18 New Social Articles on Business 2 Community |
- Getting Personal with Customers with Social Media
- 8 Steps to Write a Meaningful Blog Post
- Sennheiser India Is On The Hunt For The Perfect Music Fan On Facebook
- OnLive and Communication in the Age of Social Media
- The Original Gamified Social Networks – History Teaches Us About Gamificaiton
- Remember Your Angst Is Not Pretty or Attractive
- How to Communicate the Value of Social Media to the C-Suite
- Outsource Your Social Media to the Professionals
- Customer Engagement Lessons from an Oracle User Group Leader
- Welcome to the QuackCave: Central Command for University of Oregon’s Social Media Campaign
- If You Have a Strong Social Voice Then Your Invoices Will Always be Paid on Time
- Social Potpourri, A Social Network [Review]
- Surf Excel Excels In Blogger Reach Through ‘Soak No More’
- 7 Steps to Empowering Your Natural Advocates
- 10 Ways to Make Your Business More Social Today
- New Social Media Analytics Tool from Atigeo Aims to Revolutionize the 2012 Presidential Election
- How this Barrie Lawyer Grew His Practice, One Blog Post at a Time
- Why Social Media is Unprofitable for Extroverts
| Getting Personal with Customers with Social Media Posted: 18 Aug 2012 03:00 PM PDT  20:20 Web Tech Approach to Social Media Analytics: What is Social Media? (Photo credit: Gauravonomics) Social media is such a great marketing and customer relation tool, if you do it right that is. Unless you have been living under a rock for many years you will know about Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to name a few. These social media sites are constantly growing with Facebook users predicted to hit one billion by the end of 2012. With so much influence, social media monitoring is now more crucial than ever to find out what your customers are talking about. If a customer receives faulty products or poor service, nowadays they are likely to log into their social media site of choice and rant about their experience. Who cares I can hear many people say, its only one person and who is going to see it. The answer is everyone! Twitter has seen the most growth in recent years with people having hundreds or even thousands of followers. You don't want an influential tweeter to bad mouth your company so it is vital to engage quickly and save your company's reputation. Online Tools There are many online tools to help you monitor social media sites and most of them are free, here are a couple to keep an eye on: · Tweetdeck – application that allows you to search for mentions of your company · Hootsuite – update multiple social media platforms from a computer or mobile device · Twitter Advanced Search – can search for keywords filtering location and date · Social Mention – searches for keywords on many platforms including blogs, comments and video · Google Alerts – reports articles that contain keywords or phrases you specify However these may take a lot of resources to monitor and it doesn't give you a positive and negative break down of mentions or an analysis of what is being said. If you want to go that far, you may need to invest in social media analytics software such as Sentiment Metrics social media analytics. What to do when you know what they are saying – Negative Mentions When dealing with customers via social media use your head. If a customer has posted something negative, don't ignore it, apologise. I know this will irritate a lot of people especially if the customer is being unreasonable but send a reply, no sarcasm or defensive tones. Remember the message is being sent via text and emotions will not be communicated, so make your reply easy to understand with no undertones. A poor example of this is when Jeff Jarvis posted negative comments about his Dell computer. Dell didn't react, increasing Jarvis' frustration. The comments received viral popularity and lead to one of the top posts on Google about Dells poor quality products. So someone has mentioned your company in a bad light. The first thing to do is assess the best way to apologise. If someone is very influential, for example, a tweeter with thousands of followers, a simple apology may not cut it. Something more urgent may need to be done. How about sending some vouchers or offering a full refund? In comparison, if a user has few friends and not much social influence then a written apology will suffice. Although don't be tempted to ignore a less powerful user, just because they aren't followed by thousands it still makes a difference. What to do when you know what they are saying – Positive Mentions You have the customer appreciating your products and services so the hard work is done right? No! Making sure that happy customers stay that way is just as important as stopping all the negative mentions. Some companies are going a little overboard with rewarding happy customers for example US cracker brand Wheat Thins launched a social media campaign that tracked down tweeters who praised their product and gave them a pallet of crackers. I am not saying that engaging with customers' needs to be on this big a scale. A simple "thank you" or "glad you were happy with our service today" will make the customer feel valued and much more likely to return to your business. By responding in a polite and timely way to the negative news as well as the positive, your company will surely grow as a result of it. When companies connect to individuals it can create patrons for life. Whatever you do, make sure you do not underestimate the power of social media for the progression of your company. |
| 8 Steps to Write a Meaningful Blog Post Posted: 18 Aug 2012 02:00 PM PDT
1. Choose a topic.I get a lot of my ideas from other blogs. Sometimes I want to restate something in my own words. Sometimes there is hidden fodder in a much larger post. I also turn to Alltop when stuck. John Haydon inspired me to write this post. He shared how to get blogging ideas from emails. I wanted to personalize it. 2. Write the title.I always write the title first. The body comes second. When I find my writing segues away from the title, I copy that chunk of text and create a new blog post from it. I try to stay within the confines of the title because it helps me stay focused. 3. Remove unnecessary words.Eliminate adjectives — except where absolutely necessary. Ensure that the tenses are correct; if I want to write in first person with I, me, and my, then I change any yous, hes, and shes from the body. Change passive voice to active voice. 4. Add subheadings.Each of these steps is a subheading. They are marked with bold formatting. If there was no boldness, you would be less inclined to read every step and would gloss over everything. But here, you can read the steps you find interesting. Use short paragraphs, too. 5. Get an image.Pictures speak 1,000 words. Never forget that. These horses come from MorgueFile. I also source photos from Flickr (go to the bottom of the advanced search page and check the box for Creative Commons licensing). There are many places online for free photos for your blog. 6. Tune your engine.Write meta tag keywords and meta descriptions. These help googlers find your best stuff.
