Socialissimo

The Future of Work 2.0 Tom Malone, professor at the MIT Sloan...

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 16:39:04 +0700

The Future of Work 2.0

Tom Malone, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of the HBR article The Age of Hyperspecialization, explains why breaking jobs into tiny pieces yields better, faster, cheaper work—and greater flexibility for employees.

Inside The Lives of Social Networking Site Users

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 12:07:52 +0700

Inside The Lives of Social Networking Site Users

How do you recruit the best talent?

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 12:05:20 +0700

How do you recruit the best talent?:

Robert Scoble’s thought on recruiting the best talent

6 Daily Habits for Facebook Marketing Success

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 11:55:12 +0700

6 Daily Habits for Facebook Marketing Success:

Do you feel overwhelmed by Facebook? Wouldn’t it be nice to know specific daily actions you can take to get real results on your Facebook page?

You’ve come to the right place.

Facebook marketing, when done right, is an extremely powerful tool. It can increase your leads, attract highly targeted prospects and position you as a sought-after industry leader.

To reap these business-building benefits, the key is to develop daily habits.

The following list of six daily habits will keep you focused on what really matters when it comes to Facebook marketing: real fan engagement.

Refer back to these habits often to keep yourself on track as you work to create a vibrant community of raving fans who’ll happily spread the word about you and your products and services.

#1: Become addicted to solving problems

When you regularly solve problems and answer questions for your fans, you not only foster trust, but you also set yourself up as the go-to expert in your niche.

A surefire way to create engagement on your Facebook page is to regularly offer your expertise and insight. One great example of a master problem-solver is Facebook expert Mari Smith. Mari encourages her fans to ask questions on her Facebook page. Because she is quick to respond with valuable responses, she’s turned many Facebook fans into loyal followers and customers.

But she doesn’t stop there. Mari takes her support a step further by providing a resource center directly on her Facebook page. She continually keeps this resource link up to date and full of valuable information. As you can see in the image below, Mari has set up multiple info tabs including Changes, How To and Rules & Safety, all related to Facebook marketing.

By providing a resource center for her fans, Mari Smith is seen as the Facebook go-to source by tens of thousands of fans.

Take Action: Make it your mission to be the go-to source for your Facebook fans. What information related to your niche do your fans, prospects and clients want to know? To set yourself apart from your competition and keep your fans coming back for more, create a resource page as a custom link on your Facebook page. By doing so, you can provide updated, useful content to your growing audience on an ongoing basis.

#2: Talk to individual fans daily

I make it a habit to comment on other people’s posts 3-5 times each day. I do this because these comments are the real conversations that build relationships.

Taking a minute to comment on a fan’s vacation photos or adding my two cents to a peer’s recently posted video is my way of letting my fans and peers know that I genuinely am interested in what they are talking about online.

To check out what your fans are posting on their own pages or profiles, first check out which fans are posting on your page. When fans post on your page, you can click on their avatars and you will be taken to either their pages or profiles, depending on how your fans have posted on your page. You can then post on their pages (or if you are also a friend via their profiles, you can post on their profiles as well).

Here’s an example of me posting on a fan’s page, Life In Motion Chiropractic:

When you post on your fans’ Facebook pages, it shows that you have a genuine interest in them.

Here are a few tips when commenting on fans’ posts:

Use first names. When your fans know you are paying attention to them, they are much more likely to speak up and tell you what’s on their mind. Knowing what your fans are thinking is invaluable!
Be yourself. Talk to others in the same style you would talk to a friend over dinner. Before you click send, read your post and make sure it really sounds like you.
Be brief. If your post is too long, it will be overlooked easily. To get more people reading your post, get to the point faster.

Take Action:Make it a habit to spend at least 10 minutes a day reading posts from your fans and peers and leaving insightful comments on their profiles and pages. By stepping outside of your own Facebook page, and spending time on other pages and profiles, you let your fans and peers know that you truly do care about them.

#3: Track your Facebook activity

Although it may not be the most exciting task of your day, taking the time to check your Facebook activity is essential to growing your fan base and keeping your momentum going.

If you’re just starting out with tracking your activity and looking for a quick list of key metrics to track, consider tracking the following metrics on a weekly basis:

# of total fans
# of new Fans
Fan growth from prior week
# of unlikes
# of weekly Actives
Actives growth from prior week

You can find these metrics by checking out your Facebook Insights on your page. To get to your Insights, just go to your Facebook page and click “Edit Page” in the upper-right corner. From there you will see a list of links in the left column. You can click on “Insights” to get your page metrics.

