Image

Archive for Webman – Page 3

Business to Business Social Media

By Your Expert Webman · Comments (0)
Sunday, January 30th, 2011

Recently, Business to Business social media has taken on an increasingly important role. Because of this ,it has generated lots of events and quite an assortment of groups are popping up all over the place to to meet the increasing demand. More businesses are looking for ways to generate awareness of what they do and how to do it better.

There are so many events available out there that it will be impossible to list them all here. Many of them serve the digital professional and many of them are more broad in focus. I have put together some of the groups that I find to be the most effective.

This is a list of conferences , meetings and other organizations that are excellent starting points for social media marketers and social media strategists. You are welcome to make your own comments here also.

In addition, online media conferences are available . There are so many of these that you can be busy for quite some time.

Let’s start off with Social media week. It usually happens in February and September and is hosted by social media groups and digital experts in a lot of cities around the world. Most of the time it is spread out so that the conferences are in different places. So watch for this in your city .

In March there is SXSw in Austin. You can find the best in film, music and interactive media here. There is a trade show and presentations as well as networking events. They are all centered around start up technologies that may provide you with a new audience.

Visit San Francisco to meet with industry leaders , as well as global executives for web 2.0 . You will be amazed at the conversation around the latest trends on the web.

The Blogwell conference presents , in their words, “eight great case studies on the best social media programs at large corporations.” There are some great Blogwell events that have taken place in Philadelphia, Chicago and Seattle.

Don’t forget BlogWorld. Blogging and Internet TV Gurus will be attending this one . Participants are welcome to learn about new strategies, tools and technologies they will need to make their presence known on the web.

Its a fact that While you can learn a lot from attending conferences, you will need to do more in the way of learning and training for your niche. That’s because the low frequency of these once or twice a year events can only take you so far as a practicing social media strategist. Supplementing them with monthly or weekly networking meetings will come in handy.

Look for technology networking and blogging events on the web that are being held on a regular basis . Preferably not far away from where you are. Real Entrepreneurs will look into starting their own groups.

There’s always the option of traveling to New York or San Francisco too.

Some may be looking to make an even bigger commitment in the way of social media training though.
If networking and conferences and meetings don’t seem to be enough to keep you busy, joining a social media club or another organization may be a great choice.

Relevant comments and suggestions will be welcomed .

Comments (0)
Categories : Webman
Tags : ,

What is Social Media?

By Your Expert Webman · Comments (0)
Sunday, January 23rd, 2011

When I talk to tribes about their social media optimization needs , the question always seems to arise, what is social media. Since the technology is changing and evolving and this makes it an arousing and exciting field, I’ll try to shed some light on the subject.

In the beginning, Social media services originated as strictly a personal tool that tribes used to interact with friends and family. Later on Social media services were adapted to business projects in order to take advantage of a popular new communication platform in order to reach out to prospects and customers. They used it to influence their clientele for example, by informing them of sales and offering them special deals.

To make a long story short, Social Media includes any tool or service that uses digital media to facilitate production and exchange of information and action using telecommunication technology. In this context, private versus work-related use and factors such as the demographics, gender and age of users influences how social media is used for a specific niche.

To be more detailed , Social Media turns consumers of content into producers of content relatively quickly and easily, without having to be technologically savvy. This means that in part social media can shift communication from a broadcast model of tribes to tribes or individuals. in most platforms, Social media means interaction with the tribe. For instance answering questions or replying to an email, exchange of opinions, information, feelings and emotions that hopefully result in better understanding with the tribe’s members. The demographics of the tribe and their niche influence how these processes occur.

Interactions can be between tribes , content creators, readers, colleagues, friends and sometimes strangers that may result in action being taken by one or more of the tribes.

The final result of all of this tribal interaction is that social media services take time to do and engage with. There’s a lot of opportunity here as well as the risk of wasting time. An example of this , as expected by readers of the platform you’re using, is to be authentic and personable. This means you have to write thoughtful answers yourself to blogs and articles.

