Social Media For Suits

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Need your feedback on what you would like to see more of on this blog.

We will continue to focus on senior level uses and impact of social media for organisation and companies, we're just keen to give you the opportunity to guide the content.

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Poll ends 15th May 2010.

You know this fantastic U2 track, right? The one which goes:

And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give, and you give
And you give yourself away

With or without you…

Well that’s social media.

To make it work you have to give stuff away.

What seems counter-intuitive is now a positive move to share with your community the development of a new product line (to build up momentum before the launch); engage your audience in the process of crafting what you serve (and by doing so create a built-in check-and-review focus group); develop relationships with existing clients by detailing industry insights in thought-provoking and engaging ways (another words, not just white papers but dynamic media such as digital stories, video, virtual timelines etc).

Plus, it's happening now.

With or without you.

It's up to you to get involved.

Over a series of posts, I’ll be looking at some of the most common responses we face regarding concerns, questions and fears from CEOs and Senior Executives about using social media. Covering topics such as ‘Time’, ‘Controlling Conversation’, ‘Security’, ‘Branding’ and ‘The Corporate Image’.

Lets kick off with the big one, time. Clients are always happy to hear that social media is free, but never keen to hear that it will need a lot of time investment. There’s no getting away from the fact that social media is as much about ‘social’ as it is the ‘media’.

2009 figures from EMarketer research informs us that 25% of individuals saw time as their biggest barrier.

So what can you do?

Internal Use

Firstly we recommend using everyone in the company to get social on your behalf. Build it in to their day, set some targets and you’ll soon start to see your brand grow through your web statistics. Every department can help. Introduce it to IT, Legal, Finance, Human Resources, Research, and Reception. All involved should be able to search and receive searches based on the specifics of their job descriptions and share the load of creating and monitoring the online conversation.
Read more…

Have you ever questioned the benefit and/or value of blogging your businesses/organisations activities?

Check out two marketing and business changemakers, Seth Godin and Tom Peters explain why it's such a powerful medium…

Many organisations and companies spend a lot of money on people to manage their IT needs. Whether you outsource or have an in-house department, ask yourself : are they really doing their job?

IT exist to do two things :

• protect—they do this rather well
• enable—they do this rather badly

Imagine if your IT department facilitated internal workshops on a regular basis, with a focus on enabling you and your team to explore the latest online offerings and tools. In turn you acquire new skills to connect directly with your customer / clients / audiences, collaborate better, and save money.

When we deliver our training through our little sister company MediaSnackers, we're constantly running into the constraints of IT policies or uninformed IT officers who see social media as a threat to the controls they administer, when really they should embrace the opportunity to become change agents and leaders in your organisation / company.

So, at the next quarterly IT review or monthly meeting, take another glance at the image above and ask yourself what type of IT department you want to pay for…

Image credit to Gapingvoid

(WORLD) The MediaSnackers podcast focusses on individuals, organisations or companies who are simply impressing us and which are crying out for more discussion.

Jeffrey Hayzlett is Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of Kodak, discussing how they utilise social media in their operations.

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0.00—0.32 intro
0.33—1.03 how does social media fit in with the marketing plans of Kodak
1.04—2.09 shift of approach from traditional to digital
2.10—3.03 benefits of narrowcast vs broadcast
3.04—4.29 social media killed B2B
4.30—6.45 internal use of social media
6.46—8.26 examples of results relating to social media use
8.27—9.03 outsourcing social media
9.04—10.03 future
10.04—10.16 outro

Subscribe directly through iTunes by clicking on this icon (download iTunes for free here).

Not using iTunes? Then just copy / paste this feed and drop it into your aggregating software.

Want to suggest someone or put your virtual hand-up to be interviewed? Then get in touch here.

Devour our other podcasts.

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Are you?

(WORLD) The MediaSnackers podcast focusses on individuals, organisations or companies who are simply impressing us and which are crying out for more discussion.

Heather Oldani is the Director of PR for McDonalds (USA) and colead on their digital strategy.

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0.00—0.46 intro
0.47—3.07 the digital strategy
3.08—5.30 monitoring the brand online and how do they react to it
5.31—9.12 examples of engagement
9.13—11.45 priorities relating to internal adoption
11.46—13.41 future plans
13.42—13.53 outro

Subscribe directly through iTunes by clicking on this icon (download iTunes for free here).

Not using iTunes? Then just copy / paste this feed and drop it into your aggregating software.

Want to suggest someone or put your virtual hand-up to be interviewed? Then get in touch here.

Devour our other podcasts.

Read more…

(WORLD) A week ago, I caught a tweet by Internet Psychologist @grahamjones about the first ‘babble’ article on Mashable —the basics of the article was stating that 40% of tweets are about pointless babble. The article even goes so far as to say that it’s as close to a scientific study as we’ve currently got.

I see these articles and think ‘duh’, without banality and drivel, we would have no friends—its the conversational ‘glue’ we need to hold friendships together. I couldn’t help but try and test the water about my own knowledge (absent of any science and statistical analysis) and pose the thought that ‘babble’ = ‘value’:

Thankfully, I’m not talking twaddle and other people agree with me.
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