Archive for the Social Media Category
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Young professionals often struggle with how to adjust their approach to social media from personal/socializing network to something that’s more in line with helping them reach their career and education goals. My advice is to apply the same planning principles to a personal social media presence as you would for an organization. Start with the end in mind. What do you want to accomplish? And then think about what you’re going to do to get there. Listen & Learn: Any social media strategy should begin with listening and learning. It’s very difficult to jump into blogging or tweeting if you don’t know how they work, how other professionals use these tools and what best practices you can take away for our own participation. Possible strategy/tool: Subscribe to 10 or 15 blogs in your field of interest through a feedreader (ex: Netvibes or Google Reader) and review them daily. Build Relationships:... Continue Reading
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I haven’t been blogging much lately. I’m on deadline for a forthcoming book on strategic social media and, as it turns out, books are hard to write! holy moly. I thought I’d give you a little sneak peak at the ethics chapter. Would love your feedback, of course. The demand from the public that organizations behave ethically is high. These demands are often articulated as a call for transparency. Organizational transparency is largely misunderstood, however, even by the people who are charged with delivering it. Many communicators find that the dilemmas faced in social media tend to fall under the topic of disclosure. What and how much do you disclose? Under the umbrella of disclosure, you’ll find a bevy of dilemmas with choices that don’t sit on either side of the bright line between right or wrong (note: there is no such line). Through the stories and cases of organizations... Continue Reading
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This post can also be found at the Lunar Logic blog. Lunar Logic is a web development firm in Eugene, Oregon. I’m working on a series of posts for my friends there and this it the first. *** If you’ve been pondering a social media strategy, it’s likely you’ve heard the advice to “listen first.” Lots of super smart people have talked about how to listen and monitor with blog post upon post that provides reviews of tools and links to resources. In fact, I’ll share some of my favorites with you. 13 Essential Social Media “Listening Tools” from Marketing Profs (free registration required) 25 Ways to Listen to Customers on Social Media from Social Media Today Wiki of Social Media Monitoring Tools What you don’t find written about much is what you should be listening for. Maybe it’s intuitive to some, but in my experience, once you set up... Continue Reading
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We’re kicking off another year at the University of Oregon. I’m not teaching social media-focused classes this term, but I always encourage my students to tweet and use a hashtag for the course. This term you’ll likely see #J350 and #J453 tags from students. Because the classes aren’t social media oriented (although certainly infused), I don’t take time to “teach” Twitter. But I’m not under the illusion that it’s intuitive and doesn’t need to be demonstrated. It’s been awhile since a did a post with resources and tips for those new to the microblogging platform, so here you go! Some of my favorite resources on Twitter basics Twitter 101 for Business: Written by the folks at Twitter, this guide is a terrific how to on using Twitter professionally. For journalism students, you really do have to think about all social media in that way. You’re a professional communicator and all... Continue Reading
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I had the opportunity to chat with the staff of the Oregon Daily Emerald about how they can use social media for themselves and the publication.I borrowed liberally from a recent Mashable article, adjusted, modified and expanded it to provide a handful of tips for student journalists. I would preface all of these with the recommendation to sit down and spend a little time setting some personal and professional goals for yourself. Think about what you want to be known for and what you want people to remember about you. Knowing your goals will help you make intentional decisions about where to spend your time and energy when it comes to social media activities. Consider it a personal mission statement. Promote your content Use your social media network to promote your content. Post your articles/blogs on twitter, your links to YouTube videos on your Facebook page. As long as you’re... Continue Reading
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I’d argue that we all face ethical dilemmas every day, particularly in and with social media channels. They may be small (should I say this or that on Facebook) or they might be bigger (no, I can’t pepper the web with positive reviews of that client’s product or service). As you probably know, I’m working on a book with my friend and colleague, Michelle Honald. We’re focusing on the ethics of social media in one of the chapters. I’d love to hear your stories and examples of ethical dilemmas that you’ve faced working in public relations (or any type of communications). You can leave actual or hypothetical examples in the comments or email me. I’m not (necessarily) looking for case studies, I just want to make sure I cover the reality of ethical decision making for those of you working in social media. photo by yewenyi... Permalink
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Over the last month or so, I’ve been sharing some of my favorite short cuts for managing social media and online life in general. These are shortcuts that work for me. But know that you’ll likely create your own shortcuts that work for you and make no sense to anyone else. Don’t be afraid to try stuff out and seek out new tools. The more you explore and learn the ins and out, ups and downs of social media and web 2.0, the better you’ll be about deciding what makes sense for you. Trying stuff is the best part about social media. Sometimes I cringe when there’s a new tool on everyone’s lips, wondering how I’m going to find the time to manage one. more. thing. But that’s my job! To try it out and figure it out and decide if it’s worth integrating into my work (and my classes)... Continue Reading
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This is a quick tip, but an important one. See tip 1 on feedreaders, 2 on creating a process and 3 on using twitter, too! If you’re in communications – get a smart phone. For real. It doesn’t have to be an iPhone. Just get a smart phone. A quick scan of Twitter or Facebook, a timely update to your Tumblr or blog, even being able to handle an urgent situation are all possible from the palm of your hand. Knowing I can “hear” if someone is talking to me (or a client) saves me a ton of time. It’s also not all about social media specifically, but for generally being productive and saving myself time. Applications I use to help: Twitter for iPhone Tweetdeck for iPhone (yes, I use 2, I monitor a bunch of accounts) Facebook with all the Pages for which I’m an admin bookmarked. Tumblr for... Continue Reading
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Bloglines, my first feedreader, announced this week that it would shut down October 1. If one can feel nostalgic about something like that, I certainly did. The spokesperson said that the “writing was on the wall,” that most people were getting their news from Twitter & Facebook. I’m not going to disagree that more people are indeed doing so, but I don’t think the feedreader is dead. At least not for people who work in communications. You can’t possibly get all your news from Twitter and Facebook. However, you also can’t subscribe to every blog on your topics of interest. Using the two tools in a complementary way will help you stay in the know and also save you time. Find the right people to follow It’s important to find the opinion leaders and influencers for you on Twitter. There’s a lot of noise, so be smart about who you... Continue Reading
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The cost of social media isn’t in the hard costs, it’s in the time costs. Creating a process for yourself will help save time and also make social media activities a part of your routine. If you missed Tip #1, check out my advice on setting up an RSS Feedreader here. I find it challenging to share my personal process because I’ve developed it over more than four years. So take what you think will work and modify the rest to work for you. The point is to have a process, not replicate my process. My process basically breaks down into three categories – making time to track, time to write and time to play. Time to Track You’re doing all this great monitoring with your feedreader, but you have to give yourself time to track – time to read and browse your feeds, your Twitter stream, your Facebook news feed.... Continue Reading
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