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Posts Tagged ‘LinkedIn’

Twitter and LinkedIn Integration, Good or Bad?

No Comments » Written on December 3rd, 2009 by Brian McDonald
Categories: Social Media, Strategy
Tags: Facebook, LinkedIn, Social Networks

LinkedIn has jumped into the integration fray the past few weeks. Most recently the business network site has integrated with Twitter to allow posting between the two sites. This is a big step for LinkedIn since the status feature of the site was poorly used in the past. Many users rarely updated it and status feeds were stagnant.

Now LinkedIn will allow you to post your status to your Twitter account and vice-versa. Twitter now allows posts with #in or #li hashtags to post to LinkedIn accounts. Users have to verify and allow the permissions, much like the selective Twitter status tool that allows Twitter posts to be posted to Facebook using hashtag #fb. Just for giggles I did a test the other day posting from LinkedIn with the Twitter post enabled and added the #fb hashtag to see if it would populate all the sites. Sure enough it did.

I see both good news and bad news with this upgrade. Good news is that LinkedIn statuses are now being updated more often and therefore more relevant to what’s happening now. Bad news is that more random junk may creep into your LinkedIn page and take away from the core professional and business feel to LinkedIn. I like LinkedIn because it’s focused on business related information; Twitter chatter just mucks it all up.

Also this touches on the subject of what I like to call “cross-pollination” of social networks. Aggregators like FriendFeed and Cliqset allow users to combine all their social network activity into a single stream. But if the stream becomes repetitive in that the same post appears several times is this a good thing? I found the same to be true when using autoposting services like Posterous. My Facebook page would get the same update several times, one from Twitter, one from YouTube, one from Flickr, etc.

Other social network sites are also seeing the value of Twitter integration. Delicious recently added an email and Twitter integration for its bookmarking tools. Users can easily disable the feature by deleting the Twitter address in the “send to” field or marking the bookmark as private. However I have recently created corporate accounts for Delicious for team members to share articles and websites and have to educate the team on what to share and what to keep private. More on that in a future blog post on Delicious.

What do you think about Twitter integration with LinkedIn? Do you think it enhances or takes away from LinkedIn?

TagsFacebook, LinkedIn, Social Networks
Posted in Social Media, Strategy

Deep Fried Mashup and Branded Communities at SMC Triangle

2 comments Written on November 18th, 2009 by Brian McDonald
Categories: Events, Marketing, PR, Social Media, Strategy
Tags: blogging, branding, Facebook, LinkedIn, mashup, media, Raleigh Social Media, Social Networks, Tweetup, Twitter, Web, YouTube

Last week the Triangle Social Media Club had two guest speakers, Karlie Justus (@karliej) and Jason Peck (@jasonpeck). I’ve had the pleasure of meeting both the speakers and interacting with them on Twitter over the past several months. I was glad to see Karlie speak about the NC State Fair since I had been trying to catch up with her to find out how effective social media was in promoting the State Fair. I have written two blog posts about the NC State Fair and Deep Fried Tweetup in the past few weeks so was interested to see how the campaign went for the NC Department of Agriculture (NCDA) that manages the Fair.

The goals of the social media campaign were to reach new audiences as well as reach media in a new way. The campaign started in July of 2008 and ran for a full 16 months. The team began with a new web site design and created a blog that communicated interesting facts about the Fair as well as announcing entertainment acts and other announcements. Other social media sites that were created included Facebook group, MySpace page, Twitter account, Flickr photos and YouTube channel. Some of the more interesting stats were:

70,000 unique blog views with 27,000 unique visitors in October
Facebook page had 5,000 friends, 420 fans and over 1,400 photos tagged
Twitter account had over 2,331 followers with 1,828 updates and 422 direct messages. Many of the direct messages were from local media that supplemented the PR plan.
YouTube channel hosted 37 videos and had 58,000 unique views with 55 subscribers.
MySpace page had 928 friends with 8,000 blog views and 99,000 page views.

