5 Social Media Headlines which Grabbed My Attention

Social Media evolves and changes constantly. It's so hard to keep up to date on the latest trends and happenings world wide on social media.


So here's the latest information which grabbed my attention:

1. Twitter will be rolling out ads for small businesses -in USA http://blog.twitter.com/2012/02/coming-soon-twitter-advertising-for.html

2. Facebook is going to be releasing timeline for Facebook business pages - http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-release-timeline-brands-month/232760/

3. Men are from Foursquare and women are from Facebook!
The research covers users in the UK, France,Germany, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands -http://www.slideshare.net/PNLondon/men-are-from-foursquare-women-are-from-facebook

4.  Social Media Studies, mainly looking at US brands - http://mygoodbuzz.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/coca-cola-is-hosting-hangout-on-google.html

5. Australia's top Facebook pages - http://wearesocial.com.au/blog/2012/02/09/facebook-brands-australia-infographic/ 

For more up to date info, lessons, case studies, changes and trends read:

 - Social Media Examiner - http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/

 - Mashable - http://mashable.com/

source: http://chelseanewton.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/thursday-news-day-social-media.html

Pinterest.com - a rapidly growing visual content site!

If you haven't joined Pinterest.com - here is a breakdown on everything you need to know about this rapidly growing site - http://www.blueglass.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-pinterest/. 

It's a great site for visual content and for all your work/interests/ to be seen, build brand advocacy, create interesting boards and share to other social media sites. 

It's also a great site to find inspiration, tips and ideas. There are quotes, clothes, home decor, locations, tutorials, infographics as well as delicious cupcakes and cakes for you to drool over. It's extremely visual and you can search for anything and everything.  

Often when you click on a pin, it leads you to a site you have never seen before - this is a huge advantage for marketing your business or blog.

It's also easy to use, people can like,comment on, repin or share your pins, so it's a great site for start ups, bloggers, people who work from home and small businesses.

For creative companies like designers, architects, bloggers, cooks, chefs, moms, illustrators, artists, musicians - this is a great site to share your work.

And if you're curious top designers and musicians are starting to use the site as well - so there is a branding advantage for businesses and individuals.

Michael Kors is an early user and his boards are divided up between his work and his interests - http://pinterest.com/michaelkors/ - it will be very interesting to see how people make use of this site!

Here's a Pinterest Guide for beginners from Mashable - http://mashable.com/2011/12/26/pinterest-beginners-guide/

And for people like me who love quotes, reading books and infographics - http://pinterest.com/ebbye/ - I am using it to pin info about social media and business - I spend a great deal of time online researching and searching for content to train my clients and this site is a source of inspiration for me!

Are you on Pinterest.com yet? I'd love to know what you think of this site?

One of my pins today http://pinterest.com/pin/76631631129250424/

The Top Twenty Social Media Blogs Finalists

2012 is the 3rd year for Social Media Examiner to pick up 10 social media blogs among all nominations. The top 10 blogs will be announced in its newsletter and also on their blog. 

Here are the 20 finalists with a brief introduction (in alphabetical order) - written by Kate - thanks to http://evanhugh.com/2012/01/22/the-top-10-social-media-blogs-in-2012/

1. Bundle Post: It is founded by Robert M. Caruso with passion in tech and social media. It takes the first step to automate and schedule the social media contents in one place.
2. Digital Brand Marketing Education: It holds continuing learning philosophy to educate empowered professionals in using digital to brand and market their businesses.
3. Heidi Cohen: She brings you into the world of digital and direct marketing through her established experiences so that readers can easily apply to their current social situation.
4. Hubze: Social media marketers and lovers share how to start the social media engine to engage with customers and manage social media accounts like an elite.
5. inBlurbs: It shows you how to get found on the Internet and convert the traffic into physical customers to bring up your own brand and prospects.
6. Inbound Marketing Spot: It belongs to Trust eMedia and provides inbound marketing strategies to build a loyal social media community to support brands and businesses.
7. Jeff Korhan: He is an inspiring speaker who can help and present the closer connection between social media and small businesses to grow through Internet and social media.
8. Jeff Bullas: The blog, which is being ranked #87 in AdAge Power 150, offers public some useful hints and advices on how to make advantage of social media tools.
9. Likeable Media: It purposes on leveraging social media to build up marketing castle that supports brand, value and services.
10. Marketing Tech blog: There are media marketing experts to analysis the current development and provide technology and marketing tips for social marketers.
11. Media First: A blog from a public relations agency to help clients to win new market share and grow revenues and profits with unique marketing tactics.
12. Media Tapper: The purpose is to discuss day-to-day developments in the social and online media world and share the piece of information globally.
13. My Social Agency: Provide a series of expert advices and solutions in social media management to keep in touch with the current racing world pace.
14. Pushing Social: It tells you to do what to publicize and market around through Stanford Smith’s words. He is an online marketing strategist who loves amplifying social tools.
15. Sales Lion: Read “Why Subscribe” in its site and realize that it is an experience sharing and writing to help people who are involved in sales hardcore and marketing mistakes.
16. Social Mouths: “I help people be successful online” brings readers to meet Francisco Rosales who determines to help every potential reader creating their brand and expertise.
17. Social Strand Media: Provide marketing solutions, from social media to marketing campaigns, at free consultation to accelerate your brand beyond the borders.
18. Spiderworking: Teaching small to medium business how to promote brand and drag online traffic using social media, Amamda Webb shares her knowledge after her first business, Feelgood Organic Hampers.
19. Splash Media: Contains opinion and analysis from a group of social media, marketing and video professionals. Specifically tailor solution and monitor progress for their clients.
20. ViralBlog: Ranked #71 in the AdAge Power 150 as well as collects the daily viral and social media cases over the global, in order to inspire people and create the best social strategies.

