Thinks I find along the way
Cool! Thanks for the <3, Dana! We’re proud of the work that e1evation and Envano have done for AGCO! If you want to see the other 6 Facebook pages that Dana VanDen Heuvel thinks are effective, you can follow the ‘via’ link…
Welcome to the world of location-based services. These applications are changing the way people experience everyday activities like shopping, eating, traveling, watching a movie or taking a picture.
Location-based service strategies include any application that has the ability to share an individual’s physical location, in real-time, with his or her online social networks. Users are rewarded with badges, stickers or points — satisfying the need for self-accomplishment. Users can also be rewarded for their activity by companies and brands leveraging these services as another element of their marketing strategy. Among the most popular location-based services are foursquare, Gowalla and Yelp Check-ins. Add Facebook Places to the location buffet as well.
Follow the ‘via’ link if you’d like to read the rest of the author’s perspective…
A majority 64 percent of CEOs are not using social media to engage with the public and other stakeholders, according to a new study from PR firm Weber Shandwick.
(Credit: Weber Shandwick)
Released yesterday, the report “Socializing Your CEO: From (Un)Social to Social” (PDF) looked at the social media presence and activities of CEOs from the world’s top 50 companies.
Among those CEOs profiled, 93 percent have been reaching out to people outside their companies in traditional ways. Most have been quoted in news and business publications, while 40 percent have talked to audiences directly at public events.
But in the online world, most information on top CEOs is found through Wikipedia, which is typically written by people outside the companies. Otherwise, only 36 percent of the CEOs were found to engage with the public through their own corporate Web sites via podcasts, blogs, and YouTube channels or through social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and MySpace.
Why aren’t more CEOs taking greater advantage of social media?
You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper…
“SmartPulse — our regular reader poll in SmartBrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social-media practices and issues. Our most recent poll question: Which statement best describes your business’ current approach to social media?
- We are experimenting — 41.88%
- We have a documented social-media marketing plan and metrics to track performance – 24.79%
- We have analysis paralysis. (In other words, we are all talk and no action) — 11.97%
- We are well on our way to becoming a social business (i.e. implementing social technologies across the organization) — 11.11%
- My subscription to this newsletter is the extent of my company’s social-media activity — 10.26%
The genesis of this poll question came after reading a recent article by Geoff Livingston, “The End of the Social Media Adoption Road,” that references Rogers’ Innovation Adoption Curve. Livingston states his belief that: “We’re rapidly approaching the end of the technology adoption curve for social media. … We’re likely moving into the laggard stage currently.”” Source: Has social media for business hit the mainstream? | SmartBlog on Social Media
What do you think? Is social media ready for prime time at your organization?
Social media is not just for the kids, the young, hip and aware. It’s also for ag producers. I’m David Sparks and I’ll be right back to tell you why. My kids can’t wait to get on Facebook to tell everybody, that has committed to being their “friend”, everything they want them to know. It’s like a cyber self-promotion. Now all of a sudden, this phenomenon is catching on big time in the ag world. Why not? Doesn’t it make sense to promote good ideas, like cost savings, new technology, communicating with the public, otherwise known as the consumer? So social media is definitely catching on in the agriculture industry. AGCO Corporation started its social media initiative at the 2009 Farm Progress Show. Today – nearly 18-thousand Facebook users like the AGCO page and about a thousand more are following AGCO on Twitter. The company also blogs several times each week.
Sue Otten is Director of Corporate Marketing and Brand Communications Worldwide for AGCO and heads up the company’s social media efforts. “It’s a nice blend between our own original content and talking about our products and technologies which is something our audiences are interested in as well as interesting ag news from around the world. It’s good for farmers in one part of the world to know what’s going on in other parts of the world. Ag is getting a bad rap these days and this is a way for the farming community to tell their story.
AGCO rocks! Nice work, Sue…
Reasons your organization can’t afford not to measure its Facebook presence:
- 500. Million.
There are over 500 million people on Facebook. They’re connecting with friends, sharing information, even segmenting themselves into like-minded groups. It’s a gold mine of measurable, actionable information.- It’s where users spend their time online.
Social media, and especially Facebook is where users spend most of their time online today. Yet marketers are spending disproportionately more money on email and search. Shouldn’t you be fishing where the fish are instead of trying to lure them away to your corporate website?- Your friend has 130 friends.
The average Facebook user has 130 friends. In other words, for every person you engage with on Facebook, you have the potential to amplify your message 130-fold. Did someone say golden opportunity?- Your competitors are doing it.
Your competition is on Facebook, measuring their presence, maybe even optimizing it. If you aren’t doing any of those things, you’re already behind.
As well as looking good on your resume and netting you college credit, interning in social media can offer you incredibly valuable experience in the world of work, where social media experience is becoming ever-more important.
However, competition for good placements can be fierce, so it’s good to know what companies look for in a social media intern, so you can focus on improving or highlighting those skills.
From big companies, small businesses, non-profits, educational institutions and commercial ventures, we talked to the people who recruit social media interns to find out just what it is they want in a candidate.
If you want to know what makes a good social media intern, look no further than Jamy Lyn Johnson of AGCO. In the spirit of full disclosure, Jamy is a client that has fully embraced the ‘e1evation workflow‘, personalized it and made it her own. A few weeks ago, the AGCO blog [which Jamy drives along with her boss Sue Otten] received a huge honor when they earned a spot in the Alltop Agriculture channel — kind of a bloggers ‘hall of fame’ making them the only Farm Equipment manufacturer to achieve that hallowed status…
What make Jamy so successful? Mashable lists 4 qualities that companies want:
Jamy had all four out of the box. As a journalism major at Furman, she gained the solid foundation that many business bloggers are lacking. She was also familiar with social media tools but needed a system and a process for using them in concert to achieve business objectives. That’s where I came alongside her for a brief period of time to connect the tools and give her a logical workflow using Google Reader combined with all the tools on the AGCO blog.
