Strictly Business: Marketing With Social Networking Sites

For writer, photographer, and video producer David Chandler-Gick, Facebook is a practical tool. "On a recent cross-country excursion to work with Cathy Steffan of Parallel Media Productions, Facebook served as a central hub to keep me in contact with friends and colleagues," he writes. "Accessing Facebook kept me in touch with what was going on, last-minute changes, and more."

Yankee, Steve. Event DV (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Marketing>Social Networking

Engaged Reach Case Study of the Nike Hyperdunk Viral Video Campaign

In support of their Hyperdunk basketball shoe, Nike recently launched a viral video featuring basketball superstar Kobe Bryant recklessly leaping over a speeding Aston Martin. The video's low-end production quality makes the clip appear to be user-generated. As our analysis uncovered, this video was spread far and wide as the online viewing audience tried to figure out if one of the world's biggest sports stars would actually attempt such a stunt. Watch the clip below and read on to see just how effectively this campaign drove audience reach.

Visible Measures (2009). Articles>Multimedia>Video>Social Networking

Let Them Eat Tweets - Why Twitter Is a Trap  

Twitter can be entertaining, and useful — and, really, who doesn’t like the illusion, from time to time, of lots of company? I have only lately begun to wonder whether I’d use Twitter if I were fully at liberty to do what I liked.

Heffernan, Virginia. New York Times, The (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Online>Social Networking

How to Talk to Your Boss about Social Media (So She’ll Approve the Budget)

The use of social media for business is certainly a hot topic. For today’s post, Comet Branding’s new partner, Sara Meaney shares her first Comet Branding Blog post with us and dives into the big question on many people’s minds - “How do I convince with my boss that social media is right for our company?”

Meaney, Sara. Comet Branding (2009). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration>Social Networking

Three Reasons to Love the Twitter Hate

Twitteurs are in a hyperventilating snit over the ridicule being heaped on their plaything by, among others, the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Doonesbury’s Garry Trudeau. I’m a longtime Twitteur, semi-evangelical and pretty well engaged with it on a daily basis. By this point it is as integrated in my being as lymph. But I think the ridicule is a delightful, even important development.

Stoltz, Craig. 20hReally (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Software>Social Networking

Making Whuffie: Raising Social Capital in Online Communities

This talk gets to the heart of how people interact and exchange information in online communities: through social capital, or as Cory Doctorow calls it, Whuffie. The key to growing customers in online communities is through growing your social capital. You will learn the 5 lessons of raising Whuffie through online communities in this presentation.

Hunt, Tara. SXSW (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Social Networking>Podcasts

Twitter and Tech Communication

Twitter can be a great tool, and can help people get answers quickly. However, when you have a question and need an answer, you probably ought to consider your question, and determine what channel is best suited for the type of answer you need. That may or may not be Twitter.

Pehrson, Paul. Technically Speaking (2009). Articles>TC>Technical Writing>Social Networking

Five Ways to Take Control of Your Personal Brand Today

With a bad economy, more pressure at work and overwhelming competition, investing in yourself and your future is crucial. There are a lot of new trends and tricks that you can take advantage of now. Below are five easy and initial steps you can take to start building your brand today. These will help you control your online identity, protect your future, centralize your digital assets, safeguard your brand from threats and more.

Schawbel, Dan. Mashable (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Marketing>Social Networking

Is My Brand Right For Twitter?

Marketers are increasingly engaging with consumers on social media platforms and Twitter, in particular, has received, and continues to gain, attention. From shock tactics, to useful value propositions like @amazonmp3 content feed, brands are revealing themselves on Twitter. We are starting to hear of stories about top executives calling meetings about how they should "get on Twitter" and saying, "We need a social media profile." But should they? Do they?

Weisman, Benjamin J. Marketing Daily (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Marketing>Social Networking

Does Your Network Work for You?

Here are some suggestions to make better use of LinkedIn so that your professional network works for you.

Roux, Tom. Business Insider, The (2009). Careers>Collaboration>Professionalism>Social Networking

The Generational Effect on Social Media    

In his first column for Intercom, Rich Maggiani discusses the onset of social media as a significant new form of communication, and how the youngest generation is now setting the tone while Baby Boomers struggle to keep up.

Maggiani, Rich. Intercom (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Online>Social Networking

Intranets and Business Impact

People are doing business differently today; the intranet of yesterday is not sustainable. Make your intranet work the way people work.

McConnell, Jane. Predicate (2009). Presentations>Web Design>Intranets>Social Networking

Web 2.0 in Schools: Policy and Leadership

This report documents the beliefs, perspectives, and practices of educational administrators which help or hinder effective use of Web 2.0 in K-12 education. The study collected data from nearly 1,200 school administrators on the role of Web 2.0 in American schools and was made possible by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

COSN (2009). Articles>Education>Online>Social Networking

Social Media "Strategies" Getting in the Way of Enterprises' Social Media Usage

Social media is so powerful and diverse that just about the only thing that can get in the way of an organization making the most of it is the idea that social media cannot be exploited without a "strategy." That makes about as much sense as stopping you as you slide your key into the ignition and insisting you first develop a strategy that encompasses your automobile needs for tonight, tomorrow, and every day in the future.

