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| 4 Social Media Tools to Help You Generate Leads That Pay Now and in the Future Posted: 26 Jan 2014 06:30 AM PST Are you using social media to generate leads? Would you like to learn about tools that can simplify generating leads through social media? There are thousands of useful social media tools and apps on the web and they do such wonderful things, that running a business is both simpler, and inexpensive. Some of the most important of these tools are the ones that can help you generate leads. As leads are the key to earning revenue that can help your business survive. So I have shared 4 social media tools to help you generate leads below… 1. NeedTagger:Would you like to generate leads with Twitter? If your answer is yes, then NeedTagger is something you should definitely use. This software can help you find tweets that have the potential to turn into leads. Here's how it works… First set up an account, you can do it for free. You simultaneously start your first campaign while setting up your account. In the first field, fill in your stream name. Then connect your Twitter account. After that choose the target industry, this is the industry your business operates in. As an e.g. I am choosing 'Marketing'. Now choose a relevant pretested stream created by NeedTagger. I am choosing the option 'Social: People seeking followers / need help increasing social influence'. Then choose a conversation type. I am selecting 'Buying' and 'Needing'. Now add in relevant keywords. You can also add location and profile options if you would like to. Once you have added in all the details, click next. You will be able to see your stream now. You will only be able to view 20% of the results as we have set up a free account. If you would like to view all results you need to upgrade your account. Now browse through the tweets and look for potential leads. Among the many tweets, you will find some people and businesses asking questions. If you know the answers provide them and engage back. You can answer any question by clicking on 'Outreach' and then typing down your tweet and sending it. You can also tag interesting tweets and deal with them later. You can click on the 'Edit' button at the top and change the stream settings and look for more leads. If you continuously search for tweets and answer them, you will definitely be able to generate some leads. 2. Aweber:Aweber is one of the best email marketing tools that can help you build a list full of leads. Using Aweber you can create opt-in forms people can sign up to with their personal details like email, name, phone number, address, etc. You can then connect these opt-in forms to lists so that all their details can be managed easily. You can send unlimited emails to these lists using the various templates provided. You can also schedule your emails to go out in the future. It also measures the spam score of your emails to help you optimize your emails so that they reach the inbox. There are so many things you can do with it. This is a great tool for building relationships with your readers and generating long term leads. 3. Vcita:Have you noticed the contact form that appears at the right bottom of this website? If you have not seen it yet, then you have not been on the site for 40 seconds. You might see a tiny contact button at the beginning, but if you wait you will see the form. Anyway, if you're in a hurry, here's how it looks… This is the Vcita form. As it suddenly appears out of the bottom, it instantly grabs the visitor's attention and gets them to contact you. Trust me when I tell you this, as the number of people who contact me has gone up tremendously ever since I installed this form. You might think it annoys people, but it's quite the contrary. Since I have installed it, only one person has complained. Rest of the people who contact me about the form want to know what it is and how they can install it on their blog or website. Aweber is good for building leads for a long-term goal, but what about now. How will you generate leads now? The answer is Vcita. With this tool, you can ask people to contact you by asking a question or you can get them to directly schedule an appointment. There are various settings and choices that help you modify your form to make it more effective. You can adjust the time it takes to appear too and then make it show up repeatedly. To learn more about it, just try it out. It's both free and easy to install on your blog or website. 4. ShortStack:The best way to generate leads on Facebook is through your tabs. A tool that can help you create some wonderful lead generating apps for your Facebook tabs is ShortStack. Jim Belosic, the CEO of ShortStack, wrote an amazing post 5 Facebook Apps to Help Your Business Make a Lasting First Impression which you must read. Many of the apps mentioned in this post help generate leads and can be created using ShortStack. An important point Brian Moran of Get 10,000 Fans stresses is that Facebook fans don't buy from you, but the people who buy from you are your email subscribers. And he asks people to use their Facebook pages to build lists with tabs. You can do this easily with ShortStack and there are several options. This can be achieved with just a regular sign up form or you could run contests, offers, and various other campaigns. So if your aim is to generate leads, put your focus on generating them, instead of 'Likes'. These four social media tools should help you generate leads that pay now and in the future. Sign up to have our latest blog posts emailed straight to your inbox and get the Free Video Tutorial "How to Use Pinterest for Business?" Which social media tools help you generate leads? What other methods can businesses use to generate leads with social media? Please leave your comments below.  |
| 3 Powerful Tools For Creating Ultra-Targeted Custom Audiences On Facebook Posted: 25 Jan 2014 07:57 PM PST Any online or off-line business needs to be advertising on Facebook to acquire new leads and customers in 2014 if they want to thrive. Why? With Facebook’s new custom audience features, business owners can laser-target their audience on Facebook for fractions less than traditional media. This results in extremely targeted and cost effective leads. Here are 3 tools to help you get started with creating custom audiences on Facebook. FBLeadChefFBLeadChef is a software application that runs in Adobe air on both Mac and PC that allows you to extract user IDs and email addresses through the Facebook API. Using the Power Editor inside Facebook (with the Google Chrome browser), you can upload these user IDs into custom audiences. Facebook will then show your ads only to the people inside of this custom audience. One of the most powerful features included in FBLeadChef with is the ability to extract ‘Passionate’ users from groups and pages. The tool will search for people within a group or a page who have a higher than average activity level on that group or page. This is extremely powerful for targeting the 20% of your market that spends 80% of the money. Some of the features of FBLeadChef include: - Search Groups and Pages Visit the FBLeadsChef website for more information about this tool. Social Leads FreakSocial Leads Freak is an even more powerful tool then FBLeadChef. It allows you to do almost everything FBLeadChef does, except for extracting passionate users from a group or a page. This could be a downside to some people, however, Social Leads Freak makes up for it with its ability to search inside of Facebook users status updates. This feature lets you type in a keyword or URL and extract the user IDs of every person on Facebook who either posted that URL or mentioned that keyword phrase in one of their status updates or comments. For marketers, this is a very powerful way to target users who are actually talking about their product or service, or the problem that your product or service solves. Visit the Social Leads Freak website for more information about this tool. DataReachDataReach is a new kid on the block, so to speak. It was released in private beta in January 2014 and is now available to the public. What’s different about DataReach is that unlike the other two tools, it is not an actual software application that runs on Adobe air. Instead, it is a WordPress plug-in that works on your WordPress website so it is both PC and Mac compatible. DataReach has most of the features above, including the ability to search groups, pages, status updates, and