June 2009

The Social Media landscape is a very interesting one. It comprises of 10 key elements and all of them can be used, and are being used, to help generate and maintain sales for small to medium sized businesses.  In this 7-part blog series, I am going to give an over view of the 7 elements you need to be using as a bare minimum.

1. Publish
2. Share
3. Discuss
4. Social Networks
5. Microblogging
6. Lifestream
7. Livecast 

The other three, virtual worlds, social games and MMO (or Massively Multiplayer Online game) can also be used, although not essential. 

So, let’s keep the focus on the big 7 and help you get your Social Media skills & understanding to a whole new level.

 “Lifestream” The Social Media Landscape – Part 6 of 7

FriendFeed and SocialThing are the two most popular Lifestream websites. Both achieve the same result, however, I would run with FriendFeed as it seems to have a whole lot more business focused users.

What on earth is Lifestream?
Lifestreaming is a procedure used to combine all of a Social Media user’s favourite information into one, easy to manage. Basically, controlling the stream of information that now controls your online life.

If you’ve been taking action on the information you have learned from the first 6 parts to the Social Media Landscape blog series, then you will, by now, have a number of different websites, accounts and systems that you are using – right?

Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, Digg, Flickr and a couple of others that you will learn about in part 7 are all able to be managed in one place.

How is Lifestream good for business?

It’s not going to create any more leads or generate any more sales; however, it will improve your efficiency online. Instead of having to check, scan through and read multiple different systems, you can take care of all your Social Media interaction in the one place.

Compared to the huge level of experience I have learning about, using and understanding the previous five elements of the Social Media Landscape, Lifestreaming is relatively new to me. The upshot of it is that it makes sense, saves time and allows you to spend more time on income producing activities.

This is just a basic overview of the Lifestream element of the Social Media Landscape. As this element becomes more widely accepted in the business world, you will see new and exciting developments to make it a whole lot more useful.

So there you have it, some food for thought on the Lifestream element of the Social Media Landscape. 

Come back for the final part of this 7-part blog series real soon or even better, subscribe to this blog and have the next post emailed to you when I hit “submit”!

Adam Baird

Uncovering the Social Media Landscape

The Social Media landscape is a very interesting one. It comprises of 10 key elements and all of them can be used, and are being used, to help generate and maintain sales for small to medium sized businesses. In this 7-part blog series, I am going to give an over view of the 7 elements you need to be using as a bare minimum.

1. Publish
2. Share
3. Discuss
4. Social Networks
5. Microblogging
6. Lifestream
7. Livecast

The other three, virtual worlds, social games and MMO (or Massively Multiplayer Online game) can also be used, although not essential.

So, let’s keep the focus on the big 7 and help you get your Social Media skills & understanding to a whole new level.

Micro Blogging

“Microblogging” The Social Media Landscape – Part 5 of 7

Twitter is the only Microblogging site worth learning about, getting stuck into and maximizing. Twitter is experiencing unprecedented growth on a daily basis!

First of all, what exactly is “Microblogging”?
Microblogging is a type of social media that allows its users to write short, sharp messages to update their readers. Like a text-message on a cell phone, microblogging is usually limited to a small (less than 200) number of characters.

So, this “Twitter” thing that you’ve heard on the news, read about in the newspaper or had an email from someone suggesting you checkout what someone has posted…

Twitter is the number one microblogging platform available to the world today. As far as the Social Media Landscape is concerned, this is Mount Everest – large, powerful, unpredictable, challenging and intriguing.

First of all, a lesson in Twitter Language:
Tweet – a post on twitter made by a user
Follower – somebody who is monitoring another users tweets
RT – “Re-Tweet” is when you copy another users Tweet
@ – Placed before the username of the person you wish to reply to
# – Placed infront of a key word to make searching easier

language lessonYou can see a number of things in the above screenshot: JoshCalvetti Re-Tweeted IronmanAdam’s tweet. The tweet included a web link and it is important to use http://www. to ensure the link is “clickable”. IronmanAdam saw that #fail was a trending topic (on the side bar of your twitter home page).

My username is @adambaird and you can find me at http://www.Twitter.com/adambaird

It is incredibly simple to use and problem most people face isn’t how to log in, its “Why twitter?”

Instant information is what we are hungry for in the fast paced world we live in today. Until now, our lives have been shaped by what the large news corporations choose to share with us – as well as how and when! With Twitter, the voice of one person can be as powerful as an entire news network. This was proven when actor Ashton Kutcher recently challenged CNN to a race to get 1million followers.

Interestingly enough, even though CNN were broadcasting live arcoss the USA campaigning for more followers, Ashton beat them to it. Now, each time Ashton tweets, more than 1million people are receiving that message on their twitter page.

Here are some pretty neat tools that you can have a play around with on Twitter…

1/ Twittercounter
2/ Twittergrader
3/ Wefollow
4/ Twhirl
5/ Search.twitter
6/ Nearbytweets
7/ Tweetlater

How is Twitter good for business?
Unlike an eNewsletter, telemarketing or lumpy mail, your prospects and customers can choose to “Follow” you without having to share any information with you. They are in control of if, when and how much information they want from you and this means you will reach more people, more quickly!

