Hootsuite Recommendation for Social Business

May 16, 2010

There are a number of good utilities available for managing multiple social media and social networking properties like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Hootsuite has become our recommendation and the tool we are implementing for clients. Here are some of our main reasons:

1. Multiple accounts: Hootsuite allows you to manage multiple Twitter profiles, LinkedIn profiles, Facebook profiles and Facebook pages.  It allows posting to one, many or all accounts at the same time.  You can also organize tabs and columns to group accounts by personal preference.
2. Browser integration: We recommend Mozilla Firefox and Hootsuite has an add-in that is required for our clients to make sharing information and scheduling tweets and post in advance an easy task.team members
3. Metrics: skip the url shortener, Hootsuite does it for you but adds tracking for each link
4. Security/User control: Multiple users can log-in to Hootsuite and have privileges to the same account without access to the primary user-name and password.  this is a deal-maker for any entity that wants to spread responsibility for social accounts across more than one person. Read more

8.5 Slang Expressions for Business Professionals to Avoid

April 7, 2010

We have been gathering a list of negative (as well as positive) behaviors for a class we intend to launch entitled, “Twitter: Business Ethics and Behavior.” Our original intent was an exercise around how to sell without being obnoxious, how to build authentic relationships and having a following that matters. It should come as no surprise that our focus group and crowd-sourced feedback led to the conversation itself. Semantics and syntax were at the core of most people’s impressions.

Social business in public “social media” spaces now requires professionalism. If you are using Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Orkut, Bebo or posting live video on Youtube, Vimeo, Viddler or Justin.tv for business than these are the idioms your audience thinks it’s best to avoid.  Keep in mind, your children are going to read this stuff ten years from now when they search for you online.

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Social Media Marketing Revolution

March 24, 2010

The experience of providing services and training in social media marketing and integrating those efforts into traditional marketing and PR strategy has led us to some concrete observations.  Our business is shifting into social business design.  Online platforms for community engagement and relationship development now impact every point in sales, marketing and customer service.  Read more

Social Media Business Tip: Know Keyboard Shortcuts

March 2, 2010

Something I learned about being proficient on a computer, as simple as it sounds, is not being “mouse-dependent.”

Here’s a secret (sort of). The software you use to manage social properties is your browser. Irregardless of hardware platform, social media, blogging and online research are easier and faster if you:

1. Use your keyboard in addition to your mouse
2. Know and use the right-mouse button
3. Understand and take advantage of your browser
4. Group your online activities by bookmark folder and browser window

I’ll discuss #s 2 – 4 in a future post.  Let’s make you a bit faster with keyboard shortcuts for now Read more

Social Strategy: Know your target audience

February 24, 2010

Thanks to Forrester Research for developing this tool to determine the mix of your perspective audience in social media. It’s based on Forrester’s Social Technographics® consumer classification model.

Social Media Path subscribes to this model as a tool for understanding your target audience.  Our business is based on building social strategy by first examining customer behavior.  The result is clear expectations and better customer relationships.

Features of this profile:

• For an explanation of these groups (Creators, Critics, etc.), see a presentation (8 slides) or read Chapter 3 of Groundswell
• Bars indicate the percentage of the selected demographic that are in each Social Technographics group.
• The white marks indicate the same percentages for the whole population of the country selected.
• The index indicates how the demographic compares to the population — a score of 100 means the demographic is the same as the population average.
• The message “No data available” appears when you request a profile for which Forrester survey samples are not large enough to provide a reliable answer. This occurs for age groups in Japan, Metro China, and South Korea. To see profiles in these countries, set the Age to “Not specified”.

Social Media ROI

January 24, 2010

Despite our company name, I’ve never been a fan of the “Social Media” idiom.  It implies that we are engaged in something new.  What has changed is the platform of delivery (now two-way and relatively constant), the rate that word-of-mouth can travel and the ways that effectiveness may or may not be able to be directly measured.

The phrase “Socialnomics” fell into the same marketing-twist-semantic-massage bucket for me.  Well, in deference to my Dublin, Ireland colleagues at Simply Zesty, I’m embracing the term.  After all, the depth of impact in how marketing, sales, service and product quality must reinvent and perform is economically revolutionary.  Simply Zesty produced this video.  It’s a hot, energetic bundle of evidence:

Better Google Search Results

January 16, 2010

Not that long ago I taught a workshop on using Google tools for  Social Media Marketing.  [Igoogle and google's gadgets make for an easy sole practitioner / small business social media dashboard].  There were some questions concerning search in general, though.  What could be more important than getting to the information you need quickly and efficiently, whether social media related or not? Read more

Facebook Fan Page – How-to Send Fans a Message

December 8, 2009

Here’s a quick clip on how-to send an update to all or some (based on demographics) of the fans on your Facebook fan page via Facebook message.

How to protect your ideas in the digital age

December 8, 2009

I thought it important to re-post this entry from Seth Godin’s blog.  Seth is a favorite author of mine and a critical thinker for our time.  We’re struggling with the idea of intellectual property vs. transparency and open technology.  It’s necessary to have debate around the subject, however Seth offers some basic ideas around Trademark, Copyright and Patent law.

How to protect your ideas in the digital age

If we’re in the idea business, how to protect those ideas? Read more

Social Media Weekend: Sacramento

October 30, 2009

We’re about to have a great first in Sacramento with the First Annual Social Media Weekend November 6th and 7th. With the exceptions of the Sacramento Chapter of the Social Media Club and the SacTweetup, economical education and networking opportunities around Social Media topics in Sacramento are scarce. This will be a great gathering and an informative event

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