Buzz and Brilliance: Week ending May 11

Over the week we go through a lot of content - news and blog posts, how tos and conceptual posts on the state of the internet.  Every Sunday we share some of our favourites with you.

Check out the links and let us know in the comments if you have any questions or if you read any great posts this week!

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Lara

I often see people complaining about ads on Facebook and Twitter but they don’t bother me.  Why?  Aside from the fact that they are tools I want to use for my own business, I also know as a business owner that businesses need to make money, and Facebook and Twitter are businesses. These are free services we enjoy, most of the other channels we have to deal with ads on we pay for! (newspapers, tv, etc)

How will we ever create all the content that seems to be demanded of us to build a good online presence?  Re-use and recycle, and plan for it right from the start.

Video video video - it’s a big buzzword this year and I can’t disagree with it.  Video is important, but it needs to be done well.  James Wedmore is an expert I’ve recently found and his videos have a ton of useful content to help you figure out where to start and what to talk about.

Karen

I don’t like to say that there are rules when it comes to using social media, but it’s certainly good to know the etiquette or best practice guidelines. 

It’s ridiculously easy to use any old image you find online. But it doesn’t make it legal and you can get in a lot of trouble. In fact, often it isn’t and you’ll want to know how to use images in a way that won’t get you sued. (We have a whole session at Social Capital about this!)

Social media is about building relationships, which is why I really like the ideas in this post about having fun with your blog readers. Would you like to interact this way with your favourite blogs?

If what you write helps just one person, it’s valuable. Viral is overkill and not necessarily all it’s cracked up to be. (We’re going to have a session at Social Capital that touches on “viral” videos, too.)

SOCIAL CAPITAL

Social Capital is quickly approaching (it’s May 31 and June 1). Join us this Tuesday for our second #socapott Twitter Chat.  We’ve also announced a lot of great speakers that you won’t want to miss, including Gini Dietrich and Danny Brown!

THE MEDIA MESH

Making a case for Google+

Happy Mother’s Day!

As mothers ourselves, we know the work that you do every day. Today, we celebrate you and everything you do for your family. Enjoy this ad from Google:

To tweet or not to tweet during tragic breaking news

Last week, when news broke on social media channels about the Boston Marathon explosions, there was nearly immediate pressure for brands, businesses and individuals to cease all prescheduled content, though a quiet minority advocated business as usual. A number of different reasons were expressed for or against continuing business content. Most the views were pure black and white - either business as usual or pause all business promotion.

Tweeting through tragedy - perspectives

I prefer a moderate approach, but I’d like to offer a different perspective on each of the arguments I encountered.

1) Promotional content was seen by many as insensitive in light of the Boston Marathon news. Others felt that Twitter needed to be an open channel for communications; turn off all the promotional noise.

Twitter is always an open channel for communication. It’s also always a repository of noise. (Most) savvy users know how to control the volume through the use of hashtags, lists and unfollows.

2) Many felt that since tweets don’t stop when thousands are dying every day in civil wars across the world, then there is no reason for them to stop for Boston.

It’s true - the tweets don’t stop for so many other tragedies around the world every single day.

But isn’t it possible that the businesses geographically close to those tragedies ceased communications? Boston is close to home for those of us in North America and people travel from all over the world (thought primarily North America) to participate. I would not blame one single person in Europe, Asia, Australia and other places for continuing their day as usual.

3) Alongside pleas for sensitivity were complaints about those complaining about scheduled content.

I never know how to take tweets that are complaining about someone complaining, but in this case a friend made a good point. She stated categorically that they were annoying when she found it quite easy to ignore the scheduled content. (See? Savvy users get good at filtering, even on the fly.)

4) There were folks who felt there was no reason for any business or any individual to change social network activity, because life goes on.

Life does go on, but in the hours just after tragic news breaks, the openness of the audience has to be taken into consideration. From a purely selfish perspective of wanting their eyeballs on my content, are those hours the best time to continue with the status quo?