people. What makes this tool even more powerful though is its ability to combine the user IDs that you extract from groups, pages, or status updates together with one click. This lets you create custom audiences extremely quickly with little hassle. The most important feature of all, however, is the Demographic Analysis feature. This feature lets you view the exact demographics of people responding to your offer inside of DataReach. It works by having users click a Facebook Connect button and share their information with the application. Then, you can sort people by age, gender, location, groups, pages, and more. Using this data, you can further target your custom audience based on who becomes a lead. This will help you eliminate people who were just curious and only target the people your business can help the most. For more information visit the DataReach website. Advertising In 2014 And BeyondThese three tools are a must-have for every serious Facebook marketer or business owner. Using these tools with a deep understanding of your audience can help any online or off-line business attract more leads for less upfront cost than nearly any other medium in existence. For this reason, 2014 is the year you need to be focusing on Facebook advertising or get left behind. Which path are you going to choose?  |
| Visual Stories: 7 Ways Digital Marketers Can Use Images in Social Media Posted: 25 Jan 2014 03:00 PM PST Images. They are critical in digital media today. In both social media as well as on blogs and websites, visual imagery has moved to the forefront and is something every digital marketer must master. Images captures attention, communicates more, and inspires engagement. A leading online software system for businesses, HubSpot, conducted research on images in digital media and among the results were a few key nuggets like the fact that photos on Facebook generate 53% more likes and 104% more comments than the average post. This is important data that any business on Facebook needs to be aware of because that interaction increases future views! Beyond Facebook, the fastest growing social media services, including Instagram and Pinterest are dominantly image based. Photos can tell a story in a quick glimpse |
| 6 Social Media Websites You Should Be Reading Posted: 25 Jan 2014 11:05 AM PST The good news? The Internet is flooded with social media marketing sites. The bad news? Not all of them are equally effective — unless, of course, you know how to leverage them. Social media sites aren't a one-size-fits-all proposition for marketers. If you manufacture kitty litter boxes, you probably won't drum up much business by posting on a message forum for parents of newborn babies, no matter how compelling a thread titled "Litter Boxes vs Diapers" might be. Even after you've identified the right site for your product or service, it's still crucial to find ways to make the most of the social marketing platform you're using. Fortunately, the Internet is full of handy resources that can provide you with tips to enhance your strategies, whether you're using Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube or a new kid on the social networking block. Here are six of the best social marketing blogs on the web; ones that are chock-full of information that can help you sell your brand, whether you're marketing yo-yos, face cream, steam cleaners or software programs: Social Media ExaminerThis user-friendly site offers valuable tips for leveraging your opportunities on Facebooks, Google+, Twitter et al. Whether you're using Facebook for contests, Twitter for quickie ads, or message forums to provide links to sites, you'll find ways to enhance your marketing strategies. Social Media Examiner offers everything from advice on how to deal with website emergencies (such as security issues) to how to set realistic goals for your marketing campaign. Content Marketing InstituteContent Marketing Institute may sound like a facility for higher learning, but it's actually an invaluable collection of white papers, how-to tutorials and blog posts on successfully marketing your content — with much of the information focusing on social media sites. In addition, Content Marketing Institute offers free webinars and a year-round roster of virtual events you can attend from the comfort of your home or office. Who's Blogging WhatWho's Blogging What collects the most informational, imaginative social marketing posts on the web, and makes them available in one convenient site. It's a sort of one-stop-shop where you can find all the best strategic posts from thousands of sources — and, best of all, read them for free. As with Mashable, it's a great resource for picking up ideas and strategies. Social Media TodayKind of a grassroots website for social media mavens, Social Media Today posts several contributor blogs each day, written by marketing experts and strategists from around the world. You'll find a wealth of advice, opinions and tips, as well as valuable been-there-done-that stories so that you can learn from others' experiences. Marketing PilgrimMarketing Pilgrim features the latest news, rumors and trends in Internet and social marketing, with daily blog posts written by a team of marketing experts and analysts. In addition to breaking news stories and reviews of products and online services, you'll also find tips, infographics and helpful insider information on all aspects of social marketing. MashableMashable is a valuable informational hub that shares what's new and buzzing in social media sites. It's vastly entertaining to read — think of it as a People Magazine for the social media marketing crowd — but even more importantly, it can help you come up with some creative marketing ideas. While its primary focus is trending news stories (many of them social media related), Mashable also offers insight and breaking news on the latest trends, and is a great source for content and discussion ideas for your Facebook or Google+ page. Whether you're new to social marketing or an experienced pro, the ever-changing metrics of the Internet compel us to constantly reinvent our strategies. By using these resources, you'll be able to not only stay on top of the latest trends, but also glean words of wisdom from others who, like the rest of us, are winging it through cyberspace.  |
| 53 Ways to Market Your Google Plus Hangout on Air Posted: 25 Jan 2014 09:00 AM PST You are running your first Google+ Hangout on Air. Now some of you are going to ask, what is the difference between a Google+ "Hangout" and a "Hangout on Air"? Both Hangouts and Hangouts on Air are video conferencing calls. The major difference is that Hangouts are private and only the people that have been invited know about them. Hangouts on Air are public and streamed live to YouTube, your Google+ profile and anywhere else you embed the code. So if you want to reach a large and unlimited audience then the Hangouts on Air option is the best choice. The world is full of possibility as you post your first event. Excited at the throngs of potential people interested to watch your new show. However, something happens between that first moment of excitement, and the point when you go live. You realize that not as many people as you thought knew about your Hangout. Why not?…. you say incredulously to yourself. Am I not the bomb? People really need to know about this, you say to yourself with a hint of disdain. Then a thought pops into your head. Maybe I should have marketed the Google Hangout on Air to get more traffic. A second thought then occurs. "How do you do that?" This article is for those searching for ways to promote your Google plus Hangout on Air, so you can get the word out and an audience turns up. 53 Ways To Market Your Google Plus Hangout On Air1. Share with your circles – Google Plus allows you unlimited circles. Share specific Hangouts with different circles to let them know about events of interest to them. Once you have done a few Hangouts, go back to your old Hangouts, and create a specific circle for those who attended the first few events. Give them preferential notices about the Hangouts then in the future, along with specials for being proactive with your events. 2. Share with your communities – Are you active in various communities on Google+. Then share with those relevant communities your upcoming Google HoA. 3. Join the Hangout on Air communities – Another option for communities is to join the HoA communities. These communities were created to specifically share Hangouts with others.
