TheSocialMediaLearningLab

As in life, it is always more than just about the money, although the money is certainly important.

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...As the number of people using social media rises, marketing experts say it's essential for even the smallest of companies to consider diving in.

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"Everybody should take a look at it," says Dan Galbraith, owner of marketing support company Solutionist and a National Small Business Association board member.

"Whether they chose to jump into social media or not is a question that only they can answer," he says, but all firms should at least explore how social media could work for them.

 

via usatoday.com

Hamburger chain Smashburger has become a smash hit, growing from three Denver locations in 2007 to 150 outposts nationwide. 

..."Social media is an opportunity for us to engage with consumers and have a conversation, which is different than paid media, when you're just shouting through a bullhorn."

...No matter what, don't aggressively push a product or service, she says. That could scare away potential followers.

"I always tell people to pretend that they're at a party and (act) how they would behave," she says. "… They want you to ask them questions and engage in conversations."

Source: Flowtown (@flowtown)

• who you really are, 
• what you stand for, and 
• why you deserve their business. 

• Do you practice what you preach? 
• Are you, business and company that you are, for real? 
• Do you stand by your services & products? 
• Is your reputation solid?   

Although social media delivers SEO benefits (and not having a business presence on LinkedIn and Facebook says something about you), the most critical aspect of participating in social media has to do with connecting with people.    ...The more you embrace connecting with others, the more benefits the tools deliver.

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 ...Although using social media can be scary at first, once you realize the benefits, I bet you’ll wonder what took you so long!

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Yet lots of people in business don’t get that—people in large, sophisticated organizations and smaller ones, too; people advising those people; people in love with traditional one-way communications. People who’ve perhaps lost sight of what business is about.

...Shouldn’t we be ready to banish the traditional shout messages (sale, buy now!), in favor of ones that allow us to listen, customers to speak, and for both of us to exchange meaning?

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 5. You participate in the conversations taking place that relate to your business, products, industry… and have the opportunity to shape the agenda.

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...Although using social media can be scary at first, once you realize the benefits, I bet you’ll wonder what took you so long!

The top 10 reasons [to engage]:

1. You demonstrate to potential customers that you are human and care about their world.

2. You bring to life an externally focused mindset. (See Retail Outward Not Inward: Time To Refocus.)

3. Social media allows you to bring to life your otherwise static brochure-like website with a dynamic presence.

4. You address in a public forum the questions and concerns your customers have about your products and services—which are being asked anyway without your participation.

5. You participate in the conversations taking place that relate to your business, products, industry … and have the opportunity to shape the agenda.

6. You manage your reputation.

7. You build a customer community.

8. You direct prequalified prospects—with whom you’ve already established a relationship—to your website, so you can engage in business.

9. You build your digital visibility and online presence.

10. You remain relevant to customers.

... social media addresses potential buyers’ needs for intellectual satisfaction with specific knowledge (i.e., content and context).

The result: You build a business brand that customers not only feel is great, but know it is, too.

What are your reasons for involving your business in social media?

Here's some current statistics on the continuing big players in social media, in business, in our personal space, in the world and here to stay in our lives. 

Demographics by age feature how the 55+ age group is fully embracing social media.

• If you are in a larger organization, then this applies directly to culture and the leaders who help create and maintain it. 
  
• If you are a one person shop, it's about your approach, beliefs, goals, strategy, and principles.

Excerpts:  

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A change in behavior happens only after we change the way we think.

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Olivier first describes what a social business isn’t.

• Having a social media presence isn’t a social business
• Having digital content doesn’t make you a social business
• Chasing followers doesn’t make you a social business

And, then he explains the core principles of social business:

• Social is ...a core business philosophy
• Social must be a mindset before it can become an operational model
• A CEO who doesn’t care about creating a social company will not accidentally create one
• Social is something you are, not something you do

And that’s just the first 10 or so slides.  These are gold and I highly recommend spending time and extracting the insights.

The key takeaway for me is that social business absolutely requires a culture shift. One company that is doing that today is clearly IBM:  Remove one genius, and there are thousands more in the network to fill the vacuum.

(Deb:  Why IBM may be the better model over the brilliant, but limited Apple is mentioned here.)

via slideshare.net

Or go to:

Principles of a Social Business Intro 7DEE  

Olivier Blanchard

< These are selected top mini-blog posts from this past year of Reveln Social Business tailored for this free, sharing site of the Social Media Learning Lab >

Deb: Cool post on learning from the selected experts. A well crafted tweet that gets shared (RT or ReTweeted) is better than a 1000 tweets that do not.

< These are selected top 10 mini-blog posts from this past year of Reveln Social Business tailored for this free, sharing site of the Social Media Learning Lab >

Excerpts:  

 Here are our results of the Top 100+ social media experts and their practices for the week. The following table includes only the content tweets (tweets that have "http://" in them).

How Many Tweets Do They Send?

