Whooah Biz

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?

Kick off your shoes and throw your ties away, forgot rock and roll social media is where it is at.

“oleil-Media Metrics analyst Laura Martin cut her rating on Google to “Hold” from “Buy” and slashed her price target to $350 from $580…saying the company’s practice of giving 10 percent of profits to charity and giving employees one day a week to work on pet projects should end amid the current economic climate.”

We do rate the best Pilgrim Marketing is on our resource list on www.Wcx.me and it is not for nothing. This is a great discovery blog post about Social media right 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?

The short answer is anything that you want and there are not any other media forms that you can say that of in this day and age where companies are considering hiring a social media manager. To look after conversations within and outside the company, you know are starting to hit home. Most multi national companies? invest serious amounts of money into influencing conversations online. As an example Dell employs a number of people to keep tabs on what is happening in their forums and related ones on the internet.

Social media is subtle though. You cannot write big headlines saying:- buy this computer at half price, it is much more about managing the relationship in a world where traditional advertising is losing it impact. How and why? We have seen so much advertising before that we just do not buy it. It is about being genuine. So people form relationships with people who have the time. That is expensive. Time is money. That is social media. I am not suggesting that companies try to sell one to one on the internet. But they do need to think about how they a can influence the conversation. An example of this is a ferry company in the Isle of Man who runs a blog written by its MD. At first glance this might seem like a step in the right direction. But there are already mutterings in private and public places online and “off” about the fact that this is corporate gloss, unless he truly engages people in two way conversation. They will talk and complain about him elsewhere, in their own private forums and communications (email).

So what is the point?

People are going to talk about your company weather you want them to or not and in the future those conversation are going to take place more and more on the internet

What can you do?

Participate.

It is better to have that conversation on your website where you can influence it.

Allowing for user and customer interaction on your site will reduce the threat it may pose.

Manage you social media profile by hiring a expert or a third party.

What are your thoughts?

Part of a Series from here: http://whooah.biz/2008/08/some-questions-about-social-and-business-media

I am lucky with this post, that my friend Sherrilynne over at www.Strivepr.com pointed me in the direction of this article. The article really says it all. While it is possible that one my think that social media’s biggest growing group is the twenty something’s or even the teens. The reality is that it is middle aged man. What a surprise Facebook for woman, Twitter for men. Surly something is wrong here Ed? What are your thoughts?

Article link here:

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

Just recently somebody tried to sell there twitter profile on Ebay. Strange as it may seem and almost laughable. He did manage to get $1,125 plus for his profile

Is this real value of his network? It may not be so far wrong. Moving into the 21st century more and more people will be conducting there sales research, people research etc online. If you do not have profile you may well be drawing a blank. People will expect to be able to reference you or check you out online. In the pursuit of sales I imagine that all these companies are going to be using these tools.

Would I employ somebody who is well networked? Sure I would.

The real value in social networking may be only just be starting to be unraveled, while I am not suggesting that we all start selling our profiles. I do think that individuals with well managed net works will be setting themselves up for whole lot more business at sometime in the future. As posted here by Owen, we may be related to every one much closer than we think. By networks in this blog post I am referring to social media sites, whether that is Linkedin, Facebook, community sites or a blog. To name but a few.

What do you think?