One Social Media
In general, (some) people are coming to the realization that social media is not a fad, but it’s here to stay. What the skeptics and those on the fence also need to understand is that social media is constantly changing. It is growing, diversifying and becoming an integral part of our lives – business, networking, social and personal.
Take a look at this infographic (pulled from Huffington Post) and see for yourself!
Source: The Growth of Social Media: An Infographic
On our weekly show yesterday, The Social Truth, we talked for a little while on the differences between using social media personally and using it for your business/brand. Unfortunately, due to some technical issues, the show was not recorded, so I thought I’d give you a short recap of what we talked about.
I’ve personally encountered a lot of people recently who have been thrust into doing their employer’s social media because 1) they are young and 2) they know a little bit more than the next person. This is all well and good, except that most people’s understanding of social media comes from how they’ve used the various networks personally.
The reality, however, is that using social media for your business or brand has a few key differences that must be taken into account. If you are using the exact same strategies (if you have a strategy at all), you are missing out on the full power of using the social world for your marketing purposes.
The highlights:
A couple last points. You want to make sure to clean up your own social media once you become in charge of business or branded accounts. Go ahead and delete some of those old college photos, and clean up the language as well. This doesn’t mean don’t have fun, it just means be a little more aware of what you are posting and the people who might see it.
You also want to make sure you have a strategy for jumping into social media for business use. Read some books and take a look at the companies who are doing it really well. Have defined goals and ways of measuring those goals, just like you would with any other marketing or advertising strategy.
Using social media for yourself may be intuitive, but it’s almost certainly not intuitive when you are doing it for a business or brand. If you have questions or comments, drop ‘em below…or find us on Facebook and Twitter as well!
As a social media company, it is our job to stay on top of all the fancy new stuff that pops up every 10 seconds or so in our industry. Most of these changes don’t really mean much to you, our readers – they are new startups working out glitches, back-end programs that make our jobs easier, or simply new ideas that haven’t quite reached critical mass yet.
The last couple weeks, however, have brought about 3 major news items that are worth sharing. The first is the release of Google+, a social network that is Google-based and is supposed to be a new rival for Facebook. The second is a trio of information bits from Facebook regarding their chat features. And finally, YouTube is in the works of redesigning their user experience, and the early results look promising.
1) Google+
Currently in Beta Mode with limited availability, Google+ seems to be aiming at being a simpler and more user-friendly social network. Friends are organized into “circles” such as work, friends, family, acquaintances, etc. The rumor is that it will be open to the public as of July 31. They will also be rolling out business profiles sometime in the next few months.
Pros:
Cons:
2) Facebook Chat
Facebook held a live event viewed by thousands of people online to announce their latest upgrade. The Facebook Chat feature has long been known to be a little glitchy, and not as easy-to-use as Google Chat or Skype. They seem to be trying rather hard to fix that problem. Their trio of items to note:
Pros
Cons
3) YouTube Redesign – Codename “Cosmic Panda”
This change might be my personal favorite. Virtually since its inception, the site has looked a little clunky, and not very user-friendly. All of that is about to change with this update. The overall design is slick and clean, and makes navigating much more intuitive. To activate the update for your account, visit www.youtube.com/CosmicPanda.
Pros
Cons
What do YOU think of all these changes? What pros and cons have you found? What are you most excited to start using? Chime in here on the blog, or over on our Facebook and Twitter pages!
Every good business person needs to understand how to communicate ideas. Whether you’re speaking to a theater full of people, a room full of board executives, or even someone you meet in the elevator, you need to understand how to effectively present a compelling message— and it needs to be one that generates real results.
So how can you improve your speaking skills so much to the point where you could pitch an idea in less than 180 seconds? Here’s one way: read a great book that was recently released titled Small Message Big Impact. In the book, awarding-winning speaker Terri Sjodin outlines the tools and skills you need to perfect in order to master the art of the elevator speech effect. According to Sjodin, “an elevator speech is a brief presentation that introduces a product, service, philosophy or idea. Its general purpose is to intrigue and inspire a listener to want to hear more of the presenter’s complete proposition in the near future.”
If you’re serious about improving the effectiveness of your communication methods, I strongly recommend you read this new book:
To order YOUR copy of Small Message, Big Impact today, click here.
Learn more about Terri Sjodin:
Connect with her on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter. Watch her videos on YouTube. Read her blog.
Did you miss an episode of our weekly TV show “The Social Truth“? Fear not! We’ve uploaded all of our archived shows onto our YouTube channel. You can go to the site and check them out, or just watch them in the handy player right below. Make sure to tune in every Wednesday at 3pm CST. You can watch at www.onesocialmedia.tv OR right on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/onesocialmedia. We talk about the hottest issues in social media, give you training to optimize your own networks, and answer any questions you might (ask on our Facebook and Twitter pages) have as you try to navigate the digital world.
It was only a matter of time. Social media has had an impact on virtually every other part of our lives. Eventually, we had to get here. Death is part of life, and social media was bound to come in contact with it at some point. We have two examples for you today of how the two have collided.
