Mashable Launches Hub for Twitter Resources

For those of you who follow Mashable you understand the great social resource they and for those of you who don’t follow Mashable it’s time you started to tune in. In a recent post by Pete Cashmore, he announces the release of the Twitter Guide Book. A hub for all things Twitter from teh 101 level to the advanced community building level.

I let you read for yourself, but I’m guessing this will be an attractive offering from Mashable to anyone who uses Twitter. Thanks Mashable for the great tool.

The NBA, Your Enterprise, and Social Media

The other day Mashableposted a great post on how the NBA is utilizing social media and what teams are “getting it” with success. The post points out teams that are engaging fans and bringing the inter-workings of the organization to social media for fan interaction and consumption. Fans of athletic teams become so personally engrossed in the organizations and players a social channel seems like a given for communication success. I can’t count all the people I know on Facebook that have friended their favorite teams or send me daily updates on how well or poorly their teams are performing. It soon becomes a personality trait that you learn to love or hate.

No apply what was just said their to your enterprise. People don’t live and die by your products or performance, but they become attached to it and talk about it as if they were apart of the corporate work force. These are the people you need to reach. They are want to tell people about big news, achievements, and opportunities happening in your environment they just need an easy way to consume and propagate your news. Enter social media strategy.  The original post listed out why NBA teams are using social media as part of their overall strategy and the list is very similar to an enterprise list of why they should engage fans. So, let’s turn away from sports and apply what you do to the list in the original post.

- Generate fan participation and discussion; (Does your Enterprise have fans/customers?)
- Establish control over team messages and news; (Do you want to control your message/news?)
- Announce signings, injury updates, or other breaking news; (Do you have breaking news and corporate updates?)
- Create relationships among fans, athletes, and coaches; (Do you want a relationship with your fans/customers?)
- Provide fans with “inside” information and product promotions; (Do you have the insider opportunities to offer?)
- Boost traffic to the official team website; (Do you want more people to visit you website?)
- Sell more tickets! (Do you want to sell more goods and services?)

 Now these may seem like dumb and obvisous questions, but odds are you answered yes to all of the above. Now you have a basic strategy for a social media program. What you have to do is find out how you can interact with customers and build the bond of trust and transparincy to complete the strategy. Of course that is the hard part, this Q&A shows how a plan from the NBA can be twisted into something viable to your program.

SEO posting Do’s and Don’ts

I have listened to Lee Odden speak on public relations SEO several times and each time he has more and more information to help site performance. I really don’t know where he keeps coming up with the information, but its quality.

A couple of weeks ago he created a series of blog posts covering the intersection of PR and SEO. This link takes you back to post 5 and you can visit the previous four posts, but the links at the bottom I found useful. Definitely worth a click though and a brief scan to see if you are up on the latest SEO opportunities and tricks.

In implementing some of Lee’s strategies combined with my own ideas of utilizing SEO the power of search really is yours to take advantage of. There is infinite potential for a finely optimized blog, press release, or even Flickr account. I would suggest taking some of these tips to heart and give them a shot and see what happens of time with the searchability of your asset. The results can be surprising.

Do You Rock! Socially?

Social media brand management tools are growing in offerings. Fueled by the demand of social media measurement and enterprises needing a validation mark for participation, brand management tools are jumping to the front lines. The traditional entry tracking program  for  enterprises has been to sign up for a free service like Google Alerts or any another search update client Enterprises quickly realized they need a heavier product because too much was falling through the cracks or their current update provided wasn’t keeping up with the new social tools popping up everywhere and they needed tracking for them. So, in comes more robust offerings like Radian6, BuzzLogic, Blogpulse, and Trackur. These tools are impressive brand management tools for the social enterprise – they basically do everything.

These programs have the enterprise covered in their social networking endeavours inside and out, but what if you are a band? (Here is my favorite part) You are a rock band and because every smart band knows you have to be on a social networking channel, if not multiple channels, your bands music needs to be available on MySpace, Facebook, Blip.FM, and Last.FM etc. And like any other good enterprise you want to know what to know what your return is and what your listeners are saying about you.  There is a brand management tool for you called RockDexwhere they (as they put it) show you how much you rock by searching social networks, blogs, micro-blogs, and music sites to bring you what people are saying about you.