Depending on your blog platform, how and where you insert those keywords and description may differ. 7. Link and share.People get bored reading text without links. People leave your blog if you have too many links. Everyone wants to find new and exciting places on the web. Imagine if someone likes cows and is excited when you link to an article about breeding cattle in reaction to climate change. You might become that person's best friend for sharing cows. For instance. Find balance and also be contextual. 8. Publish it.Your blog post will never be perfect. Who cares? You don't think you're going to receive more visitors than anything published today on the Huffington Post, do you? Publish it anyway. People will add comments to share their perspectives. Some people will rip apart your theories and others will offer thanks. You will love them all because you know you're not perfect. When you follow these steps to your satisfaction, you win. Sit back and cheer. You did it. Do these steps make sense to you?What's missing? |
| Sennheiser India Is On The Hunt For The Perfect Music Fan On Facebook Posted: 18 Aug 2012 01:00 PM PDT Sennheiser India is on the hunt for 'Sennheiser's Perfect Music Fan' on social media i.e Facebook and Twitter. Since 1945, Sennheiser is a name that is associated with creating the greatest and the best sound experience for people. For more than 60 years, Sennheiser has provided audiophiles around the world a chance to enjoy unique sound experience. Definitely there are audiophiles like me who adore the brand Sennheiser. Sennheiser wants to find such fans and hence the hunt on social media. "Pursuit of The Perfect Fan" Facebook Contest Sennheiser India which had launched itself on Facebook in the month of January has already created a fan base of more than 30K. For the hunt, the brand has launched the "Pursuit of The Perfect Fan" contest and has also created a Facebook app. The contest is exclusive for fans which means that you will have to like the page before you can be a part of the contest.
The contest which is open for 3 weeks will have a winner declared on every Friday. Once the authentication is executed, you will land on a page that will ask you to share a status. This is just not a mere status update but if you want to win the contest then you will have to create a personal tagline for the music legend of your choice. Let's say you are mad about Bob Marley then come up with a creative tagline for your idol and enter your status message in the area provided by the app. The app has a cool editor so that you can make your status message colorful too. And if you are lucky enough then you would be getting a Sennheiser's award-winning collectible "25 Landmarks That Changed Music". How cool is the Facebook app The app designed for the purpose is a basic one since the contest doesn't leave much choice to innovate. Nevertheless, the editor that has been provided to share your message is a good one. Along with colors and fonts you can also insert image, audio and video objects to make your message quite interesting. Besides this, the app has incorporated sharing feature, is tested well and follows promotional guidelines. So considering the contest the app that has been designed is good. The Social Media Campaign for the Contest The campaign that has been designed by Sennheiser India falls short of expectations. Clearly shows that the idea of the current contest has not been extensively brainstormed. The idea to find the perfect fan of the brand is good but the contest that has been designed doesn't match up. How can someone have a look at the status update about his idol and judge that he or she is the perfect fan? If the brand really wanted to find out the real fans then it could have done some trivia contest or make fans earn for the tag "Pursuit of The Perfect Fan". However, the brand has thoroughly focused on its content on social media. The updates are interesting for the audiophiles and the Facebook page has also taken every effort to resolve queries of fans. The replies are just not lip service but they are making an effort to resolve the issues of the fan. The below screen grab highlights one such activity:
Twitter has been a hunting ground for Sennheiser India where the brand is constantly resolving queries, sharing information, etc. However the Facebook content stands out and has better engagement rates on it. And I wish that the brand matches up its engagement along with ideas for Facebook contests in the coming future. Do have a look and lets us know what you felt by the campaign. |
| OnLive and Communication in the Age of Social Media Posted: 18 Aug 2012 11:10 AM PDT What can OnLive teach us about communication in the age of Social Media? Last night the gaming Twitterverse went into riot mode (well polite murmurings), as a single tweet from Brian Fargo announced that OnLive was no more effective that day. This was based on an anonymous email he had received that said "I wanted to send a note that by the end of the day today, OnLive as an entity will no longer exist" From that rumours started to roll. OnLive was filing for bankruptcy. All employees were being laid off that day. IDG reporter Martyn Williams was even stood outside tweeting that he was seeing people leaving carrying boxes. Of course websites put together hastily created reports. Kotaku, Engadget and others adding their spin on the downfall of OnLive. What was OnLive doing during this? Not much. A couple tweets about their inclusion in the new Vizio Co-Stars TV Box and a short comment about not commenting on rumours but they are fine. By the end of the night (day) it all came to a head. Finally OnLive released a statement. The had been bought out. Yes there would be staff reduction, but OnLive was still alive. So, what does this show you about communication in the age of social media? It is fast. It does not wait for facts. It does not wait for press releases. It rolls at its own pace. All of the nonsense could have been stopped with a single tweet from OnLive. "Stay Tuned, big things are happening". But they will say their hands were tied because of business things, which in this day and age really should not be important. Now a cynical person would say that this was all very well planned. Just think how many people would have dusted off their old MicroConsoles or logged in to OnLive for the first time in months. They just stirred up more publicity than they have enjoyed since EuroGamer 2011!! Communication has changed. Social media has made reporters of everyone. Research and facts are now seemingly for the weak and the slow. If you want to control how the media is talking about you, get a REALLY good social media manager. |
| The Original Gamified Social Networks – History Teaches Us About Gamificaiton Posted: 18 Aug 2012 10:30 AM PDT Seeing the news that Badgeville was to gamify social networks got me thinking about the old days. Social networks are nothing new. Back in "the day", we all used to use forums (and bulletin boards before that) and chat rooms to be social online. Forums tended to focus on specific topics, with chat rooms just a real time free for all. What got me thinking though was realising that a lot of these used to include elements of Gamification, forums especially. There was this stuff called kudos or Kama. When you said something of interest or that was helpful, users could reward you with these – a bit like when someone likes you on Facebook or +1 's you on Google+. Kama and time served would also very often go towards some sort of rank on the forum. Higher rank and Kama signified a user you could trust and who was useful or interesting on the forums. The key factor here was that users were not adding content to get rank or Kama. These came to display recognition of contribution. The users created the content because they wanted to. They wanted to help or be interesting – ,altruism. Chat rooms would often take this a step further, with extra features being given to users who had been contributing over set time periods – levelling up so to speak. With luck this is all sounding a little familiar. Experience points, rank / recognition badges, levels, altruism and community. These are all tools from the Gamification arsenal we speak of so often. Forums and chat rooms used (and still use) all of these to great effect. Points and badges are used to recognise not incentivize. Levels are used to introduce features over time. Community is used to encourage and built to keep users engaged. The future is often just a reinvention of the past. In the case of Facebook and Twitter it is a reinvention of the forum and chat room idea given a vast global scale. Looking back at ideas that worked and that may share some of the ideas of newer inventions can often lead to great results. Remember, Gamification is just a word, a collection of ideas and techniques pulled together under one umbrella. Whilst this may have lead to greater understanding of the psychology of these ideas, we have still been using most of them for many years! |
| Remember Your Angst Is Not Pretty or Attractive Posted: 18 Aug 2012 10:00 AM PDT Recently I am seeing in many social media groups a lot of focus on who participates. When, where, how often and how. I get it, we all want reciprocal relationships. We are all busy. We are also losing the humanness that comes with connecting with each other when our expectations are out of whack. The Ball is MINE!