A company called Quiring Monuments in Seattle, Washington has started offering QR codes on headstones. This actually started in Japan a few years ago, and has finally made it over here to the U.S. The company puts a small QR code in the bottom corner of the headstone which links to a personal page on the company website that contains a picture, obituary and any memories family members have chosen to share.
“Similar to a personal Facebook page, a Living Headstone archive site contains information you and friends can add about your loved one, such as: an obituary, family heritage and history, photos, comments by friends and relatives and even a map to locate the memorial in the cemetery.” (source)
Here’s an example the company has posted on their website. Click on it to go to the “memorial” page, or just scan the code yourself.
Facebook has also recently taken measures to answer questions about what happens when someone with a Facebook profile passes away. With a base of 500 million people and growing every day (including among the elderly population), this problem is bound to come up more and more. As a response, they are now “memorializing” profile pages for those who are deceased. What does this mean?
Basically, Facebook preserves the account, keeping the profile and wall accessible for people to post and continue to view pictures. It functions as on online memorial site viewable to friends and family of that person.
These examples may seem strange to you, but they are merely another way that social media truly is integrating into every facet of our lives. In five years (and probably less), you will likely see much of the same and even more.
What do you think about social media beyond the grave? Chime in here, or on our Facebook and Twitter pages.
New Kindle features allow you to rate books on Twitter and Facebook instantly.
What happens when you combine one of the world’s oldest practices with one of the world’s newest? While the practice of reading has been around for literally thousands of years, social media has exploded onto our planet in the last five years or so, and that’s being generous. So how do these worlds converge? Until recently, they haven’t very well. It’s been more like oil and water than peanut butter and jelly.
Amazon, a leader in combining reading and technology, has managed to find ways to create a happy marriage between two of my favorite things. The Kindle has a new function that allows you to share on Twitter or Facebook a rating of your books as soon as you have finished them. The device also allows you to electronically highlight your favorite passages, and immediately share them via your social networks. This means you can share the wisdom of whatever you’re reading instantly, versus taking that extra time to manually type or write things out.
With hash tags and search functions, you can also instantly see what other people are saying about whatever book you’re reading or want to read. With uStream you can do online live reviews, something we’ve done a couple times here at One Social Media. Anyway you cut it, the social web is affecting the very concept of what it means to read a book and learn from it.
Social media has also changed some of our reading habits. Recent studies are showing that social media may affect attention spans, making us less able to focus while working (or reading, perhaps). This coincides with Amazon releasing what they call Kindle Singles. These are short stories written by well known authors and published electronically by Amazon that come at a cheaper price than full-length books. The company realizes that shorter attention spans means books (and even chapters) must reflect that if they are going to continue to be profitable.
There has been a lot of talk recently about how technology has changed reading, but not much talk about how social media itself has changed reading. When you dig a little bit, you’ll find that it has, and will continue to in the years to come. In what ways have YOU seen this happen already?
Today is the launch of Jeffrey Gitomer’s new book, Social BOOM! If you’ve been thinking about harnessing the power of social media for your business, start now by reading this book (Buy the book today on Amazon for a number of special offers! See below for more information). You’ve already waited too long as it is to start embracing all the social media tools that are out there for you to take advantage of. There are a lot of books out there that offer great information on why social media is so important, but very few actually give you the invaluable knowledge of how to put what you learn into practice. When you read Social BOOM!, not only will you understand why social media is essential for your business, but you will also learn how you can start using popular tools like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube to immediately propel your business beyond the next level.
If you’ve read any of Jeffrey Gitomer’s great books in the past, then you already know how useful and practical the information in his books can be for your business. Social BOOM! is everything you should expect from a Jeffrey Gitomer book, and more. In his new book, Jeffrey Gitomer combines his outstanding knowledge of sales, business, and marketing with the wisdom and expertise of eleven other highly successful professionals from a number of different industries.
I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to contribute my own chapter to Jeffrey’s book titled, The 15 Imperative of LinkedIn. In it you will find fifteen tips that will help you optimize your LinkedIn profile, and learn how to use your presence on LinkedIn to find more leads, make more sales, and develop more lasting business relationships. To learn more about my contribution to Jeffrey Gitomer’s new book, click here.
Don’t look back on your business in the future and regret not taking advantage of the power of social media. Jeffrey Gitomer says it best in his new book when he writes, “Now is your time to take full advantage of this low-cost (often no-cost), global, and local opportunity” (Jeffrey Gitomer, Social BOOM!).
Buy Social BOOM! on Amazon TODAY. If you buy the book today, you’ll automatically win a number of amazing bonus offers—everything from downloadable e-books, white papers, articles and videos, to reports, and chapters of best selling books—all you have to do is send your Amazon receipt to Jeffrey Gitomer himself at socialboom@gitomer.com.
As the owner of a growing social media agency we are constantly looking for new talent to bring into our company. From Social Media Project Managers to Sales Consultants, we’ve been interviewing and hiring new people over the past year and have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Here are three things you can do to “stand out from the rest” and land your dream social media job with a company or with a social media agency:
Be Social Media “Ready”
If you aren’t already on Facebook, Tweeting daily, blogging (or have blogged) and networking on LinkedIn, don’t even think of applying. You aren’t ready to help others when you haven’t taken the time to help yourself use the tools. Demonstrable knowledge that you know how to use social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr, Foursquare, and others is the first thing an employer will be evaluating.