All these blogs provide businesses up to date  information regarding social media, case studies, success stories and great marketing tips.

I love reading  weekly mashups from We are Social  - http://wearesocial.net/blog/2012/01/we-are-socials-monday-mashup-103/ and Jeffrey Thomas's weekly EdTech Resources Treasure Chest - http://jeffthomastech.com/blog/?p=11829

Alltop covers news from everywhere about social media - http://social-media.alltop.com/ - so this is another great resource to use, share and provide you with inspiration to write your own blog posts, Tweets and updates.

Social Media keeps growing, so it means we have to keep learning! So there has to be a lot reading, reviewing, researching and staying up to date.

A Short History of Social Media

Here's a short history of social media with the launch of  SixDegrees.com in 1997, Blogger in 1999, Friendster in 2002, Myspace in 2003, Facebook in 2004 and Twitter in 2006. 

The pdf highlights key events which occurred from 1978 until 2011.

source: http://socialtimes.com/short-history-of-social-media_b76075

My Best of 2011

My 2011, and a little of the best - focusing on social media and learning:

1. The most popular Google videos this year - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-were-we-watching-this-year-lets.html

2. Google's top search terms this year - http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/google-announces-top-search-terms-of-2011

3. Mashable's Awards (5th)  - winners announced (social media, entertainment, business, technology)  - http://mashable.com/2011/12/19/mashable-awards-winners/

4. Person of the year Time Magazine - The Protester - http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102132_2102373,00.html

5.  My best book of the year - I'm Feeling Lucky  - The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 - Douglas Edwards - although technically not a marketing or a business how to book, I'd give this to anyone wanting to learn about business -it's an incredible and insightful book about Google.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1766361/im-feeling-lucky-google-employee-number-59-tells-all

6. Amazon's Best Books of the Year (so far) - http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&plgroup=1&docId=1000698051 
- read, read, read!

7. My best social media/marketing blog - We Are Social http://wearesocial.net/ -

it's mainly info about the UK, I think their Mashups are extremely valuable!

8. Ad Age's Best Social, Media Campaigns this year (UK) - http://adage.com/article/special-report-book-of-tens-2011/ad-age-s-book-tens-social-media-campaigns/231498/

9. My best ad of the year (funny and brilliant) -  by New Zealand's Transport Agency http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIYvD9DI1ZA -  

if you love ads (or work in advertising) - Best ads (interactive, TV, print and outdoor) week by week - http://www.bestadsontv.com/
(a fantastic resource)

10. My best Facebook community page - Toby the Wonderdog -  https://www.facebook.com/drkatrinawarren - where pet owners come and share their pet stories.

12. 5 Twitter people I admire and learnt from this year (trust me I have zillions!):

Kerri Sackville - https://twitter.com/#!/KerriSackville

NZJayZee - https://twitter.com/#!/nzJayZee

Pam Moore - https://twitter.com/#!/PamMktgNut

Servant of Chaos - https://twitter.com/#!/servantofchaos

JoJoebi Designs - https://twitter.com/#!/jojoebi

13. and lucky last - my best two free eBook providers (just need to give some details and download)

BuddyMedia - whitepapers - http://buddymedia.com/resources/white-papers

Hubspot - whitepapers and eBooks - http://www.hubspot.com/internet-marketing-whitepapers/

14. Bonus! Here's a free eBook library - focusing on marketing - http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/products_ebooks.htm

15. And if any of you are looking for blogs/bloggers  - (or just to learn and connect) here's The Best Australian Blogs 2011 winners (and others) a competition run by the Sydney Writer's Centre http://www.sydneywriterscentre.com.au/bloggingcomp/enter.html

Social Status will be open over the holiday season, so if you need anything (training, tips or advice), give me a call, Tweet, email, comment on Facebook or even arrange to meet me for a coffee (gasp!)