Ray, Augie. Experience (2008). Articles>Web Design>Social Networking>Marketing

Is More Less? Or is Less More? The Quality vs Quantity Debate

Is it better to have 500,000 followers on Twitter? Or is it better to have 100 followers who are engaged and targeted? Is it better to have a website with 5000 pages of content, or a website with 50 pages of well thought out, valuable material? I am not trying to dictate an answer by using value terms in my questions, despite the fact that I am very much of the opinion that less is more and quality trumps quantity, but recent events are arising which may be proving me wrong.

Williams, Nancy. Social Media Today (2009). Articles>Web Design>Social Networking>Marketing

¿Estar o no Estar en Medios Sociales?

Aviso para navegantes: las relaciones con los consumidores han cambiado por completo. Y si aún no se había percatado, puede que se deba porque ha sucedido en tan sólo unos meses!

Grau, Francesc. Social Media Today (2009). (Spanish) Articles>Web Design>Social Networking

Twitter: Expressions of the Whole Self  

Twitter.com is a web-based communications platform combining Instant Messaging and SMS that enables subscribers to its service to send short ‘status updates’ to other people. Beyond its hybrid platform, Twitter’s unique feature is its overarching question “What are you doing?”, which acts as a ‘guidance note’ on how users should phrase their postings. Although it is a ‘soft restriction’, meaning that other formats and styles are possible, this study investigates the extent to which users of Twitter are responding to the question.

Mischaud, Edward. London School of Economics (2007). Books>Communication>Social Networking>Blogging

What is Social Bookmarking

A discussion of social bookmarking; its use and trends.

KeyContent.org (2009). Articles>Web Design>Taxonomy>Social Networking

Rolling Out a Social Media Strategy

So you have you’re social media strategy, now what? If you’re like most organizations then you can’t roll out a social media campaign in a day, or even in a few weeks. So how do you go about rolling out a social media strategy? My recommendation would be to proceed in phases. What I’m outlining below is a very high level approach to rolling a social media strategy.

Morgan, Jacob. Social Media Today (2009). Articles>Web Design>Social Networking>Planning

Identity in the Age of Cloud Computing: The Next-Generation Internet’s Impact on Business, Governance and Social Interaction  

Coming after decades of increased capacity and expectations from the desktop at the network’s edge, the burgeoning acceptance of the cloud as a way of doing business raises a number of interesting and important questions for the broader public. What control do we have over our identities, security, and privacy? How will it change economic and business models? What are the implications for governance and cyber-security?

Lasica, J.D. Aspen Institute, The (2009). Books>Web Design>Collaboration>Social Networking

Is Web 2.0 a Cult?

I decided to take a deeper look at Web 2.0 and its followers to see if indeed a cult had formed. In the spirit of 2.0, I’m using Wikipedia content as my sole source for definitions of terms. And, in order to stay within the concentration limit and scientific method of the social networking community, I’ll only take a quick tweet-speed look at three cult characteristics as a sample: Mind Control, Love-Bombing and Coercive Persuasion and then come to a conclusion.

Welchman, Lisa. WelchmanPierpoint (2009). Articles>Web Design>Social Networking

A Visual Tour Through the Basics of Social Media Marketing

I've been asked several times to give presentations on the basics of social media marketing, and have now refined my 15 minute introductory tour to the point where I think it's fairly good (and I'm really damn picky about my presentations). The following presentation (in visual and text form) should be helpful for anyone trying to convince their bosses, team or cohorts that investing in SMM is a worthwhile pursuit.

SEOmoz (2007). Articles>Web Design>Social Networking>Marketing

Integrating Social Media Into Existing Work Environments: The Case of Delicious    

This article offers an example case of technical communicators integrating the social bookmarking site Delicious into existing work environments. Using activity theory to present conceptual foundations and concrete steps for integrating the functionalities of social media, the article builds on research within technical communication that argues for professional communicators to participate more fully in the design of communication systems and software. By examining the use of add-ons and tools created for Delicious, and the customized use of Rich Site Syndication (RSS) feeds that the site publishes, the author argues for addressing the context-sensitive needs of project teams by integrating the functionality of social media applications generally and repurposing their user-generated data.

Stolley, Karl. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2009). Articles>Workplace>Collaboration>Social Networking

Networked Exchanges, Identity, Writing    

This article argues for a rhetoric of networked exchanges that focuses on the response. Working from Spinuzzi's call for a rhetoric of horizontal learning, it examines two kinds of online writing spaces in order to propose such a rhetoric. After surveying conflicting, academic attitudes regarding networked exchanges, the article proposes the response as a type of professional communication. A specific message board thread and a series of blog carnivals serve as examples of the rhetoric of response, a way that horizontal learning produces a specific type of networked writing identity. The article concludes with a call for response-based communication practices.

Rice, Jeff. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2009). Articles>Writing>Collaboration>Social Networking