5. Create a Facebook event – Remember that you do not have to do all of your marketing solely on Google+. Leverage Facebook events, and invite your social network on Facebook to join you on the event. 6. Email LinkedIn Connections – This is a great strategy if you do not over do it. Email up to 50 LinkedIn connections at a time to invite them to future Google Hangouts on Air. Choose professionals who will your topics relevant. 7. Tweet it – Create a few different tweets about the event, so your followers can participate. 8. Share in Eventbrite – Before social networks, using sites like Eventbrite were the gathering places online for people searching out events. They still have a large following of people who use the site to find events online. 9. Write a blog post – Going past social media, use your blog to drive traffic to your Hangouts. A blog with good traffic is a great way to drive traffic to your HoA. 10. Guest post with link to HoA – Going a step beyond just posting your event on your blog, you can create dynamic content for blogs in your niche. Then in the profile area or at the bottom of the post put the link to the Hangout event. 11. Have amazing guests to promote – Part of having people attend your events is having the best possible guests that motivate people to attend, in order to hear the speaker. 12. Create great content – This goes along with having amazing guests. The right content for your show will make all the difference when you combine it with the right target market. 13. YouTube teaser video – Give viewers a taste of what you will be discussing. If you have past episode highlights, then maybe you can create a highlight reel. Otherwise, entice with a video that explains what the Hangout will cover, but not too much information that they do not have to attend. In other words, tease. 14. Pin the event image – Use the power of images on Pinterest. This visually appealing social network jives really well with Hangouts video. Pin the event header, then also pin any logos and profile pics of speakers. Another option if you review books, give a copy of the speakers book away through a Pinterest contest. 15. Share with Skype Groups – One often overlooked, yet completely effective strategy is to share your Hangout with Skype groups. Generally, people who use Skype for business are more tech-savvy, entrepreneurs interested in testing out new technologies like Google Hangouts to see how it works. 16. Email your list – Never forget to send out targeted emails to your list about your upcoming hangouts. 17. Create event specific hashtags – Is there a hashtag you can create for your event, so whenever people share that hashtag they can stay in touch with others interested in the event? If so, then you need to create a relevant hashtag for your events. 19. Trades – you promote mine, and I will promote yours. Works for some many different events and services, as well as Hangouts. Ask people in similar niches to share your event, and you will do the same for them. Check out sites like JustRetweet where you can do trades with large swaths of people Note: JustRetweet is a paid sponsor, but this is a real recommendation. 20. Social Bookmarking (Digg, BizSugar, StumbleUpon, Reddit, etc) – Using social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon can drive tens of thousands of visits to your hangout event page in a short period of time. 21. Facebook Ads – Imagine having 1.3 Billion people checking out your Google Hangout. Well, that might be stretch, considering that we want to target your event to your specific audience. However, with so many people on Facebook, you are sure to find a target group to promote your Hangout. 22. Google Ads – If Facebook does not work, then use Google Ads. After all, directing Google search to Google Hangouts makes sense not only to Google and yourself, but also people searching on Google for specific topics. Why search for entrepreneurs articles, when you can search for a live Google Hangout with entrepreneurs on the call. 23. Stumble Ads – StumbleUpon ads have two decided advantages. As a social bookmarking site, you can accelerate your traffic from the site with the ads, plus when people see the ads they can choose to stumble and/or share the posts on StumbleUpon themselves. This means you have the potential to create some viral traffic from StumbleUpon. 24. LinkedIn Ads – While not my favorite type of ads, one of the new ad formats that they just came out with: Post ads for Companies shows some promise as a way of driving traffic and attention to your hangouts. 25. Press Release – Oh, how the press release has changed over the past decade. Instead of being a stodgy sheet of paper shared with a few news publications, press releases have become a full-fledged method of marketing your services and events. The press release services like PRWeb can distribute your press release to thousands of distribution sites across the web, including some major players. Also, really good if you are looking to get a lot of attention for your upcoming hangout. 26. Craigslist Classes – Do not forget the old school methods of driving traffic online. Few get more old school than Craigslist. This classified advertising powerhouse, however, still delivers quite the punch when marketed properly. 27. Craigslist Forum -A bonus to the Craigslist classes are the forums. In the forums you can post multiple times per day about your topic, and engage with online users about different topics. However, do not abuse the forums, because you will be booted as a spammer. 28. Use "Hype My hangout" to promote - Easily compress your Hangout into a little press kit that can easily be shared across the web. You even get to create a quick 12 second video for your hangouts on the site. Really sweet deal! 29. Share the presentation on Slideshare – Another option for Hangouts is to share any presentations you make after the fact on Slideshare. This can get you some cool post HoA traffic, and drive some additional traffic your way for the next hangout. 30. Answer relevant questions on Quora- Quora is a great way for you to provide authoritative answers to people in your industry, and build up a following with specific people who have questions about the services you provide. What could be better? 31. Create a Squidoo lens if you plan on creating a regular HoA – Squidoo lens are like mini website pages packed with information about a specific topic. 32. Tell your Podcast listeners – If you have a podcast, then start connecting your podcast users to your hangouts. In fact, you can also use your hangouts as a podcast when you separate the audio from the video. Great way to maximize your content. Using simple video editor software, you should be able to separate the audio in less than 5 minutes. 33. Ask attendees to share the event live – It is never too late to share the event. Especially during the event, when you have a wide variety of listeners attending who can share your event on the spot with their network. 34. Create an infographic for the event – Another way to repurpose your content is to turn the hangout into a cool infographic enticing attendees to share the graphic with their network. The infographic should contain your Hangout information along with other relevant content that could interest potential viewers. 35. Place Banner Ads (BuySellAds.com; BlogAds.com, etc.) – Promote the event with third party ads on niche sites through BuySellAds.com or BlogAds.com. 36. Integrate with Google+ Events – Fortunately, Google now automatically integrates your HoA with Google events, so you can schedule your event for additional Google+ users attending. 37. Send out multiple reminders (eg. 1 week, 1 day, and 2 hours before) – People forget. Remind them at targeted times about your event to increase the percentage of attendees from registered members. 38. Networking Events -You do not only have to market your hangout through online events. Utilize live networking events to connect with potential attendees to your event. 39. Trade Shows – If you have the option of going to a trade show you will connect with potential attendees who are not always at traditional networking and online events. 40. Call interested prospects – Yes, you can pick up a phone and call people. I know it is old school, but you will be surprised how much this strategy works. 