In addition, when you are a member of a group or tribe on one of the platforms means that social media monitoring is a factor. This means you have to take part in the discussion and comment on on other tribes posts since this is part of the exchange. Lots of social media activities are aimed at being members of many groups, but this makes it hard to spend the time to contribute. In fact, we are not even sure if they have the time to read what group members post.

What all this comes down to is that less is probably better. Tribes should join fewer groups , but stay more active and more visible and interact with more substance. The number of friends you have online is really limited to about 150. This limit is called the Dunbar number and theoretically is the number of actual cognitive friends you can handle.

Some of the platforms have recently reported that even though you may have thousands of friends online , in reality, you can only interact with about five to ten percent of them. So you may ask, can you really have 2000 friends?

I welcome comments to this article as the social media services arena is still changing and we like to roll with the punches , so to speak.

Comments (0)
Categories : Webman
Tags : ,

Important Steps to Picking a Social Media Consultant

By Your Expert Webman · Comments (0)
Sunday, January 9th, 2011

Picking a Social Media Consultant could turn out too be one of the most important decisions you could make for your tribe. That’s because the World Wide Web attracts and is full of social media activities . Major Industry players are on top of the platforms as are small businesses and start ups. Most are trying to use it to increase their influence in their chosen niches..

Becoming familiar with the wide variation in platforms is a job in itself, so if you are not familiar with them, you might be able to use some help from someone with experience in this area. So the question becomes , Where do you find social media specialists with the right expertise for you?

There are a few things to look for that will tip you off.

A social media consultant should have some sort of social media strategy that can be discerned. They should be experts in using using their chosen social media strategy to drive and attract new buyers to the clients niche. Being adept at offering their social media methodologies too you will help show their expertise. Look to see if they are practicing the same things they are talking about.

There should also be some obvious signs in the specialist’s social media blogging skills. Look at a sampling of the blog entries made for other clients , for instance. If there are relevant quality entries there, he just might be an expert. Consistency and relevance are important here as entries may at first seem to be clear and concise , but be aware of articles that look like they were generated by spin. Specialists very rarely will use spin in their articles.

You might look at a few testimonials about your consultant and some comments from other readers. Happy clients will generally show their gratitude for superior service and this will tip you off that you have found a good expert.

There are so many applications that are available for social media today and applications that are under development making this niche very exciting to many different tribes. There are new technologies being formed around social media applications daily. There are applications that allow your friends to know what businesses you are in for instance. Many social media platforms are gearing up for mobile access and this has the potential to really change the social media blogging landscape.

Diverse applications are in development and are developed now that will use your actual location to find the closest mens or ladies room, a new eatery or even letting you know who has a sale going on for a product you need.

Having a well defined social media strategy and a relevant social media blog influencing the niche you would like to be in is the way to get started in this diverse area of online marketing. Remember to be adaptable and don’t get locked into a single platform in case that platform changes into something that won’t work for you. You don’t have to be 100% internally focused. Link to other blogs, videos, and news articles. Re-tweet what others have to say as long as it is relevant to what you are saying.

Comments (0)
Categories : Webman
Tags : , ,

Social Media and Public Relations

By Your Expert Webman · Comments (0)
Friday, December 31st, 2010

After tons of research and work on my project, the thought occurred to me, Is Social Media really what Tribes want? After all, we measure our Social Media Optimization efforts just like our PR Initiatives, it seems to me.

It has been said that there is lots of merriment in watching Tribes behave badly. A lot, if not all of major websites, have some sort of social media features embedded in the site. I think this is an indication that the Tribes want it.

So our attention turns to how targeted are the responses that we get from our social media efforts , as well as the Public relations efforts. We need to know what kind of buzz are we generating from those efforts and are those responses purchasing anything. It’s really no different than measuring any of the other platforms that do this.

Interestingly enough, there are advantages too the Buzz that we are generating for and by the tribes and that makes it important for a lot off reasons..