Other social media tactics included having a Deep Fried Ambassador contest among local bloggers, inviting bloggers to the press conference and hosting the Deep Fried Tweetup on the Thursday night of the Fair. The Tweetup attracted over 150 attendees and further extended the Deep Fried brand. One interesting note was that Thursday traffic spiked with 2000 unique visits to the blog and average of 60 tweets per hour. The event was also streamed and attracted 43 views.

Overall the NCDA team achieved success by incorporating social networks to further establish relationships with fair attendees, media representatives and other audiences. Also social networks facilitated customer service by responding to questions from the general public and directing them to specific information on the web. Karlie also pointed out that it was a team effort and that her coworkers contributed to the effort (Jen Nixon (@jennix5), Natalie Alford (@joynatalie), Brian Long (@brian_long66), Andrea Ashby (@aasbhy) and Paul Marshall Jones (@pmarshalljones). Great work by this group!

Whew, that’s a whole blog post, but wait there’s more! Jason Peck had a tough act to follow but did a fantastic job speaking about branded communities. Jason’s company eWayDirect takes features of social networks and brings them into a single platform. The goal is to bring people together while having full control of the look and fell, content, ads and metrics. I have a dream and that is what eWayDirect offers…a single platform with control, basically a branded community.

Some of the great advantages to their approach include:

Protection: no random Facebook ads, your community is spared from junk and spam
Exclusivity: you may not want everyone, just certain people that are your customers and prospects
Research: polls, metrics and other tools to gather information from your community.
Business metrics: the ability to determine revenue per member. Mmmm, ROI is that something everyone keeps talking about regarding social media?

One of the biggest advantages is the ability to aggregate existing content into a single location. My job requires me to try and automate all the outbound communication including social media. I have been able to use tools like RSS and other data exports to cross reference all the sites. But in order to aggregate all the RSS feeds and sites content I would have to create another site, basically a portal. Hence one more site to design, configure and maintain.

Jason gave a few examples of how his customers have employed their technology. One great example was ELF (Eyes, Lips and Face) beauty network. Their goal was to identify brand advocates and deepen relationships as well as acquire new customers. The campaign started with a personal invitation to the network and also has a desktop announcement feature that I want to find out more about.

ELF had some great results three months into the campaign including:

4,500 new members
56,000 visits
5,000 unique visits, increase of 75%
9% of members opted to received the desktop notifications and reminders
Average revenue per member increased 270% more than non-members

Again social media ROI can be achieved with the right strategy, platform and planning. Jason closed his presentation with some great lessons learned:

Have a purpose for your community, give people a reason to join
Make people feel welcome, it’s important
Establish measurable goals ahead of time will drive you towards them during execution
Make sure the community does not exist in a silo

Many thanks to Jeremy (@jeremysaid) and Brian (@unravelthetwine) of Twine Interactive for hosting the event and Our Hashtag (Wayne, Jeff and Ryan) for organizing the best social media series in the Triangle. I met another great group of people whom I’ve followed and chatted with on Twitter and other networks so it’s always great to attach a person to an avatar!

Tagsblogging, branding, Facebook, LinkedIn, mashup, media, Raleigh Social Media, Social Networks, Tweetup, Twitter, Web, YouTube
Posted in Events, Marketing, PR, Social Media, Strategy

Social Media Tools and Network Inventory

1 Comment » Written on October 8th, 2009 by Brian McDonald
Categories: Social Media
Tags: Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Social Networks, YouTube