How do I know this?I too got caught up in this trap style thinking. We have all been there. Been burned by folks who ask, but do not give in return. It is not about being opened minded alone, it is about setting boundaries so we feel honored and respected. Recently I felt this way again and then I stopped myself and asked – What else is going on here? When we are so focused on what we are receiving, that we forget we are dealing with people and all the complexities that goes with their lives, then we have forgotten the point of being in social media. Social media was to connect us and help us bridge people online so we can enjoy a new level of community. Community was not meant to be another "thing" we were slaves to – having to meet yet another deadline in our already busy and attention pulled lives. What changed for me?
Asking myself better questions and having faith. It was all internal. Some will, some won't, and I can be open to the new folks who resonate with me in a stronger manner. Is it easy – not always. It is more satisfying and like in any good TED talk – when we expand our thinking to allow for new ideas and growth to occur, that is when breakthroughs happen. I allow my priorities to come firstWe all have to ask ourselves, how does it feel when I am participating in a forced manner, with a firm ruler over our heads. You only have to watch children to see they are connected with their natural instincts before adults come in with their "ideas or what is right and wrong." The purity of a child playing with others no matter their class, economic background or color is a great lesson to us in social media as well. Less rules and more open sharing.
And of course recognize that we take care of business first – my responsibility to my clients who put food on my table take precedence over sharing my colleagues posts. We can all respect that in today's world. Now I will remember to get back to that grounded view daily. It has served me well over the years. When I was on the path or even like now when I fell off the path. "I am recommitting to a more compassionate view on sharing, are you?" MicheleWhat perspective will you operate from?Photo attribution http://th08.deviantart.net/fs25/PRE/f/2008/152/9/e/The_ball_is_mine_by_Lordwuermchen.jpg http://static-l3.blogcritics.org/11/05/31/160553/faith2.jpg?t=20110531084335 |
| How to Communicate the Value of Social Media to the C-Suite Posted: 18 Aug 2012 09:55 AM PDT It is a precarious journey when it comes to communicating the value proposition of social media to the C-suite. Often, this is because there is a gap between social media's perceived benefits and traditional business measurement. This has led us to attempt to quantify our sales pitch. However, to be successful in persuading senior management—or anyone for that matter—we need to resist the urge to become dependent on speculative analytics. First, allow me to preface this post by stating that quantifying social media's ROI is a necessary endeavour. However, it is best saved for analyzing strategic programs (post-implementation), rather than steering our initial pitch. Instead of getting stuck in the quagmire of hypothetical ROI scenarios, I recommend we focus our pitch on what social media does best: Protect and enhance a business' intangible assets, such as reputation, brand, trust, insight, perception, and knowledge of a target audience. Of course, many corporate decisions are viewed through a quantitative, financial lens. However, social media's buy-in value does not fit that rigid space—not at the outset of a strategy anyway. A recent study conducted by Queen's University School of Business in Kingston, Ontario revealed business leaders perceive social media's top benefits to be:
It has also been found that many executives, although investing in social media, aren't taking the right approach. These findings identify that, during our pitch, the emphasis should be less about attempting to tie social media to pseudo-quantified metrics and more about communicating and solidifying the qualitative benefits that influence the foundations of business development, market share, and image. Communicate the Qualitative Value Proposition of Social MediaTrust, reputation, thought leadership, or sociological and anthropological knowledge of an audience are not easily quantifiable elements. Therefore, at the outset, we should be highlighting, in qualitative, cost-benefit terms, the clear difference between those who use social media correctly and those who neglect it. This approach cuts through the ambiguity and identifies a clear, realistic value proposition that makes sense. For example: Use the social media insight umbrella which contains qualitative, empirical data from conversations to identify competitor weakness, build thought leadership, and capitalize on market opportunities. Without a practical social media strategy in place, a company would not have this capability. Quantifying this type of value-add argument just does not work, yet we still try to. Further, we can't quantify what a company can potentially gain through untested insight and participation, nor can we apply certain quantified findings to individual, unproven cases—not to the extent that we seem to believe. In order to provide the analytics that speak to social media's ROI we need to first get management to buy into its true foundations and known benefits. Promising any sort of ROI before strategic implementation blurs reality and expectations. This is due to the fact that attempting to articulate and quantify the potential costs and benefits of social media depend greatly on individual objectives,tactics and unrealized experiences. It isn't a secret CEOs want to see ROI. That's why creating benchmarks and analyzing after implementation can speak to specific progress and scalable value. Investing time in generating a clear lineage between ROI and social media at this stage is what spurs innovation and brings rigor to our industry—not the other way around. When we discuss social media with decision makers we must take the time to strip social media down to its known benefits (as mentioned above). Second, we need to tie those elements to the company's intangibles and build out from there. What are your experiences with communicating social media's value proposition? What worked and what didn't? This article was first written as a guest post for Spin Sucks. |
| Outsource Your Social Media to the Professionals Posted: 18 Aug 2012 07:00 AM PDT I really believe it's bad advice to recommend that companies fire their social media consultants, experts and agencies only to bring everything in house. While "everyone" is on Facebook, social media is no longer a land of tinkerers; it's a land of consumers. If you fill a room of potential brand ambassadors you harvest from your own ranks, I guarantee that only 1% to 10% of those people are active participants, and the rest are passive folks who are mostly lurkers. And when people bring up Zappos as the corporate exemplar, I always remind them that Zappos is exceptional and that's why they're the only company anyone can think of who does it as well internally. Plus, Zappos is a dyed-in-the-wool customer-service-centric company with an aggressive, visionary founder — someone who has completely rebuilt itself to over-serve its communities. Kudos, but seriously a truly exceptional example. Only the largest companies have in-house counsel — their own corporate lawyers. Very few small or medium-sized companies maintain their own in-house accountants, designers, publicists, reputation and crisis managers, or marketers — some don't even have their own dedicated sales teams. And this is becoming more and more the reality of modern business — and it started in the '90s. Why incur internal staff bloating when you can keep your staff limited to core expertise and services in focus, outsourcing everything else to professional service firms — vendors? Specialist vendors, like doctors or lawyers or management consultants, are generally staffed by people who are not only trained and experienced but also have the benefit of being able to load-balance and mind-share across the experience of multiple clients. The best vendors, like the best docs and lawyers, keep rigorously up to date in the state of the art with a single-minded incentive to keep up and even lead