5 Social Media Secrets for 2010

Social media took a wild ride in 2009. The mainstream press fell in love with Twitter, Facebook grew aggressively and a new wave of companies starting taking social media seriously as a business tool. Below are 10 secrets to staying on top of it all in 2010

1. Pay Attention to the Metrics
You can't manage what you can't measure. Chief Marketing Officers are going to pay more attention to metrics and tie in social media more directly to overall business goals, not just web-related goals. When starting up new project agree on what the metrics should be and what goals are appropriate.

2. Scale Good Habits
As you grow, make sure you match your structure, policy and guidelines to your organization size. What works with 2 people won't work with 20 people. All in all your structure should encourage good habits. Your entire team should be motivated to respond quickly, post consistently and talk like a human. Speaking of policies and rules...

3. Have Rules, But Trust People
As your social media strategy matures, you'll add in more rules and guidelines. However, you can't have a rule for every situation. You need to trust your team. Lead by example, don't manage with rulebook.

4. Creativity & Personality Trump Big Budget
Social media is definitely one of those areas in life where more money doesn't always win. Two of the most powerful ingredients in social media are creativity and personality. They are the key to having a viral message and to being a trusted resource. They are also essential to discovering useful strategies and tactics. You can't be afraid to try something new or go against the grain.

5. Listen Listen Listen
Don't focus so much on you and your message. Put that farther down on your To Do List. Focus first on your customers. Hear what they are saying, see what they're up to. Once you've been able to connect, and figure them out, then see how you can help.

I wanted to see how everyone uses Facebook, accepting or adding friends – or not adding or accepting.

During my lifetime I have come across several types of friends. I can rattle off a few: work mate, best mate, chick friends, guys you know through friends, old school friends, old work friends…then there is the awkward one…the guy you have just started seeing. Or, wouldn’t mind dating!!

Ok, so you scope out their reaction first to Facebook. Judging by her/his reaction you get a gauge on whether they are on it, active on it, or not at all.
She is on there! Bang.

You go on and see what you can find, any photos, any comments, and best of all, who she is mates with and whether she is single! Of course you would like to improve the chances of having similar interests, so snooping in her interests is something to look at.

She is a smart one. She has locked down access to her page, unless you become friends with her. But her profile picture is intriguing.

Now this is going to drive you crazy isn’t it? What is she up to in that world? It’s something that you can’t really ask about because the simple answer is ‘you know I talk to family and friends’. Doesn’t really take a Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out.

Is it inappropriate to ask her to be your friend on Facebook when you have only known each other for a month?

And when you do become friends on Facebook..What happens then…you both will be stalking one another’s every move, to see who else is on the scene, if they are telling you the truth? And of course any photos taken of them – what are they really like when they are with their friends. You may find once you are friends it reveals so much more than what you really intended.

Dating and being on Facebook gets complicated, because dating is not a committed relationship! When you are dating, you are just that..having had no talk or mention of the future. Or you may have talked about future plans, without really thinking about the commitment level. Do you assume you are in a relationship only because you have been dating a few months? Apparently this is something ‘you’ should know. Personally, I have to be told as I am very black and white. I might have feelings, but would never assume the other person would unless told directly.

The tricky part in all of this is knowing when to add the new boyfriend as your boyfriend. Do you talk about it? Or just do it?

What do you think?

I wanted to see how everyone uses Facebook, accepting or adding friends – or not adding or accepting.

During my lifetime I have come across several types of friends. I can rattle off a few: work mate, best mate, chick friends, guys you know through friends, old school friends, old work friends…then there is the awkward one…the guy you have just started seeing. Or, wouldn’t mind dating!!

Ok, so you scope out their reaction first to Facebook. Judging by her/his reaction you get a gauge on whether they are on it, active on it, or not at all.
She is on there! Bang.

You go on and see what you can find, any photos, any comments, and best of all, who she is mates with and whether she is single! Of course you would like to improve the chances of having similar interests, so snooping in her interests is something to look at.

She is a smart one. She has locked down access to her page, unless you become friends with her. But her profile picture is intriguing.

Now this is going to drive you crazy isn’t it? What is she up to in that world? It’s something that you can’t really ask about because the simple answer is ‘you know I talk to family and friends’. Doesn’t really take a Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out.

Is it inappropriate to ask her to be your friend on Facebook when you have only known each other for a month?

And when you do become friends on Facebook..What happens then…you both will be stalking one another’s every move, to see who else is on the scene, if they are telling you the truth? And of course any photos taken of them – what are they really like when they are with their friends. You may find once you are friends it reveals so much more than what you really intended.

