039;s Social Media Guide for Small Businesses Over the past year, Mashable has written extensively on the value of social media to small businesses. We have also contributed regularly on this topic to the American Express Open Forum. From the fundamentals of Twitter branding, to the importance of blogging, to getting work done with some great online tools, small businesses face many challenges when trying to understand how to use social media. Whether you're just signing up, or primed for some advanced social marketing, the posts below have all the tips, tricks, and wisdom you'll need to take your brand to the next level. Social Media 101 Start here for the basics on how and why your business should be implementing a social media campaign. Sign up, stay on message, and utilize some leading sites and apps that can give your business a social edge. These posts have real-world advice and examples of how businesses have succeeded on social networks. Blogging Video Mobile Mobile devices keep you and your employees connected to your business.
10 badass social media visualisations | Blog When it comes to social media you might be busy trying to separate the opportunity from the bullshit, such are the interstellar levels of hype and associated jargon that are plaguing this space. Nevertheless, I for one believe that a solid social media strategy can make a real difference to your business, helping you to drive engagement in order to boost customer satisfaction, retention, and profits. But that's not to say it will be easy: there's a lot to figure out and each company has different needs (and challenges to overcome). They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I thought I'd aggregate a few of the social media visualisations I've spotted in the past few weeks to help you make some mental leaps of faith, or use in your internal pitches, or otherwise determine that it's all a bunch of hot air, as you see fit. Caveat: some of these are more badass than others! Social Media ROI [by Intersection Consulting] Social Media Landscape [by Ivan Walsh] Tools and Methods of Social Media
How Social Media Has Changed Us Mike Laurie works at London agency Made by Many where he helps design social digital stuff. You follow him on Twitter @mikelaurie. Over the last 10 years, we've seen social media galvanize thousands over politics, create as many industries as it has destroyed, and offer an abundance of visual and audio entertainment. But has all this incredible change actually changed us, or just the world we live in? Below are some areas in which social media has had lasting, and arguably permanent effects on the ways in which we live. Child Literacy It stands to reason that children who read and write more are better at reading and writing. Ambient Intimacy Lisa Reichelt, a user experience consultant in London coined the very pleasant term "ambient intimacy." Consider the many communications technologies through history — the telephone, Morse code, semaphore, carrier pigeons, smoke signals — they are all fairly inconvenient and labor intensive. Knowledge Was Power The Reinvention of Politics Marketing Flux
How to Blog Effectively A blog is a great tool with which to express your opinions, build a community, network with others and drive traffic to your website. However, a lot of designers are not sure how to get started or what to blog about. I’ve been blogging for a couple of years now, but I’ve been blogging effectively (in my opinion) for only several months. My blog posts used to go unnoticed, and I’ve now realized that this was because of a lack of structure and commitment. So, what’s involved in the process of writing an effective blog post? 1. Successful blog content is fueled by inspiration. CSS Galleries CSS galleries are a great resource for web design inspiration. Galleries to follow: Digg If something is popular on Digg, then it’s usually worth covering. Keep Track of Current Affairs Familiarize yourself with current affairs and cover topics that everyone is talking about, but make sure to put your own spin on them. Other Blogs It’s important to keep an eye on the leading blogs in your industry. Delicious 2. 3.
3 Ways Educators Are Embracing Social Technology The modern American school faces rough challenges. Budget cuts have caused ballooning class sizes, many teachers struggle with poorly motivated students, and in many schools a war is being waged on distracting technologies. In response, innovative educators are embracing social media to fight back against the onslaught of problems. Technologies such as Twitter and Skype offer ideal solutions as inexpensive tools of team-based education. Pockets of experimentation are emerging all around the world, and I hope to inspire my fellow teachers with some stories of success. From cell phones to social media, below are three schools that have chosen to go with the flow of popular technology to turn the tide for education. Skype and Language Learning Why force students to yawn over a textbook when a real-life native speaker is only a Skype call away? "I absolutely fell in love with this program," wrote one student. Perhaps the greatest benefit of using Skype is the radical increase in motivation.
HOW TO: Deal With Social Networking Overload Alexandra Levit is a Wall Street Journal columnist and the author of They Don't Teach Corporate in College, How'd You Score That Gig?, and Success for Hire. Read her blog or on Twitter @alevit. As a career and workplace writer, I get asked all the time: "I feel like I'm on social network overload. It's a great question. 1. The first step is to ask yourself why you joined each site. When you're overloaded, people may try to engage with you, but you might ignore them simply because you can't keep up from all the contact being generated by your diffuse presence. 2. Once you've narrowed down your top networks, consider what you value about each one. In order to avoid duplicating your information on every network, think about your purpose for being on each one and limit your activity to that purpose. 3. A typical example is that many people I've chatted with recently have chosen to use Facebook for family and past and present friends, where they reserve LinkedIn for business contacts. 4.
The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration Brian Solis is a principal at new media agency FutureWorks. You can connect with him on Twitter or Facebook. An overnight success ten years in the making, social media is as transformative as it is evolutionary. At last, 2010 is expected to be the year that social media goes mainstream for business. In speaking with many executives and entrepreneurs, I've noticed that the path towards new media enlightenment often hinges on corporate culture and specific marketplace conditions. Full social media integration often happens in stages — it's an evolutionary process for companies and consumers alike. Here are the ten most common stages that businesses experience as they travel the road to full social media integration. Stage 1: Observe and Report This is the entry point for businesses to better understand the behavior of an interactive marketplace. Reporting: Distill existing social media conversations into an executive report. Stage 2: Setting the Stage + Dress Rehearsal Stage 7: Community
The 39 Social Media Tools I'll Use Today | Blogging and Content Creation | Social Media Consulting - Convince & Convert Subscribe to our new Definitive newsletter: High grade digital marketing guidance, topically sorted, and curated to the max. You pick the categories, we deliver the content. The best content from around the web, on topics you care about and need to be an expert in. Amazingly, it seems like there’s more social media tools than Jonas brothers, with the gap growing every day. I don’t feel the need to experiment with every new piece of software that emerges from its chrysalis, but I do feel a responsibility to you and my clients to have some idea of what’s out there and what’s worthwhile. Also, at my social media speaking engagements hither and yon I’m often asked what tools I use. Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google + (combined) Buffer I use Buffer for scheduling and sharing my po2sts to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google + throughout the day, at the optimal times. Twitter Tweetdeck I use Tweetdeck for serious twitter sessions. Note: There are thousands of Twitter apps (literally). Facebook
20 Tips to Define And Manage Your Social Networks [Part 1] The more I started using social networking sites, the more I began feeling disoriented. After a while, I lost count of how many “˜Web 2.0′ services I had signed up with. Multiple login-password combinations or single passwords across multiple sites, photos scattered everywhere, and bookmarks in disarray. I no longer knew what I had dugg, found delicious or stumbled upon. Keeping track of groups of friends on multiple networks, commenting on their updates, updating my status, responding to email, and pretty soon, I had “˜social networking fatigue‘. If this sounds familiar, don’t lose heart: these tips may help. 1. Use pen and paper or mind mapping services like MindMeister to better define your social networks or your social map. Don’t be disheartened because it may be a mess. 2. For each network where you share data, define your target audience. Use multiple accounts in Twitter so that your tweets are relevant to your followers. 3. 4. 5. If you are starting afresh, check out Twine. 6.