the way. Personally, I have over 15 years of experience in consulting, and the only way a consultant ever gets a job — and keeps it — is by being just a little smarter, more curious, quicker, and more confident than the client — and since this is rarely completely true, most consultants worth their salt work really hard and spend many hours being and staying a top expert in the field. Why Zappos is the unicorn of social media success storiesFor most companies, one would generally need to rehire everyone in a company to make certain they're dyed-in-the-wool social media passion players with exceptional communications, empathy, and writing skills. Most folks just want to have and keep a job and livelihood in the career they trained for. To me, Zappos is the unicorn of social media-brought-internal success stories. So many companies that appear to have their own internal social media teams — or even say that they do — actually have leaned very heavily on all the agencies I have owned and worked for. Having an agency or outside expert to facilitate action is important when so many team members in most companies think social media is a waste of time In my not-so-humble experience, it's naïve to believe that the "team sport" model works when it comes to sharing the social media brand ambassador load internally. It always lands on one person's shoulders. Having an agency or dedicated expert to facilitate action and follow-through is the best way. Too many of the team members in most companies "don't get social media" and quite a few "think it's a waste of time." Happens every time. While these folks might be hot-and-heavy at first, very few if any of them will be able to keep up their excitement over time, especially if they're OBE — overcome by events. The moment work (or personal life) picks up and gets busy, will the social media responsibilities suffer? How much respect for the importance and power of social media do your employees really have? If any of them consider social media monitoring, engagement, and outreach to be either a secondary task or "beneath them," then the writing's on the wall. The honeymoon period with cool and the continuity of outreach and the quickness of the response might suffer. Blog posts, tweets, and page posts will descend to periodically and then to Ghost Town. I don't understand all these experts who actually believe that companies even have an interest — or the passion (or even the time) — to take social media in-house, especially if they only hire one community manager or director of social media. One's not enough. The social mediasphere is enormous, incessant, 24/7/365, and 80% listening which demands crisis management experience to boot. And when it comes to the argument that social media teams really need to be bona fide corporate employees, it really doesn't jibe with modern American business. Companies use agencies all the time to represent them. An agency just needs to connect, communicate, and work together with their client consistently, directly, and over time. One can easily weave consultants and agencies into companies. It happens all the time with lawyers, accountants, counsel, board members, etc. These are independent entities that are very much woven into the fiber of the company even if they don't have a key card, company health insurance, and a 401k. Getting a key card and a company logo polo aren't a panacea — these things don't confer magical powers of connectedness and corporate memory. That employees are more authentic is a false premise — this is 2012, a distributed world where outsourcing and offshoring are more common and accepted than they have ever been in history. |
| Customer Engagement Lessons from an Oracle User Group Leader Posted: 18 Aug 2012 05:50 AM PDT
In a recent conversation on Socious' ProCommunity podcast, I discussed how customer communities and companies can engage one another more effectively with Lew Conner, Executive Director of The Higher Education User Group, a thriving independent user group community of Oracle and PeopleSoft customers. This social business advice goes beyond the basics and applies to independent user groups, company-sponsored customer communities, and other membership organizations like associations. 5 Advanced Steps for Building a Stronger User CommunityStep #1: Engage on Both Strategic and Tactical LevelsThe way in which customers want to engage an organization exists on a spectrum. It ranges from help with 'how-to' or 'is this a bug' questions to feedback about where the market is headed and what customers will need in a solution several years from now. Have your product managers participate in, and listen to, online product advisory groups so that they can chime in and collect valuable information about products when customers reach out to other customers for support. Building this relationship will also make it easier to engage customers in strategic areas such as future market needs and product direction. Step #2 Find the Right Individuals Who Understand the Big PictureIt is critical to create a partnership culture with your customers. A key component of doing this is to find and engage the right people in the user community. Often, users' first reactions when given the opportunity to lead a dialog about your products or services are to surface complaints or bicker about the product roadmap. This is not productive for the company or the user community. It is important to elevate people who can move beyond negative outlooks and hardline stances to create a productive partnership. Once you have identified those leaders who understand this big picture, use your online community and offline events to provide consistent opportunities to engage. For instance, ask them to lead an online product advisory group, contribute a blog article a few times a year, head up a conference track, or commit to a 30 minute phone call with other leaders once a week. Step #3: Show Your ExecutivesMaking your company executives available to your user group's top leadership goes a long way toward building a lasting partnership. Though engagement does not have to be constant and the conversation can be casual, it should be a clear priority for your business. In the ProCommunity discussion, Lew Conner gave an example of Oracle executives joining the Higher Education User Group's board of directors for extensive unstructured conversation at the board's executive retreat. This type of casual relationship-building is invaluable to both the company and the user community. It is also a sign of a healthy and collaborative customer-company alliance. Step #4: Create Opportunities for Users to Get InvolvedPeople are passionate about their careers. Careers are enhanced when people are recognized by their peers. Boost enthusiasm for your user group and spread your reach by creating meaningful ways for people to get involved. Customers will gladly give of their time to play a greater role in the community. This increases the productivity of the group and is a steppingstone toward creating customer advocates and future user group leaders. Step #5: Keep Customer Executives EngagedNot all customer personas are equal. For technical products, your audience can include developers, business users, and executives. Often times, your lower level users are involved in the user group with the permission (and budget authority) of the executives. Keeping in mind that executives need to be engaged differently than other segments, create ways for them to participate in your organization through your online community, on the phone, and in special advisory groups. Consider this an investment keeping all of your other users engaged and an opportunity to listen to the business problems that face the people with the purse strings. Online User Community Takeaway Private online customer communities, whether independent or company-run, are the backbone of a user community's value, discussions, and peer-to-peer support. While the most important element of a successful user group is the partnership-oriented culture with the organization providing the products or services, online communities are the catalyst behind the engagement. Without a strong online community, the user group would not have the numbers, participation, and centralized expertise to provide consistent value to the customer community or the company.