Here’s a snapshot from Facebook Insights of my page’s metrics.

One other tracking tool that is extremely useful is EdgeRankChecker. This is an online tool that scores your overall page engagement activity. I use this tool to help me identify what score Facebook is likely giving my page in terms of EdgeRank. (Note: No-one knows the exact formula Facebook uses to assign an EdgeRank score; however, this tool is useful.)

The higher your EdgeRank score, the more likely it is to be visible on a fan’s Top News Feed.

As seen in the screenshot below (for Outside the Cubicle), the tool also identifies the days of the week when you get the most engagement and the days when you have the least activity on your page. This is valuable information as you decide when to launch new promotions and post valuable content.

In the screenshot above, you can see the Facebook page received a high engagement score of 15.

Take Action: Create a Google Doc and track your Facebook activity on a weekly basis. By tracking your weekly metrics, you will soon see what’s working and what you might need to tweak, depending on the high and low metrics in your tracking document.

#4: Change what’s not working and move on

When it comes to tracking your social media marketing activity, there’s a fine line between having patience and making changes when you’re not getting the results you’re after.

The key is to set a realistic goal and clearly identify its benchmarks and the length of time you are going to allow to get the desired results. If the time comes that you don’t reach your desired outcome, tweak your activity right away. The longer you wait, the more damage you’ll do.

For example, let’s say that for the past 30 days you’ve been asking questions a few times a week on your Facebook page and only two or three fans are leaving responses each time you post a new question. There could be a few different reasons for your low response rate. You might be asking questions that are not of interest to your fans. To fix this, you really want to pay attention to what grabs their attention and what topics your fans talk about the most.

Or perhaps your questions are too difficult or too time-consuming to answer. People move fast on Facebook and tend not to spend too much time in one place. There’s actually an art to asking questions on Facebook. The key is to ask questions that require little effort to answer. Questions that require just one-word responses tend to get the most engagement. Watch this short video to learn more about the art of asking questions on Facebook.

Overall, the important thing to remember is that when something isn’t working, don’t dwell on it. Change it and move on!

Take Action: Have you been procrastinating on making some necessary changes to your Facebook marketing strategy? Take the time to make the changes to ensure your page continues to grow and increase its engagement activity.

#5: Post fresh content

To get the most reach from your content, make sure that your content educates, entertains and empowers your fans. This will pique their interest and keep them coming back for more.

Also, publish everything you have in as many places as possible. What this means is that you want to get your content online, and you want it to be seen by as many potential prospects as possible. While Facebook is extremely powerful, don’t forget to spread your content out and use Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and of course, your blog.

You can also monitor what others are publishing. If you see something that would be valuable to your audience, publish that content (and make sure to give them credit for it!). Third-party publishing is a great way to continue to add value for your fans without having to create all the content.

To help you consistently publish content, I suggest that you create an editorial calendar. It might sound daunting, but it’s actually very simple. Here’s how you do it:

Create a six-month digital calendar. You can do this in Word or you can find digital calendars online. One of my favorite digital calendar sites is http://www.calendarsthatwork.com.
Decide how often you want to create content and in what form. Consider creating blog posts, video posts, articles, reports, podcasts or any other form of media you know your audience will like. Mix it up and deliver your content in many different formats to attract a wider reach of ideal clients.
Brainstorm content ideas related to your brand or niche. Again, think of what interests your clients the most. (Hint: Check out your competition’s content. This will help you decide what might be best for your audience.)
Create a calendar of content. Choose the specific dates you plan to post and list the topic of the content and the type of delivery. For example, in my own content calendar months ago, I added the following for a day in July: Blog post and Facebook update on “6 Daily Habits for Facebook Marketing Success.” It’s as easy as that!

Take Action: Stay diligent with your content calendar. After you create it, stick with it. The more disciplined you are in sticking to your content calendar, the more traction you will see with your audience.

#6: Spread the love

The old saying, “Give and you shall receive” is one of social media’s golden rules. By sharing other people’s valuable blog posts, useful articles, entertaining videos and other content, your audience will repay you tenfold.

Make sure to share the content from the influencers in your industry. This will help you build relationships with them and possibly create partnerships with them in the future.

But remember to also acknowledge your fans who consistently produce great blog posts. They may not be well-known experts (yet!), but it’s important to share their great content as well. You can create a fan for life if you take the time to share their great work with others.

Mike Stelzner says it best in his recent book, Launch. He writes, “Every time you share a great link to some relevant content, you’re giving two gifts: one to your base and the other to the person or company that created the content.”