Throw Away the Resume
A resume is a document with your objectives, your work history and your career highlights. Blah, blah, blah. At the very least - your LinkedIn profile is sufficient as an “online resume” for an employer. But LinkedIn is much more than this. Click here to learn more ways to enhance your LinkedIn profile and impress your prospective employer.
The most impressive resume I’ve received as a hiring manager is when a young lady sent me her Twitter, which was her substitute for her resume. Each tweet in her twitter stream represented a piece of information that normally would be on a resume. The tweets contained hashtags and links in most of the tweets allowing me to look further into what she was referencing. It was genius. It stood out from the rest. It made her a front runner as a candidate. Here are some other ideas:
1. Set up a Facebook “Page” just for you, showcasing everything you’d have on your resume as posts and links. Add photos. Employers are going to look you up on Facebook anyway – make it easy for them and show them that you know what you are doing at the same time.
2. Set up a YouTube channel with video tutorials of you showing off your knowledge.
3. Set up a VYou.com channel for yourself answering the most common questions that hiring managers might ask you. Hint: Ask yourself some anonymous questions to get it started so you have some Q&A for employers to view.
Help a Business for No Charge
Don’t have any experience in a social media position? Get some. It’s easy, call up a small business and offer to help them with their social media for free for 2-3 months for no charge. Help them get set up correctly and optimize Facebook. Help them get a head start on Twitter by tweeting for them and training them how to do it for themselves in the meantime. Help them get set up on Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare (if applicable), Flickr, YouTube. Set up a blog for them on WordPress.com (or WordPress.org). A social media company doesn’t just want to see that you understand social media for yourself, but that you have real-world experience helping out a business or an organization.
By doing one or all three of the above, you’ll be WAY ahead of most, even someone with more experience. But always remember, it’s easy to train someone to learn the different social media platforms. It’s not as easy to train a good attitude. I was once in a Tom Peters seminar and he said, “Hire for Attitude, Train for Skill.” He was right. Without the right “can-do” attitude, most companies (not just social media) won’t even consider you. So figure out how to focus on the brighter side of life!
For more job search secrets, we also recommend Harvey Mackay’s new book and New York Times bestseller, Use Your Head to Get Your Foot in the Door: Job Search Secrets No One Else Will Tell You.
Do you have other suggestions? Ideas? Questions and comments are welcomed!
One Social Media is a company that not only encourages creativity but requires it from its employees. I’ve learned, every post, every image, every link should be connected with some creative process.
Creative Posting
This is probably where creativity is most important and where it is also extremely under valued. The content you post does need to be valuable. You can do this many ways but ideally you are looking for something entertaining, applicable, or educational. Anyone can search the internet for articles, blogs, videos, or images that can somehow relate to a company or brand, and post it all over the social media world. when people see these posts they think, “That makes sense.” A creative poster will be doing the same exact thing but the people who see their posts will be thinking, “That is awesome!” (or some variation of that). The difference is that the person using their creative thinking powers, is looking for content that doesn’t necessarily make sense, or isn’t the obvious choice, but is still valuable to the reader.
Creative Visuals
Visual stimulus is in high demand for many reasons. There is so much text floating around the internet that people tend to overlook anything they aren’t looking for. Be creative in associating your content with an image. There is most likely an image for any thought you have, if you can’t find one take the time to make one. Again creativity is key, because the right image is often all you need to inspire conversation, and that is the beauty of social media.
Creative Campaigns
A creative campaign can be considered a contest, a themed series of posting, or a reoccurring event. I have been working on a series of images similar to the one you see here. We post them on our client’s page once a week, with the intention of putting them out there for the world to interact with. The original idea was probably something like “What would it look like if Batman was reading this book?”, and I most likely came up with this idea while I was supposed to be focussed on something important our CEO was tasking me with. I obviously ended up reworking the idea and creating something that brought about the most active conversations on the page.
Any idea you have can be useful.
What really matters is how you use your idea to reach a goal. In this case I just wanted to give fans something different to talk about and interact with and that is exactly what it does. It sparks conversation and keeps people curiously thinking, “What’s coming next?”
I love my job because I am encouraged to eat, sleep, and breathe creativity. As I wander the world of social media on a daily basis I see a lot of social media marketers who have the right idea, but aren’t allowing themselves any room for creativity.
There are a million great ideas running through your head every day, you just have to let them develop before you shoot them down.
Our social media webinars cover a wide range of topics sure to help your marketing team get better results using social media marketing best practices. Visit the webinar page to sign up for any upcoming webinars put on by one of our social media strategists.
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“It is a pleasure working with the team! Your insight and strategy have truly helped put us ahead of the game. I appreciate your creativity, efforts, and wonderful positive energy…” –
Terri Sjodin, Author of the New York Times bestselling book, Small Message, Big Impact: How to Put the Power of the Elevator Speech Effect to Work for You