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| Welcome to the QuackCave: Central Command for University of Oregon’s Social Media Campaign Posted: 18 Aug 2012 05:45 AM PDT
And the University of Oregon strikes again! Recently I wrote a post about the newest facility being built for Oregon's football team that included 124 climate controlled lockers with iPod docks, two movie theaters, and a war room modeled after the White House War room. Now, Oregon climbs even higher on the technology ladder with college sport's first digital media command center. Dubbed the QuackCave, it will be a hub for all the program's social media accounts including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and other networks. Here they can monitor accounts to comb through fan conversation and reach out to them quickly while checking the feedback from their activity. The QuackCave is meant to help the program leverage their national spotlight from the athletic success, creating worldwide buzz for the University of Oregon. With the hub, they can keep track of everyone talking about Oregon, and according to social media manager Andy McNamara, not let someone like LeBron James slip by from mentioning Oregon. This goes to show how prominent digital media is to sports programs. Not only does it help reach the fans but also helps in recruiting some of the nation's best players. The NCAA had to develop rules to adapt to social activity so that tells you it is important to college programs! Reaching fans and athletes through social networks and engaging them is all made possible by the growing popularity of social media, and has become the most vital way to reach the supporters of the program. With a center built solely for social media, look for other programs to adapt this idea and start hiring the appropriate staff to be responsible for the social hub. The digital world is steady growing and pretty soon, every sports team will have their own version of a social media center. But for now, Oregon has another "Quack" up on the competition. |
| If You Have a Strong Social Voice Then Your Invoices Will Always be Paid on Time Posted: 18 Aug 2012 05:40 AM PDT
Working for yourself is dangerous and a roller-coaster of success, fail, fail, fail, fail, success, fail, fail, fail, fail, success. It is an utter head-breaker, but it is worth it for the autonomy and the freedom and the spontaneous time you can spend with your family. Once you start it, you never go back… unless Bob Dylan calls offering you a job. But for all the bows and arrows and the insecurity and the unpaid holidays and the seemingly insane demands of clients, there is NOTHING more infuriating than waiting for an invoice to be paid. Such a palaver is a disgrace and should have nothing to do with business. You know the score. You find a new client, you generally start working for them a week or so before the contract starts and at some time towards the end of the first month you send them an invoice that you *ask* to be paid within 28 days. So, it's at least two months before you get paid; that seems to be the way it is. But at the end of that 28-day period you check your account and there's no money. You don't want to come across as aggressive because you're probably still working for that client so you don't do anything for about a week. At that time you send an email to your contact at the client and gently inquire when the invoice is likely to be paid. They generally ignore you for the rest of the week so you wait until Friday and then send another email with reference to the unpaid invoice and wishing them a good weekend. They finally reply the next week, tell you they'll *prod* the accounts department, tell you not to worry and that it'll be paid next week and then ask you to do ANOTHER million things for them on top of the work you're already waiting to be paid for. You wait until the weekend is over, check the account on Monday morning, still no money, so you get in touch with them immediately trying to temper your temper with a strongly written email asking to be put in touch with the person responsible in the accounts department… at the same time as you call the accounts department. The person in the accounts department is usually 'out to lunch', 'not in this morning' or 'on holiday'. You leave your number, say it's urgent, ask them to ring you back…they never do. At some stage you finally find out your invoice 'went missing', 'slipped through the net', 'we had a number wrong, sorry' and it will be 'paid soon'… you hold your breath. At this stage you start to think you might never be paid, especially if that company is based in another country and you curse your stupidity in taking that client. You don't know when you should stop working for that client because they now owe you two months' money. Then that client says that they've hired somebody to do the job you've been doing, thank you very much and 'hope to work with you in the future'. Now you're ready to f*cking kill somebody, your brain is full of getting the boys around, destroying their business, remembering this for the rest of your life, but then, then, then, you remember… you remember that in this debilitating process, you remember you still have power, much power, because of your social channels. You have an engaged audience on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and (even) Facebook. You have a wide-open channel where you can warn off your audience from ever working with this company, you can destroy this company's reputation as an honourable company. All it will cost you is the invoice that hasn't been paid. Then you check your account and the invoice HAS been paid and all your threats dissipate and you realise you're a complete child and an idiot and you should be more trusting and less volatile. But then you have an idea. Why think of social media as a last resort? Why not use it as a first resort? Why not subtly include social media in every communication you have with that client? And why not have a link to your social accounts on the first invoice you send to them? And that is the 'solution', my non-salaried friends. Rewrite your invoices with links to Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and (even) Facebook. At some time or other they'll be clicked on and they'll realise you are a connected, influential person and, as companies are terrified of being busted on social media, it will be noted. Then bring forward your terms from 28 days to 14 days and you will paid early and you need never, ever worry about an invoice ever lapsing again; easy. I hope this email has changed your life and you continue to be a wonderful, creative entrepreneur. |
| Social Potpourri, A Social Network [Review] Posted: 18 Aug 2012 05:30 AM PDT We are living in a world that is changing fast and getting more open and social. If MySpace was the grandfather of social networks then I think Social Potpourri (SP) is the new kid on the block that started with a few like-minded people like Kirti Mukherjee and Sulekha Rawat. The network that is in beta promises to be more than a social network and is described as the conglomeration of society in its true form. A place to find like-minded people getting together for the love of literature, fun, sports, etc. I have said this before – the future of networks is based on interests and we saw Floost doing the same. SP seems to fall in the same lines. Once you register yourself in the network then, I would suggest you to click on the Home button. As shown in the below screen grab, the home screen looks like this:
Features of Social Potpourri1. Personal Profile: This is your space where you need to add your personal information. This space also allows you to send messages to your friends, check your notifications, friend list, albums, business, meetups, etc. In short, it provides a complete snapshot of your entire profile and activities that you have performed on the social network.