Dating and being on Facebook gets complicated, because dating is not a committed relationship! When you are dating, you are just that..having had no talk or mention of the future. Or you may have talked about future plans, without really thinking about the commitment level. Do you assume you are in a relationship only because you have been dating a few months? Apparently this is something ‘you’ should know. Personally, I have to be told as I am very black and white. I might have feelings, but would never assume the other person would unless told directly.

The tricky part in all of this is knowing when to add the new boyfriend as your boyfriend. Do you talk about it? Or just do it?

What do you think?

A New Year

A new job? A new home..a new hairstyle?

I can help you find ways to promote yourself and find a new job - if that is what you need!

Get yourself aquainted with LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), fill in your personal details and upload a copy of your recent CV.

Now you have done this, here are some tips and tricks:


1. Groups

Actively participate in a handful of groups related to your professional interests to expand your network. Find "Groups" on the navigation bar. From here you can search for a group to join, manage your groups or start a new one. Groups will keep you updated with industry-related information, plus they function as a forum where you can propose and answer questions, helping you become a recognizable name.

2. Company Buzz

Under "More..." choose "Application Directory". This will bring you to a page with a number of applications that you can add to your homepage and profile. The "Company Buzz" tool aggregates mentions of a company from Twitter, allowing you to discover relevant trends and comments about your company. The tool lets you customize and modify the topics to watch and displays charts to track activity. "A lot of people who use Twitter don't know where they can see what's trending, so this is a great application for that," says Eve Mayer Orsburn, CEO of Social Media Delivered, a social media consultancy.

3. Recommendations

These blurbs from your coworkers make your LinkedIn profile more dynamic and bring more credit and validity to your profile. Career experts recommend that you seek recommendations from your coworkers, former managers, direct reports and even clients. Shorter tends to be better; one or two paragraphs will suffice.

4. Events

"Not enough people use events," Orsburn says. "It's a great way to find and connect with new people." Under "More..." choose "Events". Here you can view events (including webinars) that your connections are attending, search popular events and find ones to attend. Orsburn recommends searching for a person you admire and looking through the events he or she is attending. This will give you a good sense of which conferences or events are worth attending, and will help you build more meaningful connections.

5. Advanced People Search

Try using this search method instead of the basic search when looking for new connections. The "Advanced People Search" allows you to find contacts based on geographic area, company, keyword, industry and more. Advanced People Search also gives you the option to search based on when users joined LinkedIn, which Orsburn says can be especially handy. "One of the best ways to find people who can help you is to help them first," she says. "When you use this function to find someone who's a new member to LinkedIn, you can introduce yourself, mention that you see this person is new and offer to introduce them to some of your contacts." You can find this feature under "More..." in the navigation bar.

Social media is online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It's a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues (one too many) into dialogues (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal, political and business use. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

Social media are distinct from industrial media, such as newspapers, television, and film. While social media are relatively inexpensive and accessible tools that enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information, industrial media generally require significant resources to publish information. Examples of industrial media issues include a printing press or a government-granted spectrum license.

"Industrial media" are commonly referred to as "traditional", "broadcast" or "mass" media.

One characteristic shared by both social media and industrial media is the capability to reach small or large audiences; for example, either a blog post or a television show may reach zero people or millions of people.

The properties that help describe the differences between social media and industrial media depend on the study. Some of these properties are:

1. Reach - both industrial and social media technologies provide scale and enable anyone to reach a global audience.

2. Accessibility - the means of production for industrial media are typically owned privately or by government; social media tools are generally available to anyone at little or no cost.

3. Usability - industrial media production typically requires specialized skills and training. Most social media does not, or in some cases reinvents skills, so anyone can operate the means of production.

4. Recency - the time lag between communications produced by industrial media can be long (days, weeks, or even months) compared to social media (which can be capable of virtually instantaneous responses; only the participants determine any delay in response). As industrial media is currently adopting social media tools, this feature may well not be distinctive anymore in some time.

5. Permanence - industrial media once created cannot be altered (once a magazine article is printed and distributed changes cannot be made to that same article) whereas social media can be altered almost instantaneously by comments or editing.

Community media is an interesting hybrid. Though community-owned, some community radios, TV and newspapers are run by professionals and some by amateurs. They use both social and industrial media frameworks.

Next week I would like to talk about Social Equity in collaboration and social networking

Chat soon

SWN