That answer might be very different depending on the locale of your audience. In the case of the Boston Marathon, many North Americans were riveted to the news for hours after it broke. 

5) You can’t spend all day watching the news. Distractions are healthy.

This is true, likely even more so when the enormity of the news is so hard to comprehend.

What’s the right answer?

All these concerns leave businesses with the dilemma of what to do. It also re-ignited the never-ending debate about scheduled posts. (This debate is exhausting…maybe we should just agree to disagree.) Those against scheduled content cited the Boston Marathon as a perfect example of why it’s a bad idea to schedule. Whether I put content in an editorial calendar or book it to go from Hootsuite, it’s still planning. There is no way to anticipate in either circumstance what could potentially happen in the world. If we worried about how every tweet was going to be perceived in light of the breaking news, we’d never tweet anything.

Whether you have scheduled posts or not, it’s possible to remain ignorant of the news even if you’re actively using a channel. Personally, I was monitoring a conference feed when the news broke. Had I not flipped over to Facebook, I wouldn’t have known and likely would have tweeted seemingly frivolous live content.

Large corporations have more resources than small businesses. They may schedule content, but there is greater capacity to monitor. Keeping tabs on breaking news is likely included in their monitoring practices (to some degree). This is rarely possible for small businesses. In light of this, there needs to be some understanding of the challenges of being a small biz in particular. However, let’s not crucify big businesses either. No business can have someone watching everything on social media 24/7/365. 

Listen and Act

The ultimate barometer for your choice is your audience:

• Are they tweeting about the news constantly?
• Do you see complaints about promotional content?
• Have they specifically asked you to stop?

After considering all of those things, what does your gut tell you to do? Do that and you’ll make the right choice for your business.

What else do businesses need to factor in when deciding how to manage social media activity during breaking news? And how did you respond to the news out of Boston last week?

Buzz and Brilliance: Week ending April 21

Over the week we go through a lot of content - news and blog posts, how tos and conceptual posts on the state of the internet.  Every Sunday we share some of our favourites with you.

Check out the links and let us know in the comments if you have any questions or if you read any great posts this week!

***

Lara

There was a lot of sadness this week, and the ability for social media to spread a message faster than ever before was very apparent. Karen and I were at a conference in Toronto listening to a speaker when we found out. I had a family member running in the marathon.  Within a very short amount of time people had posted on his Facebook wall that they had been in touch and he was fine. Finding out that quickly was an amazing relief and couldn’t have happened without social media - I had no connection to any of the people who ended up being my source of information.

While our feeds were full of sadness and anger, one of the things that struck me as hopeful and good were the positive messages that were also being shared.  Social media brings us the big news, and the little stories of hope all at the same time. 

On the business side, it’s hard to know what to do in the face of such a big tragedy.  Online many people got angry at others for not respectfully pausing all marketing messages.  But how long does one wait before resume to life as usual - it’s hard to know.

If you are going to talk about it, there are good (and funny) ways to do it (this is such a great example of storytelling) and bad ways to do it. 

But I would rather focus on the happy stories about good people.

Karen

We’ve been hearing how Pinterest trumps Facebook for traffic for a long time. It’s better for conversions, too. With the number of users still small, now is the time to build your audience there. 

Twitter is working hard to monetize its platform. They’ve completely revamped the business site where you can purchase advertising, and they’re giving more and more options to businesses that want to promote their business on Twitter, including keyword targeting in tweets.

Have you ever heard someone say that they prefer the term “return on influence” rather than “return on investment” as a way to measure the effectiveness of social media? It’s usually a way of saying that they don’t know how to measure or they truly see social media as being about creating brand awareness more than anything else. But, as this study shows, many are using social media for lead generation - not just branding.

SOCIAL CAPITAL

Social Capital is quickly approaching (it’s May 31 and June 1). Join us this Thursday if you’re in Ottawa for our #socapott tweetup at 7pm at the Marriott Hotel.  We’ve also announced a lot of great speakers!