41. Create a flyer for the HoA – Create a flyer for when you are at networking events or at local bulletin boards. A good idea is that if you are doing a business presentation, maybe go to your local Starbucks with flyers to post on their community boards. A number of entrepreneurs go to Starbucks on a regular basis. I know, because I am one of them. 42. Freebie Incentives – Is there a freebie you can offer that would entice people to attend? You will be surprised how innovative you can be with the freebies. Check out Incentivibes. Great way to cheaply get quality incentives. 43. Share on Facebook Groups – As long as you know your niche, you can go on Facebook to find your ideal prospects. Then use Facebook search to find these groups. 44. Share on LinkedIn Groups – Instead of repeating myself, check out what I said about Facebook groups. 45. Start early (at least 2-3 weeks) – Give people advanced notice of your events, so they can put it in their calendars. 46. Thank those who retweet, share, comment, and +1 your event – Whenever possible show gratitude to those who made your event a success. It builds for your next event, and is just good manners. 47. Create a tweet for attendees and speakers – Create a tweet that attendees and speakers can share with their followers. Use a service like ClickToTweet to track the success of this campaign. 48. Create a swipe email for attendees and speakers – Do not just stop at social media. You can also create a swipe email, so your attendees and speakers can email their list ahead of time. 49. Go back to your list of attendees from previous webinars, events, etc and personally invite them. I mentioned this before briefly, but it is worth restating. Invite people who attended previous events with you to your Hangout. Whether they are previous hangouts or webinars on other platforms, invite them to your events. 50. Attend other relevant Google+ Hangouts – The more I attend other people's hangouts, the more the attendees and presenters will be enticed to attend your events. 51. Connect with people on other Google+ Hangouts – You want attendees to your hangouts. Instead of forcing people to join a Google hangout without feeling comfortable with the software, check out who is attending other HoA's. I would not recommend poaching those connections, but setting up HoA's at similar times is a great strategy to connect with others. 52. Post on Relevant Forums – Forums are an amazing source of targeted traffic, because forums are generally built around specific interests. Find a specific interest for your product, and become active on that forum. Then when you build the relationships, invite those people to your events. 53. Stream your hangout to your website – One of my favorite ways to get traffic is to tell people to go to my website for HoA's. I have a specific page set up for the Hangout on Air where people can watch the event, chat, and even take notes. Plus, you can get people to sign up for your email list while they are there, which will increase your viewers over time. Wow! Tired of promoting your Google Hangout on Air yet?You now have 53 ways to promote your HoA. Now, here is a good method of approaching the strategies listed above. Do NOT do all of them at once. If you attempt to use 53 ways to market a single Hangout, you will probably get overwhelmed and just give up. Instead, choose 3-4 methods above, and perfect your strategy with those methods to perfection. The reality is, that I know not every method above will work for your Google Hangouts. However, some methods will work for your specific event. Figure out which ones work the best, and then stick with those methods. Once you develop some consistency in your marketing of those methods, expand to other methods listed above. At a certain point, you will develop a following. Then you can leverage that following for even greater success.  |
| Facebook “Likes” – Quality vs Quantity Posted: 25 Jan 2014 08:13 AM PST How important is a Facebook "like", really? As social media marketing becomes more mainstream brands still put a very high value on "likes" and "follows" as a measure of an agency's performance. But is this a benchmark for a campaign's success? Therein lies the question. Take for example a branded page with 3,000 likes that has almost all its followers engaging in conversations, sharing, participating and building a buzz around your brand as opposed to 15,000 likes with minimal interaction. Which one would you prefer? Engagement is optimum because it creates brand loyalty and evangelists that will promote your brand. The more the merrier. Brands do like "big" numbers that equate to popularity. There is a perception in the marketplace that numbers beget more numbers or followers. Our conditioning. We are use to reacting to numbers since we are children. Tests results, sports performance, are all numerical. We calculate success by summing up totals. Even in business we measure sales and count connections. So isn't it logical to add up your page likes? We are all guilty of pursuing popularity via likes and follows but will this push a shopper into a store? Now we need to think outside the box and see if a good quality conversation will sell more than quantity. Changing the paradigm. There is always a discussion in social media circles on how to change that paradigm and push our clients to measure engagement and monitor conversations. What is the REAL objective here? SALES! That's right! This is how it works in social media and it's a hard concept to grasp. It's the neighborhood and the yenta that tells you what's great and new. Who is buying what, who is sharing and who is recommending. Your measurement should be all about who is engaging and sharing your Facebook page and your posts. So if we have to count anything let it be the amount of chatter. Engagement and conversations are the driving force behind online marketing today. Social media is fast becoming the sales clerk at the store or that valued friend that "tells it like it is!" The controversy about quality vs quantity will not go away. Ultimately the brand must engage their consumers and offer value for "likes". That's marketing 101. The more value and engagement, the more viral traffic and the more the numbers add up. To continue the discussion, follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.  |
| 21 Steps to Create an Awesome LinkedIn Profile Posted: 25 Jan 2014 05:45 AM PST Attending a conference, a networking event or a dinner party often leads to "that" question. "So what do you do?" It used to be easy. You trotted out words such as farmer, accountant or even lawyer if you were brave. One word was all it took. Today it can be a bit more complicated. Today we have careers, businesses and life work that didn't exist a decade ago. What are some of these?
Often the person you are describing your career or business to has never heard of "that" job. I remember one conversation, when I answered with the one word description "blogger". The response was, "never met a blogger before". Often the next part of the communication can get a little tricky when you have to describe what that means. It can lead to using words that were only invented last week, causing raised eyebrows and quizzical looks. But conversation was always meant to be interesting! The resume has changed foreverResumes just like many things are migrating online. In the past you had a few sheets of paper that you mailed or faxed to potential employers to obtain that important interview. Today you are "Googled' and your online resume is now a collection of "search engine results". This means your activity online needs to be well managed and optimized. How many times has a person lost that important job due to a poorly considered weekend Facebook update or Tweet? Employers like to see passion for a career so having a blog can be the difference between standing out or blending in. The 21 steps to create an awesome LinkedIn profileLinkedIn has redefined the online version of a resume and having a well organised LinkedIn profile is now essential. Melonie Dodaro is sometimes described as "Canada's #1 LinkedIn Expert" and knows her stuff about LinkedIn. Here are her 21 steps to making your LinkedIn profile awesome.