The personal profile has a feature called 'My World' where you can update your status, photo and video. As a user you have the control on who can see your messages. 2. Business Potpourrian: Is one of the interesting features where you get to list your business. Similar to the brand pages we have seen in Facebook but SP's Business section is more like the traditional advertising, making life really simple!
You are allowed to share your business information with the community and get reviews on it. When creating one you can add all the details of your business and what kind of service is being provided. You can also add your logo and contact details of your business. As a user you can search the business section, as they are labeled under a certain set of groups, making the connection between client and customer easy. I wonder if SP's team wants to encash this feature going further. 3. Meetups, Read and Message Boards: SP also provides 'Meetups' feature to its users. You can create meetups, search them easily as they are grouped under different meetup groups. Along with this you have Read and Message Boards. Read is all about sharing articles on which members can debate and Message Boards are forums where you can have discussions on different topics. How cool is Social Potpourri?The network could be interesting if it becomes a hunting ground for specific interests. For example, it could be a great network for the creative people. Otherwise right now being a simple social network is not helping it much. The Business feature is interesting as I am aware that the team behind the network is also providing social media marketing services to the business users. A good feature to attract users to the network since most of the features are generic ones. SP doesn't provide much of a choice for you to leave other popular social networks such as Facebook where you have an established network already. Along with that, the network should think on the design aspect too. For example, why give the user a long form to fill, might as well provide social logins from networks such as Facebook or LinkedIn. It definitely saves time and if the network can access the open graph of Facebook like other networks then it would be good from usability and awareness aspect too. The wall feature in the section 'My World' should be only limited to my friends, and not list all the activities from others on SP. These tweaks would be required for this network to get more eyeballs. In addition to this, why not make SP a mobile network when most networks are slowly shifting to mobile. Having only a social network won't excite users unless you provide something else that other networks are not. I would be excited to see if SP pivots into a specific network than just a social network. So would you be interested in joining SP now. Give it a try and let us know you experience on SP. |
| Surf Excel Excels In Blogger Reach Through ‘Soak No More’ Posted: 18 Aug 2012 05:20 AM PDT Surf Excel promotes the new Surf Excel Matic that can remove deeply embedded stains even without soaking clothes, through a blogger contest called 'soak no more'. The idea of 'Soak no more' is open for interpretation by bloggers in their own inimitable style. In 2005, the detergent brand broke through all the clutter to bring out its most powerful message till date – 'Daag acche hain' or 'Stains are good'. While all other detergent makers were fighting stains, Surf Excel was seen embracing them as a celebration of life's experiences. With this new variant that promises clean clothes without being soaked, the brand is playing around 'Soak no more'! What does 'Soak No More' mean to you?The magic of 'not having to soak anymore' is being banked upon. The magic ingredients in Surf Excel Matic, the vibrating molecules have the power to penetrate deeply embedded stains and remove them. And your clothes need not be soaked, hence the term 'Soak no more'! But similar to the Surf Excel positioning that 'stains are good' as a child learns something in the process of getting stained, 'soak no more' has been thrown open for bloggers to deal with. The blogging contest at Indiblogger, an Indian blogger community, invites bloggers to share a story, a poem or narrate an incident that is related to 'soak no more'.
There are 3 Apple iPad 2s and 3 Backberry Playbooks to be won. Besides, 10 runner-ups would get IndiSurprises! It is not necessary to gather IndiVine votes, an internal voting system in Indiblogger, as the contest will be judged on creativity, originality and interaction alone. And it is this 'interaction' factor that has made a difference to soak no more, as most recent blogging contests at Indiblogger did not include the 'interaction' factor. Bloggers are expected to interact apart from being creative or original. How 'Soak no more' is using Social MediaA click on the blogging contest header takes you to the Surf Excel Matic Facebook page, which has more than 6 lakh fans. The content is reflective of a brand positioning that goes beyond washing clothes to experiencing life and soaking in its different flavours. There is an array of messages relating to the importance of soaking in nature, peace, life, etc. These messages could be tip-offs in the Facebook content for an Indiblogger contestant who might be struggling to get ideas for blogging about this contest.. Twitter is being used similarly the way it has been done earlier in most of the Indiblogger contests. #SoakNoMore is the hashtag that the brand has urged the bloggers to associate while they are sharing their links on Twitter. Some of the bloggers have shown some acceptance to the hashtag while sharing blog links on Twitter. However, it is surprising that the brand with the Twitter handle SurfExcelMatic itself, has not been active from last year. Besides engaging fans with smart tips, webinars and contests, the Facebook page also hosts a 'My Matic, My blog' contest on an app. The categories for this blog contest vary from family values, family fun to parenting, education and down memory lane, giving fans an opportunity to share their stories. Offline Bloggers meet for 'Soak No More'Surf Excel also made sure that it integrated offline element to the entire contest by bridging the offline and online gap. Indiblogger and Surf Excel meet was conducted early this month in Bangalore. The meet saw the brand introducing the product and the concept of 'soak no more', apart from a fun-filled meetup with games, prizes and gift hampers. This way of reaching out to bloggers offline along with the online campaign helped bring about a brand connect. How cool is 'Soak No More'?The idea of going beyond soaking clothes to soaking in the richness of life has been well-brought out in the social media platforms especially Facebook. But the idea of reaching out to the blogger community and giving them an opportunity to interpret the brand message is what stands out in this campaign. There are 56 entries in the blogging contest already and with so many days for the contest to end on 4th September, it seems to have worked wonders for the brand. As always, one can see a healthy discussion on the Indiblogger forum and the way the contests are being judged must be appreciated. Adding the interactions factor rids the contest from bias but I would prefer it if somebody explained what 'interaction' meant? To me, interaction is when a blogger