Social Media Examiner is well-known for spreading the love on their Facebook page. Here they promote a great blog post from the popular site, Social Media Explorer.

Take Action: On a weekly basis, take the time to identify great third-party content and share it with your Facebook community. This goodwill gesture will go a long way with your fans and peers.

(sources)

The Power of Love- 350,000 Post Its A Brazilian shoe company...

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:35:46 +0700

The Power of Love- 350,000 Post Its

A Brazilian shoe company Melissa has created a really cool social marketing campaign which has taken 25 animators 5 months to create using 350,000 coloured Post Its to celebrate the launch of their new store in San Paolo. Over 30,000 spectators wrote love messages on the paper notes and fan videos where also uploaded on YouTube. Watch the magic here.

100 Most Powerful Venture Capitalists

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:14:03 +0700

100 Most Powerful Venture Capitalists:

Much has changed in two years, when Forbes last published its list of top venture capitalists. Secondary markets surfaced. Founders dragged their feet to exit. Fresh competition emerged abroad and from a new flock of angel investors. Firms shrank and returns declined. These 100 investors buck those trends, create wealth and fund the new ideas that keep our economy vibrant. Click here for the list

Nice timing: Facebook debuts “Facebook for Business”

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:47:12 +0700

Nice timing: Facebook debuts “Facebook for Business”:

Facebook on Tuesday debuted a step-by-step online guide aimed at helping small businesses use the social networking site. The company is billing the new webpage, found at Facebook.com/business, as an “online education center” that gives directions on such things as how to set up a profile page, create targeted ads and deals, and interact with customer feedback online. Read more…

20 Topic Ideas for Your Small Business Blog

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 12:55:00 +0700

20 Topic Ideas for Your Small Business Blog:

So you’ve bought into the idea of creating a blog to help promote your brand and bring traffic to your small business. Awesome! But now you’re three months in, and already you’re struggling for blog ideas. (Don’t worry. It happens to many, many bloggers and business owners. You’re not alone.)

Here are just a few blog post ideas to get you thinking.

How We’re Using Google Plus

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 09:58:20 +0700

How We’re Using Google Plus:

You’ve no doubt heard at least a few things about Google Plus, Google’s new Social Network. If you’re one of the lucky 20 million, you have already have your account setup and you’re beginning to explore Google Plus wondering if it’s something that will become part of your daily life.

I’m not going to bother venturing into the discussion of ‘Will Google Plus Kill Facebook?” Why would I waste my time wondering that when I could be getting ahead of the game and start using it for what it’s going to be good at?

Here’s the good stuff I’ll be using Google+ for.

So what kind of user are you?

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 11:05:11 +0700

So what kind of user are you?

68% of internet users engage with a TV show online

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:57:37 +0700

68% of internet users engage with a TV show online:

Social media is bringing dramatic changes to nearly every aspect of the TV business. Viewers are using Facebook and Twitter to comment about shows before, during and after they air. Television networks, grappling with the fragmentation of their audience, are experimenting with mobile apps, Twitter promotions and branded social networks in an effort to bring viewers back together. And a variety of other stakeholders are getting in on the social action as well. Check out the rest of article + stats here

How Social Media 'Friends' Translate Into Real-Life Friendships

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:55:09 +0700

How Social Media 'Friends' Translate Into Real-Life Friendships:

When social media first gained attention, I heard many people scoff that these online connections couldn’t possibly be real friends. Some even used “Facebook friend” as a synonym for shallowness, fearing people might trade face-to-face interaction for a virtual life online.

But many years, re-tweets, meet-ups, event invitations and birthday wishes later, the majority of the people I know now consider at least some of their online friends to be extended family. Which made me wonder — does social media actually encourage people to connect IRL, or “in real life”? Read more…

6 Ways to Socially Reward Your Customers

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:50:37 +0700

Looking to build your customer base and keep people coming back for more?