Since I’m a marketing geek I’m always interested in new tools, networks and other communication platforms. Over the past few years I have investigated and used many of the new social media networks and tools to see how well they worked. However I realize now that I have too many accounts and some of them are redundant. Therefore, I am cleaning up some of the accounts listed below but I thought a listing with some notes on why I joined the network and what I liked would be a good start. I will follow up over the next few weeks with comparisons of the sites and why I chose one over the other.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bmcd67
Wanted to see what the fuss was all about. Since I have moved around quite a bit in my life, great way to reconnect with old friends.
MySpace: Deactivated
Had to join to see photo of old friend that office mate told me was online. Ended up getting a bunch of spam off the account so I deleted it.
LinkedIn: linked.com/bmcd67
Thought it was better than keeping regular resume on file. Also great way to reconnect with former co-workers.
Delicious: delicious.com/bmcd67
Used to keep track of press hits and articles of interest.
Twitter: twitter.com/bmcd67
First intrigued, then did not understand, then did understand, then did nothing else for several months.
Pandora: pandora.com/people/bmcd67
I’m a huge music buff so this was an instant hit. Like that I can create my own station.
Social Vibe: socialvibe.com/bmcd67
Interesting premise, raise money for charity through clicks but that’s all that’s there. Cool interface.
Ning: http://www.ning.com/
First used as a test for project that migrated elsewhere. Good tool but have only seen a few good sites on it.
Blogger:
Main blogging tool that I use. Good starting place for bloggers that want to write and don’t want to have to learn web site design.
FriendFeed: friendfeed.com/bmcd67
Used this to aggregate all my feeds and social media accounts.
YouTube: youtube.com/bmcd67
Never thought that I would post on YouTube but it’s a great platform for video.
SlideShare: slideshare.net/bmcd67
Use this for storing presentations, integrates with LinkedIn.
Ping.fm
Created this account to use for autoposting to several accounts and forgot about it.
Blip.fm: blip.fm/bmcd67
Site allows you to search individual songs and post message at the same time.
Brightkite: brightkite.com/people/bmcd67
Never used this until I got my iPhone with ability to ping my location.
Storyteller: bmcd67.storytlr.com/
Found this before FriendFeed and liked their layout better
FriendFeed: friendfeed.com/bmcd67
Created profile and several rooms. Not a fan of some of their features.
Technorati: technorati.com/people/technorati/bmcd67
Joined when I started blogging. Still trying to gain authority.
Posterous: bmcd67.posterous.com
Recently joined and have posted a few items. Not sure what best application of this tool is.
Slide: bmcd67.slide.com
Found this easiest of the photo apps to use and customize, plus no limit on images.
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/people/73834932@N00/
Great photo site with ability to create sets. Very easy to embed on other sites as well.
Picasa: picasaweb.google.com/bmcd67
Signed up when started using Google tools but has limits on images.
qik: qik.com/bmcd67
This was the only tool that I could shoot online video with on my BlackBerry in real time. Had problems with controls and naming on BlackBerry, thus half my vids have the same title.
TwitPic: twitpic.com/photos/bmcd67
This is a great simple app that I use all the time.
NetVibes: netvibes.com/bmcd67
Great aggregator tool that allows you to create a portal. Still need to finish this page.

TagsFacebook, Google, LinkedIn, Social Networks, YouTube
Posted in Social Media

Facebook Fan Pages Offer New Way To Connect

No Comments » Written on September 25th, 2009 by Brian McDonald
Categories: Marketing, Social Media
Tags: Facebook, LinkedIn, Raleigh Social Media, Social Networks

Last week I attended the Triangle Social Media Club @SMCTriangle meeting at Calvert Holdings in Cary. The topic was Facebook and personal branding and the demo led by Jeff Cohen @dgtlpapercuts was excellent. The discussion centered on how FB groups and fan pages interact with users in different ways and the pros and cons of each approach.

I have used FB groups in the past to manage a small college reunion for about 25 people. It was a great way to quickly gather all the old classmates and get the meetup arranged. After our gathering we posted photos and some more discussions. However over time the group became stale.

I have stayed away from fan pages only because when I see the “become a fan” in the friend’s suggestion I feel that it’s the same as groups. However I soon discovered that fan pages allow users to interact with a brand, group, institution or whatever subject matter you want to write about.