The output value is a number between 1 and 100 on four basic criteria social buzz, social media, Fans, and Listens. When their numbers are combined the band is issued a RockDex score out of 100. The scoring systems seems a little thin, but an interesting concept especially in a time where the landscape of the music industry is on the brink of major changes. I would suggest checking this site out - it’s cool and a fun way to see where your band and bands you like are being socially fueled from. Which always spurs the questions: How much does my enterprise rock?

Career Success with Social Media

As you may or may not of noticed, but having a social media persona is becoming mandatory in advancing in a PR career. So, if you’re new to social media or just plain interested in how social media can help your career in the right direction, I would recommend reading Dan Schawbel’s Mashable post on How To: Leverage Social Media for Career Success.

It’s a quick read and is applicable to all. Go check it out. http://mashable.com/2009/04/07/social-media-career-success/

Using Twitter for Events

You see it more and more live Twitter feeds at conferences/virtual tradeshows. The opportunity to network and contribute to the conversations generally works well for attendees and conference content producers.

Here is a good post on BusyEvent.com that sums up using Twitter at conferences. http://www.busyevent.com/blog/?p=91

Social Media, as Easy as 1, 2 … uh, What Comes After 2?

Should you company be involved with communicating in social media? yes, no, maybe

It sounds like a note to a grade school crush, but the reality is there is no definitive answer. The answer generally ends up as, it depends.

In a blog post by Shannon Paul, she lays out questions that you’re company must honestly answer before leaping into social media participant. A lot of the answers still follow the traditional preaching of you need to be where your customers are. Are your customers on Facebook, Twitter, networking communities, or other various s

Technorati Tags: social media,PR

ocial sites. If you can answer yes to any of the mentioned sites than you should be listening to what the customers are saying about you.

Once you have established where your customers are and what they are saying about you – now what? Well, you need to answer more questions:

How can you benefit the conversation?

How open are you willing to be with your customers?

Can you produce the content to make the experience beneficial?

it seems easy enough, but these are the steps you need to prepare for when the time comes to sail off into social waters. The tolerance level is not as high as you would expect for poor conversation, poor content, and lack of transparency.

Social media resources are great assets to a company that can use them right and can add real value to the conversation. Your customers will appreciate it and they will make sure other appreciate it to. The key – be honest with yourself.

Integrating Social Media and Education

Last week I spoke with a class of public relations students at the local university on how social media will affect them and it was astonishing to see how little social media was being taught. Like most college students you hope the content you’re learning will translate into practical work knowledge, but elements do get skipped over. Unfortunately for these students of PR this is not an element they can afford to skip over.

In this state of media college students can’t afford to miss out on an important social media skill set. When everyone is expected to be an expert of social media and understand the proper uses the up-and-coming work force needs to have a leg up. Then I came across an article on Social Computing Magazine that gives a good introduction to pass along to the learners of the PR trade. It’s not comprehensive, but it can give a foundation to learn and research from and hopefully gain understanding.

Hopefully I will have another chance to talk with these particular students and see how they move forward. I am even more hopeful the University will see what is being missed and add social media to the curriculum, so these students will join the workforce prepared.

What PR professionals need to know about pitching

Pitching to the press seems like a trivial thing to post, but it is continually an issue that comes up. It seems that every week there is a post about PR actions that fall out of line with journalist requirements. I think most of it can be chalked up to over-kill, but its not a coincidence that it keeps popping up it because there are people still going it wrong. I came across the Influential Marketing Blog the other day with points that PR professionals need to know and I agree fully with him.

Here is the list, but I would suggest going to the blog for the full story and more details on each point.

1. Your BS is obvious
2. Timing trumps all
3. Reputation matters
4. Features are not as important as an angle
5. Speed and contactability can make the difference
6. Peer pitching works

You Got Served

What do you think the limit of social networking is? I bet you didn’t know it would go as far as legal papers being filed on Facebook. I don’t think this is a sign social networking is going anywhere, so if you are not a believer it might be time to convert. Or, be careful because you are always “on.”