The answer is to reward your customers.Want to know how? Keep reading…

~> read full article on socialmediaexaminer.com

10 case studies that prove the ROI of social media

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:46:21 +0700

10 case studies that prove the ROI of social media:

The question of whether or not social media drives ROI still plagues many marketers and brands. The issue is not always as straightforward as it seems, as there are multiple ways to measure the benefits of social media and it isn’t as simple as looking for a direct sales return at one end, with the social media imput at the other. Smart tracking and measuring is needed to fully capture the benefit of a social media campaign and while looking for direct ROI is one way to do it, there are other values to be measure from social media marketing. I’ve put together a list of case studies that prove the ROI of social media, both through direct monetary return, customer loyalty, repeat traffic and more. Viewing social media holistically to gain a better understanding of how it can work for you is more beneficial to any brand than looking for one single return. Remember that social media marketing is not the same as online advertising ; it’s not necessarily something that can be switched on and off to directly produce revenue. Read more…

Internet Trolling

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:38:11 +0700

Internet Trolling:

via slodive.com

In Internet lingo, a troll is someone who posts rude, seditious, offensive, or off-topic messages all over the web, such as blogs, social networking sites, news, chat rooms & discussion forums, with the primary objective of disrupting otherwise normal discussion…

Think Before You Click The GMA News & Public Affairs...

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:35:28 +0700

Think Before You Click

The GMA News & Public Affairs Campaign for Responsible use of Social Media.

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/226458/entertainment/ang-think-before-you-click-campaign-ng-gma-network

CHART OF THE DAY: Android Is Blowing Everyone Away Android’s...

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 21:19:41 +0700

CHART OF THE DAY: Android Is Blowing Everyone Away

Android’s share of the smartphone market is still blowing away all competitors in the U.S. according to new data from comScore. The only company that’s hanging on is Apple, which saw its share of the market tick up ever so slightly
.

Full Story: Business Insider

Everything is dead but Apple and Google’s Android. That’s the near future.

Main Differences between Facebook and Google+

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 20:42:46 +0700

Main Differences between Facebook and Google+

Two-thirds of over 50s don’t go online in Singapore

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 18:44:33 +0700

Two-thirds of over 50s don’t go online in Singapore:

Elderly in Singapore are also online turn out just a myth. An article on Singapore Business Review says:

The connected granny is just a myth.

Singapore has the highest level of Internet penetration in Southeast Asia and Singaporean consumers access the Internet more frequently than consumers in any other market across the SEA region, according to a report by Nielsen.

The report, a pre-release of data from Nielsen’s inaugural Southeast Asia Digital Consumer Report, found that consumption of digital media in Singapore is at record levels. Two thirds of Singapore’s population aged 15+ or 67% now use the Internet, 29 points higher than the SEA regional average of 38 percent.

Internet penetration in Singapore is highest amongst the country’s youth segment with 97% of 15 to 19 year olds online, and tapers off to just 33 percent for Singaporeans aged 50+.

Singapore also exhibits the highest frequency of Internet access across the region – amongst online Singaporeans, 80 percent are accessing the Internet on a daily basis.

Comments Rebecca Tan, Managing Director of Nielsen’s Media division in Singapore, “As digital media continues to grow and become an ingrained and essential part of many consumers’ everyday lives and activities, it is presenting advertisers with an increasing array of opportunities to communicate and interact with consumers. This new study provides a comprehensive view of today’s digital consumers in Singapore, and across Southeast Asia, and forms a benchmark from which future growth and changes in behaviour will be measured.

Nielsen intends to conduct this study on an annual basis to continue to provide our market with valuable metrics to guide and justify their investment decisions in the digital space.”

The pre-released findings provide clear indications that Singaporean digital consumers have a strong motivation to purchase new technologies which make it easier to access digital media anywhere, anytime. Close to one in four digital consumers in Singapore or 23% now have a tablet computer in the household and over two thirds or 70% use a Smartphone.

Tan adds: “While Singaporeans still largely access the Internet via PCs, the growing popularity of connected devices such as the iPhone and iPad and increasing availability of cheaper mobile Internet price plans is paving the way for growth in mobile and tablet Internet usage in the future.”

The study also takes an in-depth look at the way consumers are tapping into social media to inform their purchase decisions and to form relationships with brands. Social media platforms are growing in popularity and 85% of Singaporeans report accessing social media sites, many to connect or engage with brands and companies (69%).

With use of social media and interaction with fellow online consumers increasing, Singaporeans’ trust in consumer opinions posted online is high. Online product reviews and discussion forums are one of the most trusted sources of recommendations in purchase decision making, second only to recommendations from family and friends.

“Social media enables consumers to obtain opinions and information from sources that werepreviously not possible,” observes Tan. “As a result, consumers are flocking to popular socialnetworks to help them make purchase decisions and the platform has become one of the mostinfluential forms of information available.”

11 Things Your Tweeps Don't Need To Know

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:57:59 +0700

11 Things Your Tweeps Don't Need To Know:

Think before you tweet. Twitter is a powerful communication tool used by the likes of protesters, journalists, astronauts and public officials. But…

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