Jeff noted that fan pages have change dramatically recently and demonstrated some of the new features using the Triangle Social Media Club group and fan pages as examples. I had not tried the FB tagging at this point, but I use it all the time on Twitter. Tagging on FB works very well with a nice drop down menu to select the person you want to tag. But tagging also works with fan pages. For instance I posted from my profile and tagged a friend that was also at the meeting and the group as well.

One of the interesting discoveries in doing this was learning that my post would show up in the fan page news feed. However it would not be visible to other users unless we are FB friends. This is due to my permissions which I had recently restricted to just friends. Had I posted it from the fan page then it would have been visible on the fan page news feed to all. This is dramatically different from Twitter where a basic reply to a person is public.

Both fan pages and groups have administrators to manage the content, users, permissions and other configurations. Users can add photos and other content and the admin can send messages to all fans. Jeff also stated that there are some limitations being the admin in that you have limited ability to interact with others on a personal level.

Fan pages do have a nicer layout than the group pages and have tabs to group information at the top of the page. There is even a custom tab that allows you to paste HTML code that is converted to Facebook Markup Language (FBML). A great example is Threadless T-shirts that used the custom tab to create a simple storefront for their fan page landing page.

As much as I hate to admit it these new features may be what FB needs to win the battle with Twitter. Twitter’s great for short messaging and conversations, but it’s getting clogged up with spam and junk these days. Many people don’t understand Twitter and there is a learning curve to it. FB’s clean and easy to use interface allows users to connect and communicate faster with rich media storage and integration. It is a platform more so than a toolbox that Twitter is along with add-ons for images, videos and links.

TagsFacebook, LinkedIn, Raleigh Social Media, Social Networks
Posted in Marketing, Social Media

My Top Three Social Media Networks

No Comments » Written on August 24th, 2009 by Brian McDonald
Categories: Social Media
Tags: LinkedIn

I was at a meeting last week where the speakers were asked to list their top three social media sites. Three seemed a somewhat easy number since there are so many social media sites popping up everyday. But when I thought about it, limiting it to three and justifying the choices is more of a challenge. So here are my top three social media networks.

LinkedIn: I have used LinkedIn for some time, almost five years. I started using it when I was looking for a new job and linked the fact that I could refer someone to my online resume without having to create a web site. Since I have moved around a bit and worked with many people dispersed throughout the US and Europe, LinkedIn was a great way to re-establish communication with former co-workers. LinkedIn has added RSS integration, displaying presentations, groups and calendar functionality for greater media integration.

Twitter: I started using Twitter in June of 2008 but did not know how to use it and there was not many people on it or reference material. I sent a few messages and forgot about it until a few months later. While attending an Allman Brothers show I thought that I could tweet the set list since each show is unique and there could be a fan out there wanting to know what the band was playing tonight. That’s all it took, I saw the value of the tool in communicating and building relationships with others like me.

Delicious: This is another tool that I have been using for a few years. I started using it solely to keep track of PR hits. By using tags I could get a quick summary of how many times a release or topic had been published. Previously I had created and filed a hard and soft copy, now I could bookmark, tag and save! Lately Delicious has added email capability to send articles and increased its community and contact tools. Plus I love the simplicity and clean design of their interface, no annoying stuff, just the links!

What are your top three social media sites?

TagsLinkedIn
Posted in Social Media

Social Media Case Study: Triangle AMA

3 comments Written on August 12th, 2009 by Brian McDonald
Categories: Strategy
Tags: blogging, branding, challenge, LinkedIn, YouTube

Over the past few weeks I’ve written several articles about member based associations using social media. I thought today’s post would be a good time to reflect on a case study that I personally have been working on over the past year. I serve on the board of the Triangle Chapter of the American Marketing Association (AMA) as the Vice President, Newsletter.

Getting started can be difficult with new technology. As a group we knew we wanted to start a blog, but what do we post on it? My responsibilities as the newsletter editor required writing, editing and laying out the monthly HTML email newsletter. This proved to be the best starting point to put content on the blog.

