Social Media

Today’s blog post is a list of a few of the social media tools we like to monitor for ourselves and for our clients. These may help you navigate through the social media sites and weed through the hundreds of different tools in the area to figure out ways to increase business and/or open conversations with your customers/stakeholders.

Mashable – The Social Media Guide – is the world’s largest blog focused exclusively on Web 2.0 and social networking news. If you can only review one blog in the social media area, this one will keep you up-to-date with the latest and greatest.

Peter Shankman, the founder of The Geek Factory in New York, has developed an email/Twitter service called Help A Reporter Out (HARO). The email outreach is distributed three times a day, Monday – Friday, and offers 15 – 25 inquiries from reporters around North America looking for assistance with their stories. Go to his website and click on “Looking For Help A Reporter?” on the top right-hand corner to get on his email list. We saw Shankman speak at the Ragan Social Media Conference in Vegas last month. He is very interesting, engaging and really funny. HARO has changed things in how communicators connect with journalists – and it’s FREE! Shankman is also worth a look if you are searching for a keynote that is not typical.

Checkusernames.com is very useful. Simply type in your organization’s name in the “Check User Name” box and find out if your name (or your product’s name) is being used on various social media sites on the Internet. Over 100 social media sites are listed. This check leads into the topic of “brandjacking.” This is when a third party takes over another organization’s name or brand on social media sites and communicates with others for their own purposes.

 

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This article, on The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500, written by Gary Hamel of The Wall Street Journal is definitely worth a look. Hamel outlines 12 work-relevant characteristics of online life that can help you to self-audit to see if your organization is “with it” or “past it” when it comes to understanding the younger workforce.

The world is changing and for any organization that is looking for new talent, it’s worth a read. 

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I had a good friend from Toronto staying with me this past weekend. She works at a credit union was explaining that she can’t access the Internet at work. It seems that many organizations are still living in the “dark ages” when it comes to allowing staff access to their Internet. There appears to be some concern that people will “waste” too much time online or perhaps say something they shouldn’t…

U.S. government employees are now able to access social media sites at the office. If the highest offices are allowing staff access, other organizations need to rethink why they are banning access to staff, and revise their policies to reflect this new and interactive world.

Most people are quite reasonable and won’t abuse the access, and putting policies in place provides staff with an understanding of what is expected. For many organizations that “block” the Internet, I often wonder if they realize that staff have other ways of going online – Blackberries, Internet wireless sticks, etc. There are more opportunities than ever before to get around rules and regulations that seem unreasonable.

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One of the challenges of working as a communicator in today’s world of Twitter, blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, Facebook, YouTube and other social media tools is that some organizations haven’t kept pace with the new way of doing business and living life. Take, for example, the case of Toronto’s Mayor, David Miller. Mayor Miller is on Twitter, which is good for a politician. It allows him to reach out and be a part of an ongoing conversation with the good people of “Hog Town.” Unfortunately, depending what organization you work in—including the Mayor’s own office—you might not have access to Twitter. This means the Mayor isn’t reaching a large part of his stakeholder group.

The National Post has an article on the disconnect between Mayor Miller embracing the new opportunities to connect and the challenge that comes when employers block staff from accessing these new tools at work.

Times have changed and organizations need to realize that social media provides a great opportunity, rather than viewing it as a distraction or a fad that will go away. (News bulletin: It’s not going away!) Yes, there are some potential issues in providing staff with such freedoms, but there are ways to manage the risk involved (usage policy, for example).

Let’s just give a few examples (and I mean a few because there are lots) – The U.S. State Department, Homeland Security, The U.S. Airforce, The Office of the President, West Jet, RBC and The Hospital for Sick Children – are all on Twitter. Now, if these organizations can see the value, and manage the risk, don’t you think we should all be able to get past our misconceptions and fears?

Apparently though, the social media issue at Toronto’s City Hall goes deeper than who can use it. There is a discussion going about the value of social media. In fact Councillor Rob Ford even calls it “superficial.” Ford thinks social media is of no use in his or anyone on Council’s job and is quoted as saying, “I personally don’t know how [councillors’] staff has the time to be playing on Facebook.”

From the article, it seems that Ford’s is quite old fashioned. This head in the sand approach can be damaging to an organization. In the article, Ford is quoted as saying: “I don’t see how Facebook or Twitter can get your garbage picked up or your trees pruned or your potholes fixed.”  In fact, there are many applications of both Twitter and Facebook that could actually save the city time and money.

What if there was a Facebook page that showed the city’s potholes and offered a repair and maintenance schedule, and gave people the opportunity to let the city know of new potholes. Or perhaps Twitter could be used to listen—in real time—to the community. These tools could identify specific problems that could be dealt with immediately, giving the people of Toronto the sense that City Hall IS really working for them. Wouldn’t it be nice to have small issues easily and quickly dealt with BEFORE they turn into bigger problems.

If we look at social media within the context of how it can help our communications efforts and bring people together to discuss problems and challenges or to have a conversation about something specific, the value is clear. The challenge is getting people to open their minds to the potential. 

 

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