If you want to see how it should be done in a visual format check out the infographic below. Infographic source: Melonie Dodaro from TopDogSocialMedia What about you?How is your LinkedIn profile? Could you do better? What about your other profiles on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter are they up to date? What have you found to be most important when optimizing your online profiles? Look forward to your insights in the comments below.  |
| Effective Branding Through Video Content Marketing Posted: 25 Jan 2014 05:25 AM PST For many businesses, it's an uphill battle to create a strong online presence and get a slice of online mindshare. While many are trying to find new ways to connect and to make the experience richer and meaningful for their audience, some are beginning to use content creatively and promote it through videos to brand their business. Videos have become an excellent medium to engage audiences from all walks of life. Youtube alone is getting more than 6 billion views a month with 100 hours of videos uploaded every minute. Small businesses are going to Youtube because of the cost-effective means to reach a wider audience. More importantly it's an exceptional opportunity to brand their business, in a most compelling way and find advocates and brand ambassadors, without needing to shell out a single centavo. Aside from that, big businesses are getting a huge chunk of the Youtube marketshare, as every big brand is creating their own video content. Proof of this is Coca-cola which recently released their 2-part series content marketing strategies from present leading up to year 2020. PART I PART II These speak volumes about how powerful videos can be when you use it for marketing. However, there are many successful videos created by small, medium and big businesses, there are also those that created the opposite effect. So the question is: what makes effective video content marketing for business branding? The primary purpose of creating a video is to make the audience feel your brand. They must find something that will make them say "this brand understands my needs". Video content can do that because people are more keen to believe things that they see and hear rather than just read. What your audience actually sees and hears creates a more compelling perception in their minds. Unlike what they only read. Furthermore, people are most likely to connect with real people showing real or perceived to be real emotions. That is why rich content like videos and images are staggeringly becoming a favourite content snack of many netizens. It is engaging the audience by creating an emotional connection. To engage your audience and brand your business, your video must contain the following elements: It Must be Interesting and EntertainingMost videos that are getting the top spot for viewership in Youtube are music videos. These videos do not only provide entertainment value, they are also interesting because people are able to relate to the words and emotions, even if not necessarily to the artist. The same thing applies to your business branding. Your video showcasing your product or service must appear to be interesting or entertaining, in a creative manner to your target audience so that they will remember it. It Must be Educational and Answer the Pain Points of Your AudienceAnother kind of video that are getting the views are those that educate and teach the audience how things are done. How-to videos are valuable to an audience because it directly provides a solution to their problem. Some videos provide a showcase of how actual things are done. That makes it easier to follow compared to a text-based instruction. It must be Able to Evoke a Reaction from Your AudienceWhether the reaction is a positive or a negative one, a video that evokes a reaction means that it effectively hits a chord in your audience's psyche. A powerful video and the most viral ad of all time is the Dove Real Beauty Sketches. The video shows women being too critical of themselves compared to how others actually see them. It's an interesting video to many women and men because they can relate to it. Second, it answers the biggest pain points of many individuals – self-confidence. The message resonated with millions, who probably felt a loss of confidence at least once in their lives. The powerful emotional response was also staggering as published by the Dove survey which says that "over half (54%) of women globally agree that when it comes to how they look, they are their own worst beauty critic, which equates to a staggering 672 million women around the world." The Dove Beauty Sketches has also surpassed all previous viral ads and has gotten a widespread attention in almost all countries and all media channels by including all these elements.  |
| Every Number Can Tell a Story: The Art and Business of Data Visualization Posted: 25 Jan 2014 04:30 AM PST Statisticians look for clarity in numbers. Artists understand how color and shape appeal to, and influence, people. Marketing professionals can combine the clarity of numbers with the appeal of graphics, using data visualization (DV) tools. If you've ever used a spreadsheet or presentation program, you're probably familiar with the simple graphic tools they contain for creating line graphs, bar charts or pie charts. DV tools combine that simple approach with the power of graphics software to create much more sophisticated displays. By mixing data with charts, maps or pictures, and allowing the variables in the data to be changed, DV tools create powerful narratives that can show success stories, highlight customer attitudes, reveal gaps in sales penetration, show trends and much more. In short, DV tools provide structure by turning data sets into stories, tales that help people to gain an intuitive grasp of the underlying statistics or theme of the presentation or report. A wide range of DV tools are now available for use. Most business intelligence and analytics packages will contain some ability to present and report on data in a visual format. In addition, there are stand-alone DV software offerings that provide additional graphics options (such as maps and word tables), and also offer interactive options for changing variables during a presentation. Data Visualization presentations can meet a wide variety of marketing needs Data Visualization Examples: - A marketing consultant combines his client's equipment sales data with competitors across a national map. The client could visually grasp how its sales efforts were faring against the competition in specific regions and with specific equipment sectors in those regions. The result, a visual narrative of the company's sales successes and challenges going forward. - A museum analyzed an e-mail publicity campaign's penetration by creating a chart showing the demographics of return visitors who had received the message. The graphic provided easy visualization of the campaign's effectiveness by age, family status, and location. The results allowed the marketing team to tell the story of which target audiences responded to e-mail overtures, and how to incorporate it into future museum outreach efforts. - An investment firm wanted to track new asset growth by client status (new, existing, most valued), and demographics. To help analysts quickly comprehend the information, DV tools were used to create a dashboard that showed overall assets, with a range of commands that allowed users to select or remove specific sub-sectors in order to view the data with more precision. The resulting narrative gave analysts hard data along with a visually-enhanced feel for who their investors were, and how much each investor segment currently contributed to company growth. Of course, creating a story out of data requires a little more than creating a bar chart and projecting it on a screen. Author and DV expert Ben Fry suggests these seven steps: 1. Acquire the Data This is the most straightforward step, but bear in mind that the decisions made while gathering and including data will affect the outcome of the entire narrative. At this stage, it's probably a better choice to include rather than exclude numbers. A chance to refine and omit data comes later in the process. 2. Parse the Numbers. At this point, the raw data needs to be structured so any underlying meaning can be uncovered. A simple approach is to sort the data into categories, and then create sub-categories as needed. 3. Filter the Categories At this point, the general data pool will probably contain information that won't be relevant to the end presentation. Some numbers will be obvious candidates for deletion, while others can require a judgment call: Can the data be removed without diminishing the impact of the final presentation? 4. Mine the Remaining Statistics At this point, you can see which of your categories and sub-categories contain substantially interesting or insightful data. Pull these as the basis for your DV presentation. 5. Represent the data At this stage, it may be clear what the most effective visual model is. Remember to let the data drive the choice of a model, rather than fitting the numbers into a predetermined graphical format. 6. Refine the graphic Once you have the data in graphic form, look for areas that should be emphasized through the addition of color, shapes, size or shading. 