As I wrote about in Part 2 regarding YouTube videos, trust is, without a doubt, the most important aspect of generating a sale. When your prospects and customers can learn more about your business without having to give you anything first, you are fast tracking the building trust process with them.

It is important to understand that your customers will also lose trust in you and your business when you make mistakes! Learn what your customer perceives as spam – this is the number one killer of sales! If you put a link to your latest and greatest product in every single tweet, you are going to piss some of your customers off – there’s on question about that.

All in all, Twitter is an incredibly powerful and unique form of communication and fits nicely into the Social Media Landscape.

Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I could write a month worth of blogs teaching you the ins & outs of Microblogging and Twitter. Keep an eye out for some video blogs and perhaps a tutorial or two on Twitter at the end of this 7-part blog series.

So there you have it, some food for thought on the Microblogging element of the Social Media Landscape. Twitter is definitely the key player here – ensure you use it!

Come back for Part 6 & 7 real soon or even better, subscribe to this blog and have the next post emailed to you when I hit “submit”!

Adam Baird

Uncovering the Social Media Landscape

The Social Media landscape is a very interesting one. It comprises of 10 key elements and all of them can be used, and are being used, to help generate and maintain sales for small to medium sized businesses.  In this 7-part blog series, I am going to give an over view of the 7 elements you need to be using as a bare minimum.

1. Publish
2. Share
3. Discuss
4. Social Networks
5. Microblogging
6. Lifestream
7. Livecast

The other three, virtual worlds, social games and MMO (or Massively Multiplayer Online game) can also be used, although not essential.

So, let’s keep the focus on the big 7 and help you get your Social Media skills & understanding to a whole new level.

“Social Networks” The Social Media Landscape – Part 4 of 7

Bebo, MySpace, LinkedIn and Facebook, there is little doubt that you are a member of at least one of these social networking websites and it is most likely that you spend more time on these sites than any other.

What exactly is “Social Networking”?

Well, you could say Social Networking is a very impersonal way to be personable, but I won’t.

Social Networking is a web-based community for people with similar interests to communicate with one-another.

There are literally millions and millions of people who use Social Networking to organise anything from a game of cards at the library to the biggest 21^st party in town. Business people all over the world have cottoned on to the idea of Social Networking and use the wealth of information that each site has to advertise online, research their target market, organise both public events and in-house meetings.

Bebo has been around a while and is home to millions of teenagers who mainly share photos, chat to each other when they are online at the same time and update their public profiles with their latest teenage shenanigans. If, like me, you’re older than 20 then it’s best to steer clear.

MySpace was, and still is to some degree, a key player in the Social Networking market. With some 130+million users, MySpace was the largest social networking website until late 2008. MySpace started out as a home for music lovers and quickly became a popular place to meet and communicate with people from all walks of life. Becoming less popular by the second, I haven’t bothered with a MySpace account and recommend that you keep reading for somewhere to get social online.

LinkedIn is very much a business focused social networking system. There is a lot of focus and information about furthering your career, updating your professional profile and promotes the fact that Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.

I don’t find LinkedIn to be at all user friendly at all. It’s worth having a profile live so people searching for you on there can find you. I find the best thing to do is make sure you have your website and blog links there for them to contact you.

Facebook is clearly the number one Social Networking site today. With over 200 million users, an incredibly user-friendly format and applications (more on these in a tick) coming out it’s ears, Facebook is the place to be.

You can do everything you’d ever imagine a social networking site would be able to. Whether you want to organise an event & invite “friends”, set up a charity and raise money by “recruiting” members, update your status for the world to see or simply have a squizz at your mates photos from the party you couldn’t be at.

When using Facebook for business purposes, it is important to stick to the 5:1 Rule that I talked about in Part 1. Simply posting a whole bunch of affiliate, blog or website links in your status is a) going to piss off your “friends” and b) going to work in the opposite of what you are trying to achieve – no, you will not get more clicks.

How is Social Networking good for business?

Put simply, it allows you to connect and interact with your business partners and customers as well as create new prospects, generate new leads and convert your social networking efforts into sales. Just as your offline marketing plan has a system and rules to follow, online marketing has it’s own system and unique rules to follow.

Note: DO NOT use offline marketing strategies online.

IE: Simply posting a “brochure” online will not create sales as it does in the newspaper.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. I could write a month worth of blogs teaching you the ins & outs of Social Networking. Keep an eye out for some video blogs and perhaps a tutorial or two on Social Networking at the end of this 7-part blog series.

So there you have it, some food for thought on the Social Networks element of the Social Media Landscape. Facebook is definitely the key player here – ensure you use it!

Come back for Part 5 – 7 real soon or even better, subscribe to this blog and have the next post emailed to you when I hit “submit”!

Adam Baird

Uncovering the Social Media Landscape