According to some sources, advertising has lost over 40 percent of trust from Tribes. However, social media platforms engage Tribes with content that encourages trust. Some Tribes still agree that word of mouth advertising is still the best , though.

This means that social media optimization still has the potential to hold and attract the attention of large Tribes who have grown immune to the current push advertising scheme of things. It is also stickier than traditional media.

One effect that social media has is its propensity to go viral and reach broad swaths of tribes in shorter and shorter amounts of time. This has been described as a threat to communications professional, but I don’t think it is. Negative viral outcomes are a possibility too. This could result if the tribe has not allocated enough Social media budget and is not prepared for the tremendous amount of interest generated.

Social media’s ability to be interactive means that Tribes now have the ability to get immediate feedback from other tribes and are able to communicate more defectively. This could be a simple as enabling comments on the Tribes main blog. This means the tribe doesn’t have to spend time doing research in order to track ROI.

Something else that works for social media is high visibility. Social Media has matured using internet tools. So it holds a very good position in searches for visibility. There are several good examples of the effect this has , such a s Wiki-leaks.

For me, this indicates to the Tribal Chieftains that social media optimization can have a beneficial effect on the way the tribe communicates with the other tribes for business purposes and the average person on the street. Because of the ability to communicate with all of these tribes, social media has mega-possibilities if it is used properly and effectively engaged .

In the past decade, interactive communication has become a torrent for the tribe. This has made it easy for tribes to communicate with their audience and find out their needs and get feedback too.
In closing, a good thing to remember is to tailor your message and know the tribe you are talking to.

What effects do you think it has to know what you’re selling?

Comments (0)
Categories : Webman
Tags : , ,

Social Media Networks

By Your Expert Webman · Comments (0)
Friday, December 24th, 2010

What is it that draws us to online Social Media Networks ?
For thousands of years we have formed tribes to meet our security needs and now we study why.

Most Studies done by reputable tribes show that friendships and other social relationships tend to have a powerful effect on physical and mental health. This relationship had been noticed and talked about for many years until about the mid to late 1970’s. This was when other tribes turned to this issue to study it.

One study done in California around about 1979 showed a relationship between those who had a lot of contacts and those who had only a few. People who lacked tribes , tended to die sooner. In 1982 in Michigan, another study showed a similar association for women, but not men. About the same time similar results were reported between older men and women.

What this means is that your tribe consists of individuals drawn together by a variable such as age , sex , work or family. This is not to say that only these variables are used, though. In fact, one variable that has been proposed in the past is the number of contacts. You have to have about a hundred to a hundred and fifty, to be a social network.

One variable that has changed is that there is a whole new paradigm to include a company’s employees or even a politicians venue. You should be able to relate this to your target market.

Some have opined that its not really social unless the users can interact with one another. That it needs to be more that just an ability to generate content. That this piece of the puzzle has so far been missing from the platforms that are available today.

Part of the problem here is that Social Media Networking has changed the definition of friends and tribes. You will always have your best friends and much trusted business associates to still back you up, only now you can cast a wider net for contacts . This includes business contacts as well as personal contacts. This system is still evolving and expanding for the better, we hope.

If you could leverage social media networking to help drive business relationships and possibly other relationship, why wouldn’t you? Social Media is helping us to engage a much broader Universe of possibilities.

There are those out there that think that defining Social media is difficult because tribes get confused because of the implications of the thing itself. One definition is that Social media is simply content generated by the content view themselves. Of course, and you know this, its a huge implication. From here we can jump off into viral marketing , the masses influencing their tribes and other tribes. Even the Dissemination of information will become easier.

The Social Media Phenomenon seems to be mostly confined to the internet right now , but is it possible that this won’t always be the case? It’s possible to me , at least, that some new outrageous technology will allow social media in other dimensions.

I would love to get some feedback on that one. There’s a reply form on the bottom of the page. What are your thoughts about social media in other realms or platforms. What would those other dimensions be?

