THINKing » Social Media http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog My CreativeTeam Thinks About Creativity, Marketing, PR & Social Media Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:40:12 +0000 en hourly 1 Calling All Guest Bloggers http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/calling-all-guest-bloggers/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/calling-all-guest-bloggers/#comments Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:13:34 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2812
Photo credit: EmmiP from morguefile.com

Here’s a shout out to all guest bloggers. This is a new year and I want new voices here on THINKing.

You may be asking, “why would you want to write for this blog?” We had about 200,000 visitors to the site last year. So, it is a decent sized audience for your writing. We covered a variety of marketing related topics, ranging from advertising, PR and social media to creativity,  branding and writing. So, you will find a receptive audience for those topics.

Convinced? Read on.

If you have an idea for a guest post, here is what I want from you. First, send me a brief outline of your idea with reasons why your post would be a fit for our blog. This should include an explanation of who you are and why you are qualified to write the piece.

Let me know if this is a single post or part of a series of up to three posts that you propose. Final posts should be no more than 750 words, so point me to examples of pieces you have written in the 350 – 750 word range.

Oh, and I don’t want commercials for your company or yourself.

That’s it. Easy, right?

Times a-wasting. Send the information to me, harry at my-creativeteam.com.

 

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/calling-all-guest-bloggers/feed/ 1 Top 10 2011 Posts http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/top-10-2011-posts/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/top-10-2011-posts/#comments Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:51:28 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2774
Photo credit: alvimann from morguefile.com

We’ve posted on a wide variety of topics in THINKing this year, and based on what you have been reading, you must like the variety. Let’s take a look at the Top 10 posts from 2011. You might find something on the list that you missed.

Creativity Boost #3 – Dictionary Excursion – This was far and away our most read – and commented upon – post. It’s an exercise to boost your creative writing skills.

Top 11 Free Resources To Improve your Blog’s Content - As part of a continuing series to help you in developing compelling content, this post provides you a list of the top 11 online resources to help you improve your writing skills.

How To Write Tweets That Get Noticed – This guest post from David Murton says you need to consider and understand two important rules: readability and retweetability when writing your tweets.

How Is Social Media Like A Mullet - As Joe Dirt said in the movie by the same name, a mullet is “business in the front, party in the back.” And that is how social media is like a mullet: it’s both business and personal.

LinkedIn – Branding – In our series on LinkedIn, we talked in this post about how to use the social network for branding purposes.

Top 19 Free Photo Sites For Bloggers -  This post outlines some of the best places to find free photos and images for your blog.

Creativity Boost #1 – The Mindtrip - A mindtrip is a way to find a novel solution to a problem by looking at it from a different perspective.

Pump Up Your Brain - According to Nobel prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling, the best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas. In this post, we discuss brain exercises to help you generate more ideas.

Creativity 2011 Week#12 – Our weekly series of creativity links produced one of our Top 10 posts.

Top 15 Uses For QR Codes – QR codes were much discussed in 2011. We posted on some ways we think marketers should be using them.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/top-10-2011-posts/feed/ 1 Social Media Is Like… http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/social-media-is-like/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/social-media-is-like/#comments Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:32:15 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2636

Sometime back I saw this post, which included a link to one of ours, and I thought it was a clever idea- so clever that it needed to be updated. What is social media like? We compared it to a mullet.

Others say social media is like…

Ironman

getting stoned

Shakespeare

pregnancy

a gym membership

sex education

swimming

butter

Project Runway

baseball

The Ed Sullivan Show

So, now you know what social media is like.

 

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/social-media-is-like/feed/ 0 Top 5 Social Media Posts http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/top-5-social-media-posts/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/top-5-social-media-posts/#comments Thu, 15 Sep 2011 12:04:22 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2538

In case you missed some of our earlier posts about social media, below are our Top 5 social media posts. Hmmm, there seems to be a trend.

Top 10 Story Starters For Blocked Bloggers - Are you blogged out? Got writer’s block big time. So big even my previous post on writer’s block didn’t help? Never fear, your doctor of creativity is here. I have some big time block busters.

Top 11 Free Resources To Improve Your Blog’s Content - As part of our continuing series to help you in developing compelling content, today we provide you a list of the top 11 online resources to help you improve your writing skills.

Top 19 Free Photo Sites For Bloggers - Our list of free photo resources has been a popular post since 2007. I noticed that one on the list had gone out of business and have found a few new ones. So, I wanted to bring you a new, improved list for 2010.

How To Write Tweets That Get Noticed - The goal is to write the perfect tweet, a tweet that can reach everybody, can be retweeted again and again, a tweet that will expand the tweeter’s reputation. How can you possibly write a tweet like this?