Name               Last Checked            Last Tweet          Difference - Today - Week

@andrewwee   Jun 25, 2010 2:30 PM      Jun 23, 2010 1:55 PM        2 days - 0 -  5

@andybeal      Jun 25, 2010 2:30 PM      Jun 25, 2010 2:30 PM             ... - 12 -  81

@andymatic     Jun 25, 2010 2:30 PM       Jun 24, 2010 11:15 PM     15 hrs - 0 - 16    

@markevans    Jun 25, 2010 2:31 PM       Jun 25, 2010 11:25 AM      3 hrs - 1 - 16

@mashable      Jun 25, 2010 2:30 PM      Jun 25, 2010 2:30 PM        3s -  12 -  132

@mattdickman   Jun 25, 2010 2:31 PM      Jun 22, 2010 11:25 PM      2 days - 0 - 3                

For the complete list of 100, see the original post via beesfeed.posterous.com

This is the first time I've run across a clearly articulated post about something that has TRUMPED content. The ACE is the conversation! Years of the repetitious "content is King" has, in this post, has been overruled by something we know instinctively, via our various gatherings and connections.

UPDATE 2012:  Curation is also suggested as the new KING due to a clear and present danger of information overload.  So the conversation about on-line digital content is ever evolving.

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When great conversation continues to happen with partners, it becomes a community. ~ Deb Nystrom

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 In my view:

• - When good conversation happens, it's memorable.

• - When great conversation happens, it's a relationship. (Also great books!)

• - When great conversation continues to happen, it's a partnership.

• - When great conversation continues to happen with partners, it becomes a community.

--Deb

Here's an excerpt of a great post by Socialmedia.biz partner: Christopher S. Rollyson

Excerpted:

Based on past client work and intense observation, I've observed that, increasingly, the conversation is the content. Frankly, most people are utterly fed up with consuming slick marketing "content." They thirst for honest, real, human interaction that is authentic, spontaneous and caring. Therefore, marketing and ad firms' approach of creating content to engage is quite outdated.

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 ...people are...fed up with...slick marketing "content." They thirst for honest, real...interaction that is authentic, spontaneous and caring. ~ Christopher S. Rollyson

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 Yes, content can spark conversation, but it is rapidly transitioning to a supporting role. Similarly, technology firms' proposition, which is often, "Use this technology to engage people," is equally outdated because, although inane technology can prevent a community from forming, it's the human spark of knowledge and caring that carries the value. The best technology can only be intuitive and invisible — it won't create a community.

Excerpted from a list of final thoughts:

• The attraction for most people, social's differentiation, is authentic, truthful interaction, not "content."

• The best parties are given by hosts who know how to invite the right people, make appropriate introductions, provide ancillary amenities and let their guests do the talking.

Read the full post via socialmedia.biz

You might also be interested in:

Curation:

Curation 2012: Filter Bubble Junk Food or Scan Savvy, Mosaic Knowledge Tool? | Reveln & Revelnnovation

Joining Social Media Ecosystems, Learning the Ropes

In one of the 2011 teleclasses, there were several questions about twitter retweeting & accessing #hashtags.

 I found out that #hashtags have a limited shelf life, about a few weeks or a month, to be picked up with search.twitter.com. 

Here's a helpful overview these two common twitter behaviors.

I learned a few things, including defining your hashtag.  Useful!

--Deb

Retweets

A “retweet” (RT) is just like clicking “forward” in your email: When you come across an interesting tweet that you think your followers should read, copy the tweet, paste it into a new tweet, then add RT @[username] to the beginning of the tweet, like this.

Retweet

If you have room, you can add a comment between RT and the @[username] part of the tweet (just like in the image above), but because of the 140-character limitation, this is not always possible.

Most Twitter applications now include a RT button that fills in everything for you so that all you have to do is click retweet and submit. This makes it super easy to forward those tweets that catch your eye.

Some people think that retweeting is spammy because it is completely unoriginal content. You might consider instead sharing why you like the tweet or link and using “(via @[username]) at the end to give credit to the original author instead.

Don’t worry too much, though; Retweeting seems to be the standard in the Twitterverse right now, so don’t retweet too often, weigh the two options, and go with which ever method suits you best.

 

Hashtags

If you’ve been observing the Twitterverse for any length of time, you might have noticed tweets containing the number symbol and a word, something like this:

Plain ol' hashtag

Many websites use these so-called “hashtags” to track what is “trending” (popular) on Twitter at the moment. Even though that example tweet doesn’t mention Lost at all, it is about the show and should be counted if you want to know what people are talking about on Twitter right now.

In this way, hashtags are something like an email subject line: They tell your readers (and anyone analyzing tweets) what you are talking about in your tweet. They can be at the end of a tweet, like above, or embedded into the tweet.

A hashtag embedded into the tweet

No matter whether you embed your hashtag or put it at the end of the tweet, it will show up in a Twitter search or trending report. Hashtags.org and Tagal.us are two websites that track the use of hashtags on Twitter and are useful resources if you’re looking to use a hashtag but aren’t sure if it’s in use or how it’s being used. Tagal.us also allows you to define hashtags.

Recommended: define new hashtags

One final note on hashtags: We recommend that the first time a hashtag is used, it should be defined with the hashtag #define. A tweet that defines each hashtag will help future users understand when the hashtag should be used. 

While Tagal.us lets you define hashtags, those definitions are not accessible through Twitter Search. If you use a #define hashtag, users searching tweets will find your definition. First define your hashtag in a tweet, then add your tag and definition to Tagal.us for maximum impact.

<These are the top 10 mini-blog posts from a year  + of  2011 Reveln Social Business.>