in addition to promoting her blog, also indulges in lively discussions around the idea of 'soak no more'. However, a blogging campaign should be tightly coupled with the active social media channels of the brand. In the case of Surf Excel there are some loop holes. Indiblogger has been linked to Facebook which is good but the user lands up on the Facebook timeline which is bound to get her confused. Instead if he is driven to an app where all the messages related to soaking in the richness of life is shared then it would have been much more of an easy job. Content on the Facebook wall can disappear in some time in the timeline and I hope that the brand is not expecting the user to search for it. Twitter which is an amazing network of conversations has been missed out again. The idea to associate a hashtag is a good one but the brand itself is not being active on the network and that undermines the whole initiative on Twitter. For a product that targets the urban consumer, the brand has done well by connecting to her offline and subsequently taking the message online and getting her to spread the word! The Soak no more campaign works for me for its sheer differentiation in community engagement on each of the platforms. Let me know what you think? |
| 7 Steps to Empowering Your Natural Advocates Posted: 18 Aug 2012 04:15 AM PDT Natural thought leaders are perhaps the most powerful force shaping opinion within any community. They inform and inspire others because these unofficial emissaries are respected and trusted by their peers. How does a company identify such supporters? As Deirdre Walsh, Senior Social Media Manager at Jive Software, points out, “It is the job of the community manager to identify effective volunteer advocates. Without these foot soldiers, the community will not take flight." I’ve found that finding those with the innate abilities to become brand advocates is not enough. As Internal Community Managers, it is important that we empower them with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to be successful influencers. Although there are no hard and fast rules for helping sculpt an effective advocate, I’ve found that these steps are effective at helping the natural advocates reach their fullest potential:
These steps are not just applicable to company-wide initiatives. These tactics can be used on a smaller scale as well – like Jive for Teams. As we work to build our community (of any size), keep in mind that it is just that – a community. To the community managers, what other strategies have you found effective for empowering your natural advocates? |
| 10 Ways to Make Your Business More Social Today Posted: 18 Aug 2012 04:00 AM PDT
1. Marketing Collateral – When approaching a new client or interacting with current clients it is likely that you are using marketing collateral such as a sales brochure or one page flyer. In an afternoon you can transfer that valuable information onto a more social platform such as SlideShare or Scribd where you can easily access it online and share it with potential clients. 2. Online Branding – Claim your business name on each social media channel. The uniformity of your username on all social media channels will brand your company as well as lock down your company’s name from being taken by someone else. It is also recommended that you use a similar or the same profile photo throughout the social media channels whether that be a mascot or your logo. 3. Integrate Quick Link Icons – One of our best tools for social media marketing are our emails. These days it’s common that people are more comfortable asking a quick question via email rather than picking up the phone. It is easy to add quick social media icons to the bottom of your email signature where your clients and potential clients can become more actively involved in your company. 4. Start Blogging – The Internet is a way of easily sharing information. Information comes in many formats including video and audio as well as written. Blogging on your company’s website will give your company a reason to share information with your clients and potential clients by giving them a reason to go to your website and read more about industry news or insider advice. 5. Setup Tracking - Being able to track and learn from your website is essential to your marketing and advertising development. Growing your website traffic is contingent on knowing where your online traffic is being generating. 6. Start Actively Monitoring – To start gaining a following on social media channels you must actively be listening. Start monitoring conversations in your industry with free online tools such as Twitter Search, Alerts Grader and Boardreader. 7. Train your staff – Your staff must be included in your goals of creating a more social company. Hiring a social media trainer to come into the office and walk your staff through the do’s and don’ts of using social media as a company may be the best way to train your employees and avoid learning lessons the hard way. 8. Liven up company culture – Clients like to see the culture of your workplace. People like to do business with people that they like. If you can show an atmosphere of support and enthusiasm in the workplace then the client’s will be more at ease when dealing with your company and your employees. Companies that have successfully embraced this philosophy include eBay, Zappos and Amazon. 9. Set up a Company LinkedIn Profile – LinkedIn is a business to business focused social network. It allows a business to setup a company profile and maintain this profile page with company updates. Setting up a company profile is a good first step to becoming an active member of the LinkedIn community. 10. Know when to share information – There are specific times of the day when sharing on social media will gain a larger response than others. For example if you have a large industry update that you want to share with professionals the best time to do that is on a Tuesday at 8:30am, while for more client based fun “FYI” sharing is best shared on a Thursday at 4:00pm. |
| New Social Media Analytics Tool from Atigeo Aims to Revolutionize the 2012 Presidential Election Posted: 18 Aug 2012 03:55 AM PDT
As we move ever closer to the November election between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the national temperature appears to be rising. Perhaps it's the late summer heat that has so many of us flustered, or perhaps it's the constant bombardment of political attack ads and the lamentations of national pundits. Sometimes it can seem like the political climate in this country is full of opinions and short on facts. Unfortunately, such an approach to complex political issues doesn't do the world a whole lot of good. A polarized public is rarely an informed one, and when the tempers start flaring it's easy to lose sight of some basic truths—namely that we are all in this together, for better or for worse, and it's up to us to make informed decisions about our political leadership. In a saturated media environment, voices of moderation aren't always the loudest, but they're quite often the most important. At Blue Focus Marketing, we are not interested in contributing to a polarizing debate. However, we do feel that every person's vote is important, and that it's important that voters develop a strong, nuanced understanding of the issues before casting their ballots.