How Is Social Media Like A Mullet - When you live in the South you sometimes still see the male hairstyle known as the mullet. As Joe Dirt said in the movie by the same name, a mullet is “business in the front, party in the back.” And that is how social media is like a mullet: it’s both business and personal.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/top-5-social-media-posts/feed/ 1 I Heard That! http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/i-heard-that/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/i-heard-that/#comments Sat, 10 Sep 2011 22:14:10 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2539

There are still a lot of companies that haven’t yet figured out – or worse, don’t care – that social media is a great way for them to monitor the mood of their customers. But some – like Olay – really  get it. My wife read about a new Olay product and began looking for it. Turns out the product is not fully into the distribution channels yet.

So, she gripes on Olay’s Facebook page because the company is hyping up a product no one can get. Olay messages her and tells her they have a sample of the product and will send it to her. OK, lots of companies would have done this, right?

In two days, the product shows up with a handwritten note. Not every company does this. That’s the way you mollify a miffed customer.

How does your company handle these kinds of social media situations? Let us know.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/i-heard-that/feed/ 0 Crowdsourcing Your Social Media Strategy http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/crowdsourcing-your-social-media-strategy/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/crowdsourcing-your-social-media-strategy/#comments Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:17:27 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2402

By Harry Hoover

I joined an interesting Tweetchat July 11, moderated by Socialfresh. Each week a company will be selected and anyone who wants to can wade in to help develop a crowdsourced social media strategy using the hastag #socialfresh.  It was fun and there were some good ideas generated, but a lot of the ideas were way off-target. Here’s why:

An event such as this is by its nature tactical. We’ve talked before here about how I believe strategy comes first.  If you will forgive me, I’ll quote myself on the subject of strategy,

So, who is your best “customer”? What demographic, psychographic and geographic attributes do they have? What do they need or want from you?

Where will you find them? What are their media habits – both online and offline? What’s the best way to reach and interact with them?

Based on this knowledge, what should be the focus of your online or social networking presence? Are they looking for fact-based information, inspiration or both? Or perhaps a digital customer service approach is the best way to go.

When you answer the questions above, the other tumblers will begin to fall into place. Should you be on FaceBook,  LinkedIn, Twitter or all of the above? What about a blog, a wiki, or Youtube? Your audience definition answers will tell you your next steps.

If you would like some crowdsourced knowledge for your company’s social media program, you can fill out this form. I think it is worthwhile even if you do have to sort through the chaff to find the kernels of wheat.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/crowdsourcing-your-social-media-strategy/feed/ 0 7 Strategies For Employee Communication Through Social Media – Part 1 http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/7-strategies-for-employee-communication-through-social-media-part-1/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/7-strategies-for-employee-communication-through-social-media-part-1/#comments Tue, 17 May 2011 12:30:27 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2302

Social media has come a long way in the last five years. Once used to kill time and stay entertained, the social web is now deeply ingrained in the day-to-day operations of businesses large and small. Communications is no exception – in fact, it’s one of the premier uses of social media in the corporate environment. Instead of relying on outdated bulletin boards and impersonal memos, tech-savvy executives are now using online tools to communicate more quickly, more personally and more effectively.

Here are seven strategies for implementing social media communication in your company:

Establish Clear Ownership

(source)

One of the biggest problems companies have when implementing social media at the corporate level is that no one department has clear ownership of it. Who’s responsible? Is it marketing, HR, senior management, or perhaps a newly anointed person/department? There is no one “right” answer, but the old saying applies: when it’s everyone’s responsibility, it’s no one’s responsibility.

When a company’s social presence is run by different departments, it invariably falls short of its full potential. Each week sees the birth of new “initiatives” and experiments, rather than the continuation of one solid direction or approach. As a result, social media fails to become the rich communication channel it has the potential to be. Pick one person (or department) to be in charge and give them authority over the channel.

Protected Twitter Accounts

(source)

One of the quickest ways to immediately leverage social media for corporate communications is Twitter. But there’s a twist: established businesses shouldn’t sign up for the same public Twitter accounts that individuals use. Rather, executives will want to use what’s known as a “protected” Twitter account (explained here.)

Basically, a protected Twitter account is one where only approved followers (employees and colleagues in this case) can see your Tweets. Once established, your protected Twitter account can be used to share anything of company importance: memos, reminders, event invitations, etc. You can even go a step further and establish protected Twitter accounts for each department. This way, everyone gets tweets that are very pointed and relevant to their job duties without getting overwhelmed by things outside of their purview.

Corporate RSS Feeds

(source)

RSS feeds offer another way to rapidly disseminate information across the company. RSS (which literally stands for “really simple syndication”) enables executives to create “feeds” that employees and co-workers subscribe to via tools like Google Reader. What can you syndicate using RSS? Actually, just about anything you wish.