THE MEDIA MESH

How to use Pinterest to create a community

Buzz and Brilliance: Week ending April 3

Over the week we go through a lot of content - news and blog posts, how tos and conceptual posts on the state of the internet.  Every Sunday we share some of our favourites with you.

Check out the links and let us know in the comments if you have any questions or if you read any great posts this week!

***

Lara

• Facebook launched gifts in the Fall - it’s a way for you to send actual gifts to your Facebook friends.  It was launched only in the US and now they’ve sort of broadened it - people outside of the US can now send gifts TO the US. I sent one this week and it was easy and I was impressed by the selection of gifts and accompanying e-cards.
  
  I think it’s an exciting move because the convenience of being able to send friends or colleagues a quick thank you gift has a LOT of potential.  Hopefully it doesn’t take too long for it to be available to send within Canada too.  For now it’s a great way to have a virtual coffee date with the folks we work with in the States.

• It’s important to remember that social media isn’t all above the numbers.  As important as it is to pay attention the numbers, making sure that those numbers are quality over quantity is key.  Mitch Joel shared a really great example of a company that really believes in quality.

Karen

Crisis management in social media is a really hot topic because companies seem to land themselves in hot water on a regular basis. Danny Brown brings a different perspective to the conversation by saying that companies are causing hese crises - not social media. To me, this makes a lot of sense. 

I have this crazy unfollow rate on my Twitter account. Almost 2/3 of the people who follow me then unfollow me later. I’m okay with this and I don’t care a great deal why, but my assumption is that it’s because I don’t follow them back. Mark Schaefer took it to his followers to find out what motivates them to unfollow someone.

Making assumptions is a dangerous thing - especially if you assume that your audience knows something that they don’t.

SOCIAL CAPITAL

Social Capital is quickly approaching (it’s May 31 and June 1). Join us this Thursday if you’re in Ottawa for our #socapott tweetup at 7pm at the Marriott Hotel.  We’ve also announced a lot of great speakers!

THE MEDIA MESH

The conversation is already happening

Buzz and Brilliance week ending April 6

Over the week we go through a lot of content - news and blog posts, how tos and conceptual posts on the state of the internet.  Every Sunday we share some of our favourites with you.

Check out the links and let us know in the comments if you have any questions or if you read any great posts this week!

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Instagram is one of the tools we don’t often spend a lot of time thinking about but more and more it’s proving to be an effective tool, especially for a young audience. Nearly 60% of big brands are using Instagram (PR Daily) and 15 Stats Brands Should Know About Instagram (Digiday) give some really interesting numbers to back up the need to at least consider the tool.

Have you ever been asked to Like or follow a new account specifically for an event?  Here’s a great post that outlines why that is rarely a good strategy.  Avoid creating  dedicated special events social media accounts. (Communicate & How)

Just this past week I was asked again if you could tag people in LinkedIn updates.  You will be able to soon, as LinkedIn rolls out Facebook-style mentions. (The Next Web)

We have more than a couple of social media pet peeves. This article outlines one we haven’t previously mentioned: stand alone social icons. We see them in print publications, posters and on products but a Facebook icon is not enough to help a customer find your account or give them a reason they should bother. (Social Fresh)

 Facebook advertising can add real value, but how do you measure and how do you target goals for the ads?  Facebook has updated their ads manager to make it easier to analyze if you’re meeting your goals and what the ROI on the ad is. (The Next Web)

Social Capital

Social Capital is quickly approaching (it’s May 31 and June 1).  This week a tweetup was announced for April 18 (we hope to see you there!) and the first wave of speakers for the workshop day were announced.  We’re also hosting a Twitter chat on Thursday April 11 from 2-3 pm using hashtag #socapott. Put it in your calendar and come and join us!

The Media Mesh

Facebook introduces replies for comments

5 arguments for organizations to stop blocking social media sites