Blogger was chosen as the blog platform for its ease of use and quick ramp up time. I knew that getting a WordPress blog would be nicer in terms of features but would take more time to get built. Blogger allowed for a quick and easy deployment. The page was modified to include the AMA logo, chapter description and link to the web site.

The site is located at http://triangleama.blogspot.com and includes meeting reviews, photos and interviews from socials, video and multimedia embeds of presentations and podcasts. Additional links to other social media sites and RSS feeds have been added to the layout. Since launching in December of 2008 the site has recorded over 920 unique visitors and 2,440 page views.

Once the blog was set up Twitter was the next obvious choice. Twitter’s simple messaging allows the chapter to communicate upcoming meetings, chapter announcements, blog posts, podcasts, and links. Triangle AMA’s Twitter account @triangleama quickly built a strong following of members and other marketing professionals in our geographic area and over 565 followers.

Triangle AMA’s LinkedIn Group was created in November 2008 and quickly started having members request to join. One of the challenges in creating and launching the group was deciding if the group would be restricted to dues paying members. The decision was made to allow non members to join the group as long as they were marketing professionals based in central and eastern North Carolina. It is important to monitor groups on LinkedIn as we had some people join that were spamming or only interested in selling to our members. This also created the need to write some guidelines for discussions to alert groups members of the purpose of the group and put policy in place. Currently the group has over 575 members and displays content via the chapter’s Twitter, YouTube and blog RSS feeds.

You Tube was selected out of a need to broadcast a phone interview of an upcoming speaker. The audio was matched to simple slide animation with the speaker’s photo, title and company logo as well as a call to action slide with chapter web site URL. The Triangle AMA YouTube channel was set up using some of the materials already developed for Twitter and Blogger. Two original podcast have been created for chapter events with more planned for the upcoming year. Another featured that YouTube offered was to add video clips used during speaker presentations as favorites. These clips have also been embedded in blog posts recapping chapter speaker events. The Triangle AMA YouTube channel has over 420 channel views and 92 videos watched.

Selecting a photo site proved out to be more difficult than expected. One of the hurdles was to create an account that multiple users could login to upload photos and did not have bandwidth restrictions. After some initial testing of Flickr, Slide and Picasa, Slide was chosen. Over a dozen photo albums of for monthly meetings, socials and the 2008 holiday party are viewable. Photo and slideshows are embedded in blog posts for respective events.

Other sites currently under development for Triangle AMA include SlideShare for sharing presentations and creating a portal. The portal would include all chapter content as well as content from AMA Nationals, members, sponsors and other sources.

I want to note that several people were responsible for making this happen for Triangle AMA over the past year. Committee volunteers, board members, guests and members have all participated at various levels including being interviewed by me during socials.

Tagsblogging, branding, challenge, LinkedIn, YouTube
Posted in Strategy

Social Media Strategies for Member Based Organizations

No Comments » Written on August 10th, 2009 by Brian McDonald
Categories: Events, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Tags: blogging, Google, LinkedIn

I had the opportunity to see two great speakers at the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) Convention in Raleigh. Kyle Sexton (@KyleSexton) spoke on Social Media’s Impact on Member Based Organizations and Jim Tobin (@jtobin) spoke on Making Sense of Social Media. Kyle Sexton is the founder of Fast Chamber, a business development firm specializing in membership organizations, co-founder of ChamberThink Strategies, a tiered membership dues consultancy, and director of member services for the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce.

I’ve known Jim for a few years since he was President of the Triangle Chapter of the American Marketing Association a few years ago. Jim is president of Ignite Social Media, one of the nation’s first social media agencies. In that role, he and his team work with clients including Intel, Nature Made, The Body Shop, Comcast, UNICEF and more developing and implementing social media marketing strategies. Jim is the author of the book, “Social Media is a Cocktail Party,”

Both Kyle and Jim’s presentations gave great overview of social media tools, their uses for chambers and case studies. Kyle gave a good example of, “The Little Chamber That Wouldn’t,” where the chamber was reluctant to use Web 2.0 technology to connect with their members. The chambers members wanted a LinkedIn group and ended up creating their own group to connect with each other. The chamber lost control as well as influence in that it did not act first. Members look to their organizations for leadership and direction in new technology, not to shy away from it.