Today’s RSS technologies permit you to syndicate text, videos, audio files and virtually anything else you can send along in an e-mail or instant message. The benefit of using RSS instead is that you can create the content once (say, a reminder or memo) and effortlessly blast it out to everyone in a completely streamlined and trackable format.

Internal Company Blog

(source)

If you aren’t ready to experiment with Twitter and RSS yet (or even if you are) a much simpler way to bring social media into your communications program is just to set up an internal company blog. This is distinct from any customer-facing blog you might have. Rather than publishing PR stories about the company, your internal blog is meant to convey information that’s meaningful to employees and executives.

A major plus of having an internal blog is allowing employees to comment on each post and paying attention to what they say. This is a priceless form of feedback – encourage people to freely and candidly share their thoughts on company blog posts. Furthermore, use these responses to drive new initiatives or employee programs based on what you learned.

More strategies in Part 2. Stay tuned.

Editor’s Note: today’s post is from guest author, Bryan Cochand, a freelance writer for Adobe. Adobe’s Online Marketing Suite helps businesses with their search marketing efforts.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/7-strategies-for-employee-communication-through-social-media-part-1/feed/ 4 LinkedIn Recruiting http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-recruiting/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-recruiting/#comments Wed, 04 May 2011 15:46:28 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2275

We will talk today about using LinkedIn for recruiting purposes in the final installment of our series Are You LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is more evolutionary than revolutionary. It is primarily a tool to help employers fill the pipeline quicker with qualified candidates, and a tool to help the candidate stand out above the crowd.

Whether you are hiring or looking to be hired, the number one thing you should be doing on LinkedIn is strategically building your network. The steps for both hiring managers and those seeking new positions are the same:

  • Maintain connections with colleagues from previous jobs
  • Expand your network with an eye toward your future needs
  • Search LinkedIn for the keywords that apply to the position you seek or the one you need to fill
  • Ensure your personal or company profile contains the correct keywords

Your success will depend upon the quality of your network. And if you never interact with your contacts except when you need something from them, you are doomed to fail.

PS – If you are a hiring manager, LinkedIn has additional tools for you.  Jobseekers should check out this LinkedIn tool.

 

 

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-recruiting/feed/ 3 Market Successfully In Today’s Interactive Environment http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/market-successfully-in-today%e2%80%99s-interactive-environment/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/market-successfully-in-today%e2%80%99s-interactive-environment/#comments Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:22:36 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2176

I just did a session called Market Successfully In Today’s Interactive Environment for the Bank of Commerce’s School of Commerce (SOC). The SOC is designed to help independently owned businesses with the key challenges they have, ranging from financing to marketing.

The presentation covered how to develop your social media plan with key discussion centering on research, audience definition, goal-setting and measurement.

I developed a special report to go with the presentation and you can download it here if you are interested. Do you agree with my approach? Did I leave anything out? Please let me know.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/market-successfully-in-today%e2%80%99s-interactive-environment/feed/ 0 How Is Social Media Like A Mullet? http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/how-is-social-media-like-a-mullett/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/how-is-social-media-like-a-mullett/#comments Wed, 02 Mar 2011 13:01:19 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2160

Photo: Copyright 2001 Columbia Pictures

When you live in the South you sometimes still see the male hairstyle known as the mullet. As Joe Dirt said in the movie by the same name, a mullet is “business in the front, party in the back.” And that is how social media is like a mullet: it’s both business and personal.

It’s not easy juggling your different accounts, keeping in mind what you should and shouldn’t say using that particular account. I have a personal and a business Twitter account, and assist in tweeting several other business accounts. There’s my Facebook account, the My Creative Team Facebook page, and four other client related accounts. Not to mention LinkedIn, Amplify, and Quora…you get the picture.

I’ve been using Hootsuite to simplify my digital life. And it works pretty well. I just ran across a story in Springwise about Whoopaa,

The new service can integrate with users’ Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, presenting them all on one site. Users can then mark these accounts as associated with either their business or personal Whoopaa profiles. Once Whoopaa has been linked up in this way, users can switch between their business and personal profiles at the click of a single button, instantly viewing all the social network activity attached to the Whoopaa profile selected — neatly arranged in one time-line. Users can send direct messages, invites and wall posts to their separate social network accounts from within the Whoopaa site, as well as sending messages directly to other members’ Whoopaa inboxes. An iPhone app is currently in development.

With the increasing importance attached to online identity, both in personal and business terms, the demand for aggregators has seen no shortage of contenders. However, for social networkers who prefer to keep these profiles separate, Whoopaa set itself apart with a neat headline feature.

I’m thinking about giving it a try. Have you tried Whoopaa, or another utility that gives you more control? How do you keep your business social media and your personal media personas separated? Let us know.

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