Comments (0)
Categories : Webman
Tags : ,

Social Media Statistics

By Your Expert Webman · Comments (1)
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

Sometimes making the argument to tribes that investing time and money and other resources into creating an online community for purposes of Social Media Optimization can be very challenging. Because of this, I’m sure you will need all of the friendly support you can find.

A very good way to communicate this to the tribe is the blatant use of statistics. Social Media Statistics can give your tribe the picture they need. This way they can see the value by viewing who’s using Social Media Optimization and how they are using it. Thanks to the fact that there are lots of new studies being done and posted every day, you can make the case to help them get involved.

It’s actually surprising that there is such an low amount of common knowledge about Social Media Demographics Optimization. Considering the amount of internet users and what they seem to be doing.

What it really means is there is no excuse now for marketers to make the wrong decisions about how to use Social Media Optimization or Social Media Statistics. It will help to open up incorrect beliefs and prevent inaccurate statements and beliefs from happening.

Non performance in the area of growth and change in rank of social media platforms may be resulting in a lackadaisical attitude toward the technology. This could be damaging to your brands attitude because of being perceived wrong or perhaps because you need to get updated information out to your audience.

Just in the way of example: social networking has grown about 90% in the last few years, even though time watching TV is unchanged. This seems to mean that groups are slow in their adoption of social media marketing into their marketing mix. According to one major survey , marketers still consider this industry experimental and are not budgeting more than a few percent for social media marketing.

One of the large communications research bureaus just published a report that contains several case studies that show how Social Media Optimization has benefited several large organizations. One of the finding ‘s they made was that Social Media is rapidly becoming the a key kernel for the dissemination of information. Almost 60% of early adopters of Social Media Optimization say that Social Media Tools are becoming more valuable to their activities, while about 30% or so say that social media optimization is a core element of their marketing and communications plan.

Now, Tribes that are especially interested in Social Media Statistics can, of course, go to places like Comscore. They had released some statistics showing that Social Media had grown worldwide and continues to grow worldwide. Worldwide, Social Media Optimization seems to be growing at about 25%, with large increases in Europe and the Middle East.

So now you know. The truth is out there. You don’t have any excuses for not being SMO savvy. You and your Tribe can no longer be unsure of where Social Media fits for your audience. Currently , failing to understand how our increasingly active social world challenges us and benefits our brand has become an act of shortsightedness or deliberate ignorance that threatens marketing perception, brand value, market share, and the bottom line.

Comments (1)
Categories : Webman

Why You Need Content Management Services and Software

By Your Expert Webman · Comments (0)
Saturday, August 28th, 2010

By – Matt Leitch, Project Management, Software Consultant,

Social Media Marketing, Professional Website Design

In the days before Content Management Systems the management of computerized or digital content was a hard task. You had to make your own formats and then use them to set up the material each time.

For instance, you needed to create relevant content , update the content when necessary , publish the content and be able to retrieve the content when needed. Sometimes it would need to be translated into different languages and various media formats.

When we talk about content management we are usually talking about the evolution and printing of new material on the website. A lot of the time we are talking about archival storage of the content in either a database or a file. Generally there will be a search tool also for the benefit of the end user.

The material that you post still needs to be relevant , able to be updated , published in a timely manner and have the ability to be retrieved. Now we have a content management System that is easy for non-computer literate persons to use.

It is built into the website. All the user has to do is login with a password and user name and edit the pages as they seem fit. Each new page will be automatically integrated into the design of the site. What could be easier?

The Content Management System is up to date with all the features you need. Such as , the ability to update existing pages and create new ones. The user will be able to add videos,maps,links,files and lots more. If you like, your existing site can be integrated into a new content management package.

There are many different packages that are already set up for this purpose, as well as CMS’s that allow a more custom environment. If you think this is something you could use, please click on the contact us link and leave your contact information.

We’ll also show you how you can use this software to brand and market your product.

Comments (0)
Categories : Webman
« Previous Page