7. Create interactivity Provide your audience with ways to manipulate the data. It's human nature to respond to a story. By creating narratives out of static numbers, DV tools offer the opportunity to create presentations that provide insight, are easy to follow and help to energize any marketing presentation. Here are some of the top tools for Data Visualization: Tableu - Often noted by many large companies as one of the top data visualization tools, Tableau allows users to easily create a plethora of interactive visualization types. You can upload your data in a spreadsheet or CSV to create a variety of customized bar charts, Venn diagrams, line graphs, pie graphs and even an assortment of heat maps to show density in a given situation. The only downside for Tableau is it is not web based and the tool can only be used with Windows operating systems. MicroStrategy - Available in cloud based software and used by many companies at the enterprise level, Microstrategy has now become one of the leaders in enterprise data visualization and business intelligence software. It is utilized by companies such as Groupon, The Hard Rock Cafe, HerbaLife, Ebay, Novation, Campbell’s and The Container Store, just to name a few. Easel.ly - This is a free web based tool, generally used for conceptual visualizations and brand or data storytelling. It is also more geared to creating unique infographics and has a wide variety of graphics and objects to choose from. Infogr.am - This DV tool is geared toward using real data to create a multitude of graphs and charts. They have a wide variety of free options to choose from when deciding how to display your data and that comes in the form of location charts, bubble charts, radial bar graphs, scatter plot charts and many more. Visual.ly - This tool is definitely geared toward visualization and graphics. Many use this tool show an analysis and relationship between two data sets such as Twitter and Facebook. It also lets you create Venn diagrams to show relationships between different sets of data. Datavisualization.ch - Can be a little more complex to use, but has an excellent assortment of data visualization wire frames and charts to create more advanced and interactive data visualization presentations.  |
| 7 Easy Ways to Cut Your Tax Bill Today (Infographic) Posted: 24 Jan 2014 07:50 PM PST How to plot your next career move while retirement planning – learn your employment rights after 50 With the default retirement age abolished in 2011, there's no longer any need to hang up your ambitions as you get older. And in fact, with many of us enjoying better health and quality of life for longer, understanding your employment rights after 50 can be as important as retirement planning. Working after 50 and beyond24% of men and 64% of women say they want to keep working past retirement age. A report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission that explored the work aspirations of the over 50s found that:
Your employment rights after 50
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| Give Customers What They Want: Optimizing the Customer Experience Posted: 24 Jan 2014 07:47 PM PST Getting customers can be easy, but keeping them is often a challenge. Social Media has created the perfect environment for customer engagement across a broad audience and the smartest brands have customer experience strategies in place to keep their customers satisfied and engaged. Get Satisfaction analyzes the numbers to create the perfect recipe for customer experience success in the infographic below. The top benefits of creating an integrated customer experience are customer retention, increased sales, customer satisfaction, recommendations, and reduced operational costs, yet only 39% of brands provide a positive customer experience. Social media is a valuable tool because it allows brands to converse with customers on an accessible channel they prefer, provide information to groups of customers, monitor customer sentiment, and collect customer feedback without solicitation. Create a successful customer community with useful, interesting conversations. Offer special opportunities like new product announcements, deals, and awards for brand champions. Most importantly, listen to your customers and work with them to keep them happy and coming back for more. Take a deeper dive into the data below, and let us know in the comments if there are tactics you’re currently using to engage customers that we may have missed.  |
| Blogging for Business: What’s Important in 2014 Posted: 24 Jan 2014 06:52 PM PST It's 2014. Is your business' blog older and wiser? Did you learn from your mistakes in 2013? What are you going to focus on in 2014 to make your business' blog as effective and awesome as it can be? This article will give you the four lessons that I took from 2013, and I feel are the most important for a new start to the new year. I'll discuss:
So let's get started. 1. Setting your Blog Apart from the RestIs your blog different? Do you offer new or exciting information in a new or exciting way? Why not? Blogging is, at its heart, a creative pursuit (even when blogging for business), so get creative! In 2014, take your blog persona to the next level. Put your own personality – or the personality of your business – into your blog. A blog persona is something that makes you different from your competitors. This can be a tone that runs throughout your posts, an informality (or formality) that people recognize as distinctly yours. Test a recurring theme in your blog titles, subject-matter, or the way you present your opinions, facts, or ideas. Another tip which I've yet to test is the blog mascot – something I'm tempted by for the New Year. A blog mascot is another great way to increase readership, as people will remember your business' blog more than another's. If you're wondering what I'm talking about, check out Andrea Vahl's Grandma Mary, SocialMediaExaminer's little cartoon explorer, Moz's robot guy, etc. Get creative with your own mascot, and test if this would work for your business. If you've ever created or read about a Facebook Ad or a business landing page you'll know the term USP – Unique Selling Proposition. This is what your business or campaign offers that sets you apart from your competitors, whether it's a discount or offer, a new technology, or a special way of doing business. Your blog needs its own USP. Are you right on the cusp of current events in your sector? Are you your reader's go-to source for information and developments they'll get from you before anyone else? Embrace this in the new year. Start a #HumpdayHeadlines theme that runs each Wednesday, keeping your readers engaged and checking back in for the newest updates. Oh, and remember to create an awesome niche hashtag to spread the word and increase virality on social media and (now) Google search.
2. How to Get the Most out of your ContentThink of your blog article as Thanksgiving dinner. From it you can get so many delicious leftovers you'll wonder if they'll all fit in the fridge. The research you do for a great blog article is valuable, so don't just use it once. Think about the stats you've compiled as a great source for an infographic. Your article's main points can be made into an Slideshare presentation. Other ideas:
Balancing your content intelligently is the best use of your time and energy. Your readership will also increase, as you'll be producing a bunch of varied, interesting information in bite-size, appealing pieces. Think about it, if you put a couple hours into researching for your blog article, do you really want to use that hard-earned research only once? How much, and how often, to write: The age-old question returns in 2014. How much should you write, and how often should you publish? Because of the rise of visual content which we'll see in 2014, we'll see a fall in long-form, fact-heavy blog articles. Internet users and blog readers want information fast, easy-to-consume, bite-sized. Your business' blog needs to reflect this. Focus on balancing your content. Offer comprehensive articles occasionally but also short, visually-appealing infographics or Slideshare presentations. You should still be publishing on a daily basis. Embrace guest posting in 2014, both accepting articles from the many freelance writers out there, and offering your own content to other sites. These mutually-beneficial relationships are great for bloggers as they take the strain off when you get a guest post, and spread your business' reach when you write for someone else.
3. The Rise of SMOSocial Media Optimization is changing the way we think about SEO. Since Google's Hummingbird Algorithm arrived in August of 2013, we've been focusing more on social networking and less on the link-building which made up such a huge part of SEO for bloggers. As Wishpond's guest blogger and chief editor for ChamberofCommerce.com Megan Totka says, 'The Hummingbird algorithm values quality content that is relevant, authoritative, and shareable. The more your content has been shared across social media, the higher its perceived quality, and the better you'll rank on Google.' The original Google search algorithm considered links to your pages or content like votes. The more links you could garner (link-building) around the web, the more visible your brand profile would be online. Now, however, Google has started to value social shares as much as (and, in the case of Google +1's, more) than links. How can you optimize your blog for social shares?