Wishing you all a very happy holiday and for those of you finishing work this week - a wonderful new year!

5 social media resources on tools and advice

Chris Brogan said ” There are lots of people throwing “social media expert” out there. Hell, I had it as part of my “about” on my blog, but I’ve chosen to just say that I advise people. It’s more accurate, because expertise is fairly darned fleeting out there right now.”

Here are 5 resources I have come across, with advice, tools, suggestions and tips - to help you with your social media.

1. 12 Best Social Media Tools You Should Be Using  - try out some of these tools - John Paul advises that you "Find a few you like and work for you and learn to use that tool perfectly to get the best results."

2. Want to be successful on social media? - Listen to your mother - all the advice given to Michelle Shaeffer and how she  believes it applies to social media.

3. Passion and honesty in your writing will help you build a relationship with your community - so radian6 encourages you to Write passion into your social media content 

 4.  Social Rabbit believes that owning a dog and using social media have more in common than you may have realised - 6 things dogs and social media have in common 

5. Is your business ready for social media next year? - here are some templates from business.gov.au to help you plan and give your business direction.

7 ways to prevent Social Media Fails

There are many ways that a campaign, account, video, update, link, article, post, advert, small business or company can experience a social media #fail online.

Here are 7 approaches to help you and hopefully prevent your brand or business from experiencing a social media fail:

1. Social Media should be considered holistic. 

When setting up accounts/profiles, your social media should be consistent and in alignment with your business/company's policies and practices. 

Social media combines advertising, marketing, PR, writing, customer service and communications - approaching social media hoistically will be extremely rewarding.

2. Develop a 3/4 month social media marketing plan, this can be amended and adjusted accordingly. A plan throughout the year will help to set up your smm (social media marketing) strategy:

 -what is your message?

-what is your aim?

-who is your target market?

-what are your strategies?

-how much are you planning to spend on marketing and advertising (month by month)?

-which social media accounts and platforms you are going to use for your business and why?

-who is responsible for each account? 

-are you going to have an employee schedule?

-how will you monitor each account (or who)?

-what to focus on each month?

-do you have tech support?

-are you going to outsource,writers, designers, PR companies

I signed up for free and received marketing templates from VATrainingOnline, to start planning for 2012 - they are free, colourful and easy to use and share.

3. Every person, business and company should have a social media policy in place. The Department of Justice, Victoria has designed a policy and a video for their employees. 

A policy defines your code of conduct, your business practices, your responsibilities. 

You can protect your business and brand. 

Here is a free policy template that you can use to develop one of your own. 

Ideally, employees should read and sign the policy before using social media which represents their workplaces.

4. PR issues need to be discussed. 

Whether you hire a PR agency or you look at PR practices, knowing how to handle any crisis, having a crisis policy into place and knowing exactly how to act and deal with  a 'failure' will be extremely beneficial. 

Here are 10 steps to help recover from a 'fail'. 

Ogilvy has set up a slideshare on crisis management - don't overreact see a crisis as an opportunity.

5. Customer service, responding and monitoring is an essential part of social media. 

In fact, I think that customer service and social media go hand in hand.
People often use social media accounts to complain publicly and expect teams to handle them quickly and well. 

Most businesses/corporations need to align their customer service teams in the same way they handle email, telephone and written complaints and customer service training on social media should be an essential part of business practices.

Address the following:

Who will be handling enquiries and complaints?

What action will you take over weekends? 

Have you set up a feedback email or a number for complaints?

Have you set up alerts and notifications, so you can handle customer feedback in a reasonable time?

Here are 9 top brands who are embracing social customer care

Here are 26 tips to add and implement customer service as part of your social media strategy.

6. Look at and learn from #fails online.
Read up about social media fails and take the oppurtunity to learn from them to:
Listen to people online.

Set up alerts and notifications.
Monitor your accounts.
Track your brand and business online.
Respond to questions, feedback, complaints and enquiries (within reason).
Understand the terms and conditions of each social media account.

7. Consider research as an essential part of your social media.

Read blogs, forums, reviews and if you can, thank people for their positivity (via email).

Build advocates around your business and your brand. 

Take time to read about your industry and be aware of what is happening in your industry, this will benefit your content, your understanding, your expertise and ensure that you know exactly what is happening day by day online.
Set up RSS feeds, read articles and blog posts.
Track your industry and watch what is happening on Twitter.