You. Social networking moves beyond fad to destiny Outside the Box - By Adam L.
Penenberg NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- With Facebook registering its 300 millionth user and investors valuing Twitter at $1 billion, it's time to put to bed the notion that social networking is a fad. It's not. It's our destiny. This is something I've thought a lot about since I began researching my new book, "Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today's Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves. " These companies and many others grew because each new user begat more users. These viral businesses take advantage of our increased interconnectedness, made possible by more ubiquitous bandwidth and advances in both hardware and software. Andy Warhol famously remarked, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes. " As video and other multimedia transform our Web experience, these shows take on more complex modes of self-expression. Online or off, all of this congregating is really just a product of biological necessity.
You are the message Why do we do it? Social Media is Ford's Marketing Fiesta - InternetNews.com. LAS VEGAS—Ford Motor said "no thanks" to the federal bailout money, but it's not passing on an opportunity to build its brand and sales through highly-orchestrated social media campaigns on Twitter, corporate blogs and its half dozen different Facebook pages. During a keynote address here at the BlogWorld & New Media Expo Thursday, Scott Monty, Ford's digital multimedia communications manager, explained that Ford (NYSE: F) has made significant investments in social media campaigns primarily to help change the perception that it's a slow, unresponsive Old World company, unwilling or unable to connect with today's consumers. "We made a commitment two years to get into social media," he said. "At first it was a hobby.
Now it's the way the world is connecting and we need to get serious. " HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy. Sharlyn Lauby is the president of Internal Talent Management (ITM) which specializes in employee training and human resources consulting.
She authors a blog at hrbartender.com. Over the past few months, we’ve talked about whether you should have a social media policy and what should be included in that policy. It only seems logical to discuss the next step in the process, which is what to consider when implementing a social media strategy in your workplace. Just having a policy isn’t good enough — you need a plan to put it in place. Here are five areas to discuss when implementing a social media strategy. 1. Luis Ramos, CEO of The Network, reminds us that creating a social media strategy is a complex exercise because “it includes not only looking inside the organization to establish appropriate practices, usage policies and content parameters, but it also includes looking outside the organization to determine the proper degree of engagement.” A. 2. 3. This is a biggie. 4. 5. Conclusion. Study: Social Media Usage In The Inc. 500.
Now that the year’s coming to a close, it’s time to look back and identify the tools, trends and social media sites that hit it big with businesses over the past year.
With that in mind, the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth recently conducted an in-depth study to analyze the usage of social media in fast-growing corporations (PDF). The study compared 3 years of social media adoption (2006-2009) by the fastest-growing private companies in the US, as compiled by Inc. Magazine. I thought the results were worth looking at here.
How familiar are the Inc. 500 with social media? According to the businesses themselves? However, being ‘familiar’ with the tools doesn’t necessarily mean they’re adopting them. The study broke out the usage numbers, as follows: Social networking: 80 percent (!) Impressively, the study found that 91 percent of the Inc. 500 are now using at least one social media tool. Will they adopt new tools in 2010? Yes! Does ideology trump facts? Studies say it often does. We like to think that people will be well informed before making important decisions, such as who to vote for, but the truth is that's not always the case.
Being uninformed is one thing, but having a population that's actively misinformed presents problems when it comes to participating in the national debate, or the democratic process. If the findings of some political scientists are right, attempting to correct misinformation might do nothing more than reinforce the false belief. This sort of misinformation isn't hypothetical; in 2003 a study found that viewers of Fox News were significantly more misinformed about the Iraq war, with far greater percentages of viewers erroneously believing that Iraq possessed WMDs or that there was a credible link between the 9/11 attack and Saddam Hussein than those who got their news from other outlets like NPR and PBS. This has led to the rise of websites like FactCheck and SourceWatch.
These findings, if true, have worrying implications.