4. The Best Way to Promote your BlogInfluencer marketing will become mainstream marketing practice this year. If you're wondering what, exactly, that is, well, I'll tell you: Influencer marketing is the strategy of creating a relationship with an influential thought-leader in your sector – and through them increasing your own business' influence. Here's a concrete example. In July of 2013, social-media influencer Mari Smith tweeted a link to one of my articles. To really understand this example, you have to know that Mari Smith has around 260,000 Twitter Followers. Between the 25th of July and the 27th (Mari's Tweet went out on the 26th), this happened: The quality of our blog did the rest, and our readership hasn't since dropped anywhere close to the numbers we were seeing on the 25th. For example, let's say you've developed a WordPress plugin that's awesome but your reach is struggling. With influence marketing you can make contact with one of the powerful individuals who make it their life's work to find the next big wordpress plugin. How affected do you think your little plugin's success would be, for instance, if you'd made it onto Jeff Bullas' 10 Must-Have WordPress Plugins of 2013 Every Blogger Should Know About list? Keep in mind that Jeff Bullas has 210,00 Twitter Followers and 25,000 Facebook Fans. Sold yet? You need to be reaching out to your sector's most influential people. Finding your influencers:
How to interact/start a relationship:
ConclusionHopefully this article has given you a better idea of what to focus on as this new year kicks off. Remember to focus on social shares in your blog articles, and research the changes that Hummingbird has made to SEO. Get creative with your blog formats, and test a weekly theme-article (and let me know how it goes!). Have you focused on any of these in your marketing strategy for the new year? Start the conversation below! This article was originally published on TheSocialMediaHat.  |
| 5 Skills We Learned in Kindergarten that Still Apply Today Posted: 24 Jan 2014 02:46 PM PST Why IT Teams Should Worry Less About Learning New Technologies and More About the Big Picture When I speak with people in the world of Information Technology they often ask, "So what do I need to know to keep my job and help take my company to the next level? Should I learn Node.js, or OpenStack, or what?" To that I answer, "It's not the what. It's the how." I'm an autodidact. I've made my way through the world without a degree from a posh university (or, in fact any university at all), a coveted internship or a well-heeled Uncle McDuck smoothing the way. In short, I had no curriculum or syllabus to tell me which skills I needed to learn. Like most of us, I did, however, go to kindergarten. And it was there that I learned the skills needed to stay relevant in the long term. Skill #1. Be Open to Learning New Things. The businesses that are winning are the ones that are learning. Every successful business is a learning organization because every generation of technology and product cycles is different from the last. The distinguishing characteristic of a successful team is not a static list of skills, but an openness to learning. Teams that are great at DevOps didn't get that way because they acquired a skill or mastered specific practices—they became good at DevOps because they were open to learning and trying something new. DevOps works because it expands awareness, increases the amount of data, and creates many small feedback loops. Consider Pivotal. Heroku (now part of Salesforce.com) was undeniably the "first mover" in platform cloud services, but as Malcolm Gladwell and others have pointed out, it's often the "third guy" who scores the big hit because he has had time to learn from his predecessors. Cloud Foundry (made by Pivotal) is about to become the dominate player in cloud platforms because they focused on learning about the market. Pivotal waited to find out what their customers' problems were and set about solving them. They realized that folks wanted a cloud platform that they could buy as a hosted service, or run themselves. Pivotal is incredibly good at being customer-focused and customer-centric. That's the kind of learning organization that IT should seek to emulate. Skill #2. Bring Your Own Lunch. If IT reports to the CFO, that's a sign that you're a cost center. Make a case for moving your reporting structure to a revenue-generating part of the business. If you're not actually making money for your business, you should at least be generating value. When a salesperson lands a big account, IT should demonstrate how technology played a role in supporting that sale. It's not just about financial value, but also about showing the value created by each application. Another way for IT to stay directly connected to revenue is to become the CMO's best friend. The CMO is the biggest buyer of IT in many organizations, and is often leading digital transformation. Take the example of Automattic, makers of WordPress, PollDaddy, and several other popular services. WordPress alone receives 134 million uniques a month in the US—just behind Facebook. Through their open source software, they power over 17% of the Internet – using an entirely distributed team of less than 250 people. There is no part of Automattic that is not directly engaged in delivering value to the customer. Skill #3. Get to Know the Kids on Other Side of the Playground. As Bill Clinton once said, "There is no 'them.' There is only 'us.'" Let's face it: historically, IT and the business have operated with an "Us and Them" mentality. The business wants something and IT says "no." The business goes off and finds a workaround—often called Shadow IT—that IT then attempts to dismantle or isolate. Moving away from us and them will change how you respond when people ask for something. Your habit is probably saying, "No, because…" This is an us and them response. The key skills that break down barriers are listening and genuine curiosity. If someone on the business side has a desire, there is probably something important happening. You have to become a partner with the person making the request and see it as a shared problem. Their need is a problem that you both face, and you have to figure out how to solve it together. Skill #4. Play Nice and Share with the Group. NASA (where I used to work) studied what it took to create effective teams. After all, when you take a diverse group of people and stick them in a metal box orbiting the planet for six months, no one gets to go "take a walk" to cool off. And it turns out there are two different types of "team-building". There's social cohesion, the notion of getting along with and liking your teammates because of shared interests and activities. That's nice, but for IT teams what's far more important is task cohesion, in which you share a common understanding of the goal and have mutual respect for the fact that everybody on the team is moving you toward that goal. You don't have to like each other to achieve task cohesion. The classic example is a sports team. A really high-functioning sports team has great task cohesion. There is a collective understanding of a clearly defined shared goal, and all participants have mutual respect for each other's contributions toward that goal—winning the game. Individual players might not get along, but it's not as if the kicking crew refuses to cooperate with the defensive line. It is important to jumpstart task cohesion through activities that give organizations a strong identity and keep everyone goal-focused. There are two easy ways to do this. One is to build group identity—t-shirts, Fancy Fridays, group activities—things that you do to self-identify as a member of a group. You need a visible sign of solidarity. Second, to visualize a common goal, it helps to have a common enemy. The issue is, where's the team's boundary? The bigger the team, the harder it is to maintain group cohesion – but the most powerful organizations keep the whole company on the same team. If IT is a separate team, IT will become the bad guy. That's the opposite of what you want. Skill #5. Work Together as One. Perhaps the most important skill to adopt this year is systems thinking. To learn about systems thinking, look at Russell Ackoff, who applied systems thinking to management. Reading his short paper called "Why Few Organizations Adopt Systems Thinking" will make you a better executive (and more patient when people on your team make mistakes). The truth is that everything about IT needs systems thinking now. There's no such thing as a standalone application anymore; there are only systems of components that deliver apps. Think about using an app on your phone: everything is part of that system, including the phone itself, the app, the Internet connection, and the data stored both within and away from your phone. Your organization is a functioning system of people, services, servers, and processes, and in order to successfully integrate with other areas of the enterprise, your team needs to adopt systems thinking. Hardware and software decisions need to be made at a local level, but in concert with larger strategies. Closing Thoughts As a person who is basically self-taught, I understand that learning and applying these lessons takes discipline. In the world of IT, it's often easier to learn a new language or technology than learn these skills so it may not come naturally. You'll have to work hard to forge new patterns and break down organizational silos, but the long-term payoff will be worth it because these are the skills that will truly take your company to the next level. Just take the lessons you learned in kindergarten and apply them today – you may be surprised by the results.  |