Kyle expanded on this strategy and questioned the audience about what chambers had done training for their members. Several attendees stated that they did social media workshops for members with great response. For staff over 40 years old, social media is new and can be confusing; these workers needed some introduction and guidance to get started. Another good strategy Kyle mentioned was to survey members to see who’s on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other networks to determine where your audience is and then join the conversation. Members cannot connect with you if you are not participating.

Jim Tobin echoed similar strategies and tactics for chambers to use social media as well. Jim ran down his 13 social media categories that cover everything from using photo and video content to measuring and publishing tools. In discussing search engine optimization Jim gave a great example of the power of social media sites using Google search. He stated that if you took 50 pages of content and posted it on your web site all at once it would not get as good search results as posting the same 50 pages on a daily basis on a blog. This is because Google likes to see fresh content and blogging can beat traditional Web 1.0 content push.

Both speakers did a great job of demonstrating how well social media works for member based groups. These networks and tools allow organizations to communicate with members about important advocacy issues, events, and raise general awareness. It can create more real time communication between organizations and their members to enact and react to change in a shorter timeframe and deal with individual member requests.

Tagsblogging, Google, LinkedIn
Posted in Events, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy

Can You Help Me Use the Facenet Twitterverse Thang??

No Comments » Written on August 7th, 2009 by Brian McDonald
Categories: Social Media
Tags: Google, lessons learned, LinkedIn, Web

I remember someone asking me in 1995 when I was building my first web site and describing how cool this new technology was, “Hey can you help me get on the interweb?” Sure I said, just take a left on the Internet superhighway and look for the exit that starts with http://www and you’ll be there! Of course this request was better than the person telling me how AOL was the entire Internet as well as this new web thing he had heard about.

If you are active on social media sites today you may have people ask you for help much in the same way people needed assassinate first getting on the Internet. Tech savvy and web geeks have no trouble getting on a nice clean interface like Facebook. But some people out there need the helping hand to guide them through the process cleanly the first time versus them stumbling through it and not being satisfied with the outcome.

You have to be judicious in your efforts to assist those needing your help. I remember when Windows 95 came out and I offered my assistance to help a co-worker if he needed it. Next thing I knew his wife was calling me at 10 p.m. on a Friday night upset and wanting to know if I would guarantee that Windows would install on her computer correctly. After listening to her vent for awhile I told her in a cordial way, “You want a guarantee call Bill Gates.”

I was not being mean to this person, I merely wanted to let them know that I am but a simple marketing geek and she needed a titan. When asked for assistance now, I tell people to be prepared. I will make time to assist you but do some basic pre-work so we can get rolling and get results in an hour or less.

For starters they need to have a personal email address to use. If they are interested in blogging, YouTube and other Google sites I suggest using Google Gmail for easier single sign on. If they have another account and they are comfortable with it that’s good to but they may not want their corporate email so they can filter and track messages coming from social networks. I find that it clutters up your work inbox and can easily distract you when working.

Other pre-work can include digging up their resume, bio or any other material written about them to use as a base for writing their online profile. If they are getting on LinkedIn tell them to list any awards they received or honors bestowed on their company when they worked there. A nice photo or headshot if they have one is essential for creating the profile as well. No headless icons please! Any additional content they may have such as videos, music, documents, etc. is good but may not be required to get started.

Now that your new pupil has done their homework, you can jump right in and get started building their profile, finding friends and contacts and being a part of their new online community. Do you have any tips when people ask you to help them get online and learn how to use Web 2.0 technology?

TagsGoogle, lessons learned, LinkedIn, Web
Posted in Social Media