If you’re looking for the real deal in social media interns, look no further than Jamy — she’s a model for success in this space! AGCO better snap her up soon… :-D
If you’re responsible for your company’s newsletter [‘or blog or any other outward facing communication’ ed. note], stop looking at it as a burden. Ask yourself this question: “What would be MOST useful to the people getting this newsletter?” And then ask yourself this question: “What else besides my company’s pitch can I put into this newsletter?” Then ask yourself this question: “Would I share this with someone in my family or with my friends?” That’s one way to figure out how to fix newsletters.
If you’re looking for new buyers, don’t just lamely ask people. Figure out how to find them. Use social tools. Use old fashioned search tools. Create interesting content that would appeal to the kinds of people you need, and figure out ways to promote that. Look OFFLINE. It’s amazing how few people do that last one, by the way, if they’re getting deep into the online world.
If you’re responsible for improving coverage for your company as a public relations professional, put more time into building your relationships with your network before you have a new story. Connect with them about their own things. Ask them about their own passions. Get to know them outside of the article. Ask them how you can help them, or much better still, just figure out a way to be helpful and do it, gratis.
You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper…
You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article…
A news report that challenges conventional wisdom, especially one about a personal/cultural topic like religion, is often rich fodder for online conversation. This was the case last week as a Pew Research Center survey showing that atheists and agnostics were more knowledgeable about religion than followers of major faiths drew significant attention.
For the week of Sept. 27 to Oct. 1, almost a quarter (23%) of the news links on blogs were to a Los Angeles Times story about the survey, making it the No. 1 subject, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.
The survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that non-believers were able to answer more questions about religion correctly than believers, even when one controlled for educational background. It also showed that people were ill-informed on some of the questions related to their own religion. A majority of Protestants, for example, were unable to identify Martin Luther as the primary figure behind the Protestant Reformation. (The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Project for Excellence in Journalism are both are part of the Pew Research Center.)
You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper…
Admit it: You might love Twitter as a social network, but you probably don’t love it as a service. Twitter is the Yugo of social tools — it can take you wherever to need to go, but there aren’t a whole lot of bells and whistles. Of course, Yugos probably broke down less often.
Twitter’s simplicity is probably a big part of why it has attracted so many new users over the last four years, but once you master the basics, it isn’t long before you find yourself wishing there was an easy way to unfollow inactive users or send private messages to several people at the same time. The good news is that Twitter makes it easy for developers to create tools that can take your Twitter experience from Yugo to Lexus without too much fuss.
Here are eight Web applications that you can use to kick your account into a higher gear. Note: For simplicity’s sake, I won’t get into full Twitter clients, mobile apps or analytics tools today — those weighty topics will have to wait for their own posts.
What’s the + for? HootSuite. If you follow the ‘via’ link, you can read the author’s perspective. For me, however, HootSuite is the one tool that rules them all. Why? As a web based app with great mobile apps for iPhone or Android, it’s always available to be my social media dashboard — not only for Twitter, but for Facebook pages and other social media sites as well. HootSuite — don’t tweet home without it!
While big brands and agencies have the luxury of resources and money, local businesses don’t. What they need is a social-media dashboard — an all-in-one, Web-based monitoring tool for Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites where customers hang out — that can optimize their online presence, engage with users and manage social campaigns. But that tool needs to meet three criteria: cheap, easy to use and automated. With that in mind, here’s a list of the top four that I find particularly well-suited for business use.
I encourage you to follow the ‘via’ link and learn more about these ‘dashboards’. imho, the list is incomplete, however, without Gist and Google Reader. What are your favorite social dashboards?
What do you mean you don’t have a social newspaper? Go to http://paper.li to get one!
“We don’t know what social media’s most effective marketing uses will be in the future. But if you want to get a hint of what it will be like, here’s my suggestion: Don’t think mass marketing. Don’t think of advertising-type metrics, such as reach, frequency, big numbers, and “cutting through the clutter. “Think micro. Think relationships. Think of a customer saying, “What’s in it for me?” not a marketer saying, “Cool, I have another marketing tool!” Think of customers talking with each other, not companies adding social media to their “marketing mix.”
Have you subscribed to Dana’s email yet? Follow the ‘via’ link to go to the source…
With only 40 respondents, I don’t know how solid this data is but I still find it interesting. You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source to read the rest of the article. e1evation = “simply powerful social media”!
Churches and their communicators are always sending a message to their local communities. Our given message is to be the kingdom of God and gift of Jesus Christ. When this message is not clearly proclaimed by our verbal and non-verbal communication, our audience fills in the blanks. Our neighbors come to two conclusions: we are either ignorant of their problem, or we don’t care. Or both. And unfortunately, there are churches in both camps.
No one accidentally concludes you are a loving church without hearing your message. No one guesses you are a serving church without seeing your actions.
The current religious climate demands we exhaust every possible avenue in carrying the message of Christ clearly and concisely to any open ear. If your church is not using Facebook, then start—your high school, chamber of commerce, library and most tax paying citizens are. If you don’t use Twitter, learn—your friends and community already have. Does your local community have a bulletin board, free town mailer, radio station or homepage? Get on it. Go out in your community, and do something. The church’s silence is killing her message. If you make people guess what you are about, they will guess wrong.
Bright, shiny objects! 
You must be logged in to post a comment.