| 4 Tips To Get More Instagram Followers Posted: 24 Jan 2014 05:06 AM PST If you want to use Instagram to promote your business, you have to get some followers—but how do you do that? Here's a good place to start: Whether you currently have 5 followers or 500, it's always a good idea to look at what the most popular Instagrammers are posting. Ask yourself why they're popular. What are they doing that draws followers? How can you follow their lead? The answers to these questions show you what Instgrammers already want to see. So with that in mind, here's a look at some well-followed users and what they're posting—use this insight to form your own photo posts to get more instagram followers… 1. Celebrities:True, you can't exactly become a celebrity to up your Instagram influence, but the fact that people like to follow the famous is worth pointing out. From Justin Bieber to Taylor Swift, the ten most popular Instagram accounts, besides Instagram itself, are all from celebrities. What does this reveal for you? Being popular off Instagram makes it easier to be popular on it. To some extent, building your presence offline affects how well you can build it online. 2. Beautiful Pictures:It only makes sense that a visually oriented network would thrive on stunning images: people like to look at beautiful things. Just look at blogger Hannah Queen's Instagram account and its 43K+ followers for proof. From National Geographic to Nike, brands are taking advantage of this reality by posting eye-catching images that are easy for followers to enjoy. What can you learn from this? Even if you're not a professional photographer, you'll do better on Instagram when you post the most attractive images you can. Aim for crisp, clear, magazine-worthy pictures that pop. For a few more photo-taking tips, consider the following: a) Use your phone's camera first: Rather than taking your photo directly in Instagram, take it on the phone's camera in order to give you better control. According to The Shake, "You will find that the native camera takes better pictures, responds more quickly and is better capable of making adjustments for lighting. You are far more likely to get a clear picture that is in focus and is how you want it to look than by using the Instagram camera." b) Use an editing app: It's hard to think of a more popular phone app than VSCO, which gives users options to crop, brighten, change contrast, add filters, and more. Tweak your photos before posting them to Instagram. And for inspiration, check out all the photos already tagged with #VSCO. c) Shoot Objects against Plain Backgrounds: Many photographers follow this trick on Instagram—shoot something against a white, black, or other color background. Take Amanda Jane Jones, for example, a designer with over 36,000 followers. Her recent shot of hands holding popsicles garnered over 3,000 likes. d) Back up: With over 57,000 followers, photographer Tim Robison is definitely an Instagrammer to watch. One of his signature moves is taking simple, bold photos from farther away, like a basket of limes or a bowl of grapefruit. e) Make the Most of Light: When you want to take better pictures, stick to natural light. Instagram users from photographer Zak Shelhamer to Scott Rankin understand this well. 3. Ideas:What do Forever 21, Bon Appetit, and blogger A Beautiful Mess all have in common? At least when it comes to Instagram, each one of them is a source of inspiration for fans. Whether it's through outfit inspiration, nods to good restaurants, or decorating ideas, these Instagrammers know fans like to be inspired. What can you take away from this for your own Instagram use? Make your content useful to your followers in a way that's relevant to your brand. 4. Motivational Content:Take a tip from fitness brand Lululemon and post Instagram images and quotes that offer motivation to fans. Whether in a mountaintop shot with the caption "Disrupt your daily routine" or a barren winter image with the words "Choose your own adventure," Lululemon's pictures typically pair beautiful sights with motivational words. Final ThoughtsEven beyond the ideas posted above, you can always draw new inspiration by looking at what's working for others. So who are some of your favorite Instagrammers to follow? Ask yourself why you like to follow them. Odds are, answering that question will reveal even more tips for improving your feed and making it more useful to followers. How do you get more people to follow you on Instagram? What photos do you like most on Instagram? Please leave your comments below.  |
| Private Social Networks: Every Organization Needs Them Posted: 24 Jan 2014 03:13 AM PST Public social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn can help organizations of all types enhance their marketing, public relations, and other external communication efforts, but they may not be the best choice for facilitating more private interactions. This post provides an overview of the risks associated with public platforms and describes how private social networks (which I prefer to call private digital networks) can reduce those risks while also enhancing communication and collaboration among organizational stakeholders. Private social networks are also referred to as enterprise social networks, intranet 2.0s, social intranets, enterprise 2.0 platforms, social business platforms, digital communities, etc. The basic idea behind them is to provide 2.0 or social media functionality within a private or secure environment, using a proprietary platform rather than one of the publicly-available social channels. To better understand how social media can be used internally (and between organizations), check out Part 2 of the Social Media Primer (and its updates). My previous post, The Role of Email: Reflections from a Digital Era Thinker, also helps make the business case. Sidebar: Private Social Networks Should Really be Called Private Digital NetworksI prefer to use the term private digital network for several reasons:
Because people are unfamiliar with this term, however, as well as the fact that most vendors use language that promotes the concept of private social networks, I tend to use the terms interchangeably. Private Social Networks vs. Public PlatformsRecognizing the value of leveraging social media, organizations have been establishing and building their presence on public social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn, as well as semi-private platforms like Ning. These platforms can be very powerful for external applications like marketing, branding, and public relations, but they present a number of risks and challenges, including:
Realizing these risks, some organizations have attempted to create private spaces on public platforms, but there are downsides to many of these solutions as well. For example:
These issues are compounded by a more general set of challenges, including:
Establishing a private social network can alleviate the risks and challenges associated with using public social media platforms for communication and collaboration among organizational stakeholders. It can also produce other benefits, including:
Private Social Networks: A Question of “When” not “If”In spite of the very real potential benefits private social networks offer, many organizational leaders are still hesitant to pursue them, for a variety of reasons. Here are some of the most common reasons offered, and counterpoints for each:
As the Digital Era continues to evolve, leaders will increasingly recognize the need for their organizations to establish a social/digital presence across the privacy spectrum. Each type of platform has a role to play in achieving an organization's goals and objectives. To wit:
Choosing the right tool for the task (or in this case, the right social technology), should be driven by an organization's strategy and a clear understanding of what each tool can help the organization achieve. More on Private Social NetworksMy next post introduces different options for creating private social networks and offers guidance for evaluating the options and selecting the best solution. As always, questions and comments are welcome. I'm particularly interested in hearing other reasons why organizations need to consider establishing private social networks sooner than later. Thanks!  |
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