo. Estamos conectados todo el día pero cambia cómo lo hacemos (dispositivo). Cada marca puede sacar mucho provecho de esta información sin duda.
Finalmente, los comentarios especialmente en Facebook tienen mucha importancia a la hora de hacer futuras compras (aún más físicas que en la red) por tanto, responder y responder antes que bombardear con contenidos puede ayudar mucho.
En resumen
Hay que estar en las redes sociales que está tu público objetivo, menos es más. Saber cuándo está y qué quieren de nosotros. Nadie garantiza que ésta sea la fórmula del éxito pero si hará que no sea una pérdida de tiempo para las marcas, el estar en las redes sociales.
Learning English With profile: 23 years-old Paul Iano comes from Seattle (US) and lives in Vitoria Gasteiz. He works as an English assistant at The Official School of Languages in Pío Baroja.
- How did you learn Spanish? Did you go to an Official School of Languages? Did you go to a Private Academy? By yourself?
I learned Spanish during about two years that I lived in Central America, mostly Guatemala. I moved there immediately after high school with about three sentences of Spanish, and was living in an area where no one spoke English. So I had to learn. I learned basically by talking to people as much as possible and carrying around a pocket dictionary. I’ve never learned a language from classes, and to be honest I have no idea how people can do it. I have to be using it and talking to people, or it never sticks in my head.
- What would you recommend somebody who´s learning English?
Speak in English! If you can, move to a country where they speak only English. It’ll be really hard for the first few months, but then you will get much better, very quickly. But then again, that’s how I learned. Everyone has a different way of learning. If you think that classes work for you, then do that. But whatever you are doing, make sure to challenge yourself a lot. That moment when your brain feels tired, that’s when you are really learning something.
- How was the first time you talked in English with a Spanish person? Was it difficult or easy?
The first time I talked with a Spaniard in English was at my university, and so it was pretty normal. He was just another guy in my class. The one thing that surprised me was when I arrived in the Basque Country and heard people speaking English kind of with an accent from the United Kingdom. I knew there was a lot of historical connection between the two areas, but I didn’t think it would be so strong that even the accent would exist here.
- Which other languages can you speak?
Italian, relatively well.
- Which other languages would you like to speak?
I’m learning Basque and Arabic at the moment.
- Is the US accent very difficult to understand?
Well, not for me. Also we have so many accents in the USA, so it’s hard to say. Talking to someone from the swamps in Georgia isn’t easy. But accents are only hard because you haven’t heard them, no accent is easier to understand, or more correct.
- If I travel to your city (Seattle), what would you recommend that I visit?
That depends on what you are interested in of course. I find the city kind of boring these days, especially since I don’t really enjoy a lot of the events you have to pay to get into. There aren’t places like the Gaztetxe or cheap, good bars like there are here in Vitoria Gasteiz. Any decent music is really expensive, and the atmosphere of the place will suck. So I don’t know, weed is legal, we have really nice mountains and parks, and really good local beer, as well as a good fringe (not mainstream) theater scene.
- Is Seattle an expensive city comparing to Vitoria?
Yes. Renting in the city for a one room apartment costs a minimum of $1,700 a month these days.
- Are US people open-minded or shy?
Well, neither. They aren’t exactly what I would call open-minded. Everyone lives in a little bubble. We are a very segregated country, and city. So people have a hard time imagining other ways of life, in any other way than exotic. And people aren’t really shy. But in Seattle people are very passive-aggressive, which means they don’t say what they mean very often. A lot goes unsaid, and you have to know how to interpret things, it’s called “the Seattle freeze”
- Was it difficult adapting yourself to the Vitoria Gasteiz (Basque) way of life? For example: We usually have lunch or dinner earlier than in the US.
Nope.
- What do you miss from Seattle? The family, the food? The friends?
There is one local burger shop that I miss. And a variety of types of beer. That’s about it though.
- Would you like to live in another country? Why?
Not really. I’ve traveled a lot in the last 6 years. I’m ready to stick around here for a while.
- Do you know somebody that we should interview for this section?
There are other people here who have the same job as me, or maybe my brother who learned some Spanish and was in Cuba and Spain for a little while.
- Anything else you’d like to add…
Yeah, everyone keeps telling me that they think Basques are cold, or hard to get to know. I think that’s ridiculous. Maybe I come from a place that is kind of cold already, but in general I think Basques just have real communities and real friends, which makes it difficult for an outsider to become involved. But that’s how it should be. There is a difference between being cold and having a real culture and community, and I’ve found people to be very friendly given that context.
Thank you very much Paul Lano!
