Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on March 18th, 2010
iMedia has a great article with the headline: Does Facebook Work? It goes on to showcase some of the purchasing stats of retail customers, stats that don’t quite live up to the hype of Facebook.
I think one of the challenges that we face in using social media is that we are looking for this magic thing to come along and replace all the stuff from the past that didn’t work. Currently, social media is being hailed as the best tool ever for sales people, for marketing people and for PR—as well as for consumers, non-profits, businesses and other organizations. The fact…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on March 17th, 2010
I came across an interesting site that may help those starting out in social media to develop a social media policy for your organization. You can check it out here.
The site is free and asks a series of questions in order to provide a reasonably customized social media policy that fits your organization’s culture and needs. I went through the process to see how it worked and below you can see the results for AHA Creative Strategies.
This site is worth checking out for any organization that does not have a social media policy in place. There are many grey areas…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on March 15th, 2010
Last week, I spoke to an audience that consisted of members from several different groups, boards and associations. They are all a part of a large—and important—industry. It was a very interesting presentation. (In the interest of client confidentiality, I am not going to identify the group I spoke with.)
When I present, one of the first questions that I ask is if anyone is tweeting. Not one person in this group raised their hand. It was the first time in more than 18 months that I was in a room that did not have at least 25% of the audience…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on March 01st, 2010
Measurement in PR has always been a challenge and that hasn’t changed with social media. Understanding and showing the value of what we do isn’t always easy for communicators.
There is a good article on Socialtimes.com that addresses measurement in social media. It’s more from a marketing viewpoint, but it applies to the use of social media in PR or communications efforts.
One of the points in this article talks about bounce rates. It asks: Are people coming to your website from social media sites or networks, but leaving quickly? This is a good question and one that is worth talking about.
Participating in…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 25th, 2010
There is an excellent post on Mashable on The Science of Building Trust With Social Media. The content in this post provides an interesting perspective on what can be achieved through social media and what some of the challenges might be. It is also worth reading the comments below this post to see what others are thinking.
One of the great things about the widespread acceptance of social media is that good organizations, the ones that want to develop and provide good products and services for their customers, have a real opportunity to build trust. This isn’t as straightforward as it…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 24th, 2010
I had a discussion with a client yesterday about the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. She is based in L.A. and the only coverage they get of the games is from NBC. NBC, for some reason, has chosen not to provide live coverage of the games. My client is in the same time zone as the games, she has a television in her office, she would have the competitions on if she could—but they aren’t live.
This is a conversation that we have had quite often recently in the AHA Creative Strategies office. AHA partner Paul Holman is a sports fan and…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 23rd, 2010
Jay Baer has a good blog post that outlines 39 social media tools that he uses and that would be of value to most communicators.
We have sent a link to his blog to the AHA Crew for a quick review. At AHA, we are always focused on improving our skill sets and knowledge. A list like this allows each of us to do a check on what we are using and what we might check out. With social media, tools and technologies change so quickly that it is easy to stick with ones you know, rather than check out something new—and…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 22nd, 2010
The Marketing Shindig blog has an excellent post on how to overcome objections to social media. This blog post has solid, realistic information and will provide value to anyone struggling with getting social media accepted in their organization.
I am looking forward to checking out this blog further. If other posts are as good as this one, then this blog is an excellent resource.
Another excellent resource is @steveology on Twitter. It was a tweet from @steveology that led us to this blog. Day in and day out, @steveology shares solid information, great links to resources and his expertise and experience. He is…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 12th, 2010
I recently read an article in drovers.com that I found very interesting. It seems that Yellow Tail wine, based in Australia, was set to support the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). However, according to this article, many U.S. wine drinkers and food producers were unhappy with this decision.
At first glance, I wondered why…isn’t helping animals a good thing? It turns out that there are reports that very little of the money that runs through HSUS actually goes to the care and help of animals. The groups that were against Yellow Tail supporting HSUS used social media as a part…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 03rd, 2010
I came across a great post by Brian Solis on social media integration. It’s worth a read. (Just about everything Brian writes is worth a read.)
Integrating social media into your communication efforts doesn’t stop when you write a strategic plan. It is an ongoing and evolving effort. We have recently had some interesting conversations with a client that we work with on a project basis. This client is someone that we have a huge amount of respect for and we want to see him succeed. His company is young and growing and he has a strong philanthropic focus. He came to…
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