A Comprehensive Tool for Tracking Candidate ActivitiesA new project by my friend Christopher Burgess (@BurgessCT), COO & CSO at Atigeo, seeks to provide the public with exactly this service with the launch of Red2012blue.com and Blue2012red.com. These sites, which Christopher Burgess describes as providing an "agnostic view" of the relevant issues in the current election cycle, collect data from each candidate's Twitter, Facebook and RSS feeds in order to provide a comprehensive issues on where the candidates stand and how they are leveraging social media to make their cases. While parties in previous elections in 2004 and 2008 began to use social media and the Internet at large to energize their bases, this year's election cycle has seen an unprecedented expansion in that process. According to an Atigeo press release, "Data analytics is revolutionizing the run up to the 2012 presidential elections, as both candidates have deployed seasoned digital operations and data mining techniques that identify, connect with and mobilize voters." In other words, candidates are spending big money in order to connect with their voters via social channels. With such an influx of information through Facebook and Twitter, sometimes it can be easy to get caught up in the moment and lose sight of the big picture. By using their sophisticated xPatterns platform, Atigeo monitors the feeds not only of the candidates themselves, but of the Democratic and Republican National Committees as well. The data are then collected and organized into their relevant categories—such as immigration reform, national security and civil rights—offering voters a user-adaptive and agnostic platform for digging deeper into the candidates' positions and making connections on their own. No pundits, no analysts—just the facts. How Do the Websites Work?According to Atigeo's press release, "The xPatterns platform improves its analytical value through machine learning of user's interaction with structured and unstructured data. In other words, it gets smarter the more a voter uses it." Sure, it can be a little intimidating at first to dive headfirst into the political morass, but the great thing about an intuitive platform such as this is that it's designed to help reduce the anxiety and help voters get to the very bottom of the issues that mean the most to them. Click the video below to watch a demonstration: Click here for more from Christopher Burgess on Atigeo's mission in creating these sites: |
| How this Barrie Lawyer Grew His Practice, One Blog Post at a Time Posted: 18 Aug 2012 03:40 AM PDT
Just like a library, Brian’s website and blog have become a trusted reference for at least one local service agency, who repeatedly refer clients to his website so they can get helpful information that’s easy to understand. The agency appreciates having this valuable local source of free information for their clients who are in vulnerable situations. Giving away this information promotes goodwill with his readers. Whether or not they’re in a position to hire him now, that goodwill helps his law firm stay “top of mind” until they’re needed. Familiarity brings trustThe firm’s familiarity in the community has resulted from the cumulative effect of all of Brian’s marketing efforts, both offline and online. For example, they’ve had good results from using Facebook ads and Google ads, and the SEO benefits of blogging have also helped the site show up reliably at the top of search engines pages. Whether you’re driving along Dunlop Street West in Barrie or Googling information about divorce and family law, you will see Galbraith Family Law – again and again. And that kind of repeat exposure helps prospective clients get an impression of safety, familiarity and trust. When they need help, people tend to choose the name they recognize. Once they pick up the phone or come into the office, Galbraith’s excellent customer service practices come into play. From free WiFi and refreshments in the waiting room, to a genuinely warm welcome and a kind, listening ear. Local connectionsPartly in thanks to his affiliation with LexBlog, Brian has readers and guest post submissions from all over the world. Having guest bloggers eases his own writing load (that’s Tip #6 in my time-saving blogging tips for busy business owners), but what pleases him the most is featuring other local professionals so they can cross-refer and help build each other’s practices. About eight years ago Brian Galbraith was on his own. Today he has six busy associate lawyers and six support staff, and the firm has been voted Best of Barrie by readers of the Barrie Examiner for the past four years in a row. Brian jokes that spending time on his website and blog are just a way to avoid work, but the truth is that he attributes much of the firm’s growth to his consistent efforts to create and share valuable content online. Brian believes the key to his success has been spending time each week working “on” his practice instead of just working “in” it. |
| Why Social Media is Unprofitable for Extroverts Posted: 18 Aug 2012 03:30 AM PDT I'll bet you find yourself making this social media mistake occasionally, just like I do. During your work day, you start carrying on a conversation with a few Facebook friends about topics that are important to you in your personal life, or just make you feel good. For me, those include how much I love my dog, how my dog loves me, the new cute thing my dog did, the new recipe I found for dog treats, and on and on… The next thing I know, I've frittered away 20 minutes on idle chatter that isn't bringing one dollar through the door. I could have spent that time sharing videos, articles or tips I've found on how people can better promote themselves and their businesses. That would further solidify my expertise and pull some of them to my website or to this blog. I'm an extrovert, and like many extroverts, I want to talk to everybody who talks to me. Don Crowther, my mastermind coach and social media teacher, says that's dangerous for extroverts who use social media is to build their businesses. He has been sharing a series of videos this past week on the biggest mistakes people make in social media. Here's the latest one on introverts vs. extroverts, and it includes his tips on the three things people in both camps need to do to start making money in social media. Take a look:
The one thing that separates Don from many of the other social media teachers out there is that he tests. He tests everything! Like the best day of the week and time of day to tweet. Which Pinterest topics are the most profitable. The three most profitable ways to use video. And on and on. He teaches based on his research, and what the numbers show, not on what he THINKS works best. If you missed his two earlier videos, you can grab them on the same page where you can access the third one. Just scroll down and look on the right side. P.S. If you post a comment on the video page and share it to one of your social networks, you could walk away with a Google Nexus tablet that's up for grabs! |
We often write about how the foundation for an online user community's success is built on 1) providing overwhelming value and 2) providing an environment where users and company representatives can have private, open, and constructive discussions.
The University of Oregon wants to know anytime someone mentions its athletic program, even someone like LeBron James.
For those of you who are salaried and have worked for somebody else for most of your life then the content of this missive will probably be of little interest, but for the others, please read on.
When transitioning from a traditional marketing plan to an online social media marketing plan, a B2B company will both need to alter minor and major changes. Major changes include alterations to your CRM software, Lead generation systems and retargeting of old clients. Consider integrating social media into your systems as you make your way down the list.
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