Whooah Biz

Linkedin have just come out with an interesting set of third party applications that help make your profile come more alive. Integration is definitely the key buzz word at the moment. The one that most caught my eye is the company buzz that shows information on your profile page about what other people are saying about you or your company on twitter. Here is some info about the new tools from Linkedkin.

Work collaboratively with your network.

• Box on LinkedIn: Share files and collaborate with your network.
• Huddle on LinkedIn: Private workspaces to collaborate with your network on projects.

Share information and keep up to date with your network.

• Amazon on LinkedIn: Discover what your network is reading.
• TripIt on LinkedIn: See where your network is traveling.
• SixApart on LinkedIn: Stay up to date with your network’s latest blog posts.

Present yourself and your work in new ways.

• Google Docs on LinkedIn: Embed a presentation on your profile.
• SlideShare on LinkedIn: Share, view and comment on presentations from your network.
• WordPress on LinkedIn: Promote your blog and latest posts.

Gain key insights that will make you more effective.

• Company Buzz by LinkedIn: See what people are saying about your company.

click here to take a closer look

Which ones will you be using?

Every wondered where you can get a complete list web 2.0 performing companies. http://www.socialtext.net has put together such a list here

On the other side of coin Business Blog Wire have done 5 Reasons Why Your Business Blog Should Help the Poor

Both give an excellent perspective on business development.

Accenture particular sums up social media very well with this excerpt.

“A weblog is an online, semi-personal journal offering the opinion and commentary of the authors. Our blogs feature thought leadership on a wide range of business issues, with a particular focus on helping companies achieve high performance. Here you’ll also find blogs about emerging technologies and career experiences from select employees. The opinions of the writers do not necessarily reflect the position of Accenture on these subjects.”

This is the last blog in a series of questions that I asked back in August here:

You can choose to ignore social media, many people do. Old networks are still in place. If you are university professor or an expert in a particular field than why bother. If you have more than enough work too, you could argue that you have no need. While it is true very few deals are closed on the internet. There is one problem, with more and more people using the internet for locating information. They may well ask the queastion, where are you?

The world is changing and ways of doing business are changing too. Already we are starting to see the disappearance of regular telephone lines as more and more information gets assimilate into internet protocols. Media is is not the same anymore, TV and Newspapers are all seeking to do more business online. One thing is clear while the message may be the same, the medium is different.

Social media is quicker, more intense, and direct. Like any company that trains and prepares it staff there are advantages to be had. You can choose to ignore and ban the use of Social Media in the work place or you can train your staff in how to make the best use of it.

Some ideas worth considering are:

Ask your staff what sites they use/like? – These could be the places where you should be advertising, or maybe have an online presence.

Encourage participation after having set guidelines –Your Company is as good as its employees, if they interact online than it can be used as effectively as free publicity.

Encourage employees to share their experiences – Gives insight into the company.

Managers as bloggers – Open up a different form of communication in managing departments. Want to find out more. Here is the fictional account of what Social Media manager does, read it here:

Here is a good example of how social media has helped one business in the travel industry Mark Hayward sums up his answer to how social media has helped business by the following below:

How do I think social media can help (really) small businesses? Pretty much the same way social media can assist large business and mega-corporations:

• promotion
• networking
• branding
• as catalyst for collaboration

What other ones would you include here?

I came across a really interesting interview today with Reputation management expert Andy Beal which summed up simply how to make the most of online social media. I do not think I could say it better. It has so many benefits establishing a social media policy.

“When a company creates an interactive online profile, it’s effectively telling its stakeholders -customers, investors, employees, etc- that it cares about the community and wants to be a part of the conversation. When an online reputation crisis hits, companies that have an social media profile are more likely to be given the benefit of the doubt and more likely to be able to respond quickly, within that channel.

I advise my clients to look for the “centres of influence.” Where are their stakeholders hanging-out online? When you understand the types of social media your stakeholders are using -maybe they prefer blogs over forums -you’ll increase your chances of successfully engaging them.”

Social media channels that you may find useful for establishing a thriving social network, depending on your market and your niche, include:

FaceBook

MySpace

Twitter

Plurk

FriendFeed

Linkedkin

What networks would you add to this? Which ones do you enjoy the most?

This is one answer to a bunch of questions that I posted here on social media, more answers to follow to that post in the future.

First the easiest way to answer this question; How effective is Social Media? is to demonstrate it:

Go to Google and type in: How effective is social media?

Google doing what it does best comes back with a nice varied selection of articles. From the good side to the bad side and the ugly of course.

On the good side you have

Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research recently met experts in the field to discuss how effective social media is in a recession

Article here:

On the bad Side:

Social media “struggling for effective metrics” Just what is success and how do you measure it click here for the article

And the ugly:

Leon Apel makes a case that all the time and effort may not be worth it:

Article here:

There are many other results on the page that are worth looking at, this is just my selection.

I posted the same question in this forum: http://workconnexions.com/node/35#comment-153