Social Networks | Professional Blog Service

5 Signs You Suck at Twitter

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

I’ve been playing around with Friend Or Follow over the last few days, and I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of people suck at Twitter.

Friend Or Follow is a Twitter tool that shows people you’re following, but aren’t following you; people who follow you, but you’re not following; and people you have a mutual followship with.

I dumped over 500 people from my Twitter account this week with FOF. I checked out each account I unfollowed, and frankly, some of you people are just doing it wrong. That’s why I unfollowed you. Not sure if this includes you? Then check out the…

Five signs you suck at Twitter.

You claim to be a social media consultant/pro/expert/guru (CPEG), but your following to follower ratio is 10:1. That is, you’re followed by 5,000 or more people, but only following 500. Social media consultants looove to say “have conversations with people.” But shouldn’t people who truly value conversation be willing to, I don’t know, have them?. Or at least fake like you are? If you’re a CPEG, you should have a ratio fairly close to 1:1. This is not to say that everyone should have a 1:1 ratio. Just the CPEGs. (Pro tip: you’ll also have more than 200 followers. I’m just sayin’.)
Nearly every one of your tweets is some motivational or inspirational message. Why do I need to get ten motivational messages peppered throughout the day? If it didn’t help me at 8:30 — 29 minutes after your HootSuite-scheduled “Good morning, my tweeps! Make this an excellent day!” — then it’s not going to help me at 9:30, 10:30, and so on. Don’t regurgitate someone else’s cleverness, show me yours. If you really want to motivate me, tell me about the cool stuff you’re doing.
You’re trying to amass as many followers as you can. If you’re a celebrity, a public figure, or someone who’s really, really interesting, that’s great. If you grew your network through hard work and earned those followers, more power to you. But if you resort to computer scripts, trickery, and joining follower-building networks to boost your rankings, then stick with being a LinkedIn LION. Twitter is not a competitive sport. Despite what you’re already doing to LinkedIn and Facebook, Twitter isn’t just one more race to the bottom of mediocrity and uselessness.
Your Twitter bio has the words “money,” “fast,” and “make” in it. I spam-block every single person whose bio says they have some money making system they want to share with me. Stick to peddling penis drugs and fake watches by email.
Your time between tweets can be measured with a calendar. You don’t have to tweet many times a day, but at least once a day wouldn’t kill you. Even every other day would be fine. But when you’re only tweeting every 3 – 4 weeks on a regular basis, then Twitter isn’t a communication tool, it’s an afterthought, like calling your mom the day after Mother’s Day.

What is your Twitter pet peeve? What sort of annoying behavior have you seen?

About the Author: Erik Deckers
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.

Tags: facebook, linkedin, social networking, social networks, twitter
Posted in Networking, Social Media, Social Networks, Twitter | View Comments

5 Ways Arts Organizations Should Use Social Media

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Arts organizations are facing funding cuts all over the world.

For example, Scotland is cutting £2 million ($3.1 million) for the arts. The National Theatre of Scotland, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Ballet, and Scottish Opera are all facing cuts of 10% in government funding.

This all got me to wondering how arts organizations could use social media to promote themselves, and find additional fans, attendees, and donors.

The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra is one of the largest arts organizations in Indiana.

There are only a few arts organizations using social media, but with social media’s explosive growth, the organizations that aren’t are missing a great opportunity.

While you may think that social media is only for young people, this is a fallacy that has long been disproved. In fact, the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is women, age 50 – 60. If that demographic fits within your core audience, shouldn’t you be trying to reach them? And what better place to do it than where they are already?

Second, if your core audience is people in their 50s and 60s, don’t you want to try to reach a younger audience? Otherwise, your audience will get smaller and smaller as they retire, move away, and die. If a younger audience is using social media, then you should try to reach them in their world, instead of forcing them to come to yours. They haven’t come yet, and that’s not going to change any time soon.

So here are five ways arts organizations should use social media.

Set up a blog and give readers a behind-the-scenes look at your organization. Your blog should be more than just a press release center. Don’t just make it a place to dump all your promotional information. Post photos of rehearsals. Let staff, actors, and performers post their thoughts on performances. Post diary-like reflections of preparing for an upcoming show or performance.
Create podcasts of musical performances.If you’re a musical organization, create a regular podcast, and make that available to the public. People can listen to past performances and get an idea of what you sound like. But if you think “if people hear us on a podcast, they won’t want to come,” that’s untrue. (Did you know that was the argument by orchestras against selling sheet music, the Victrola, and radio?) The New York and Chicago Philharmonics have shows on public radio stations around the country, and the Indianapolis Symphony has a highlights show on WFYI, our local public radio station, and yet they still get people to attend. If anything, when people hear a performance, it makes them want to see it live.
Create videos of performances. If you are a performing arts organization, try posting videos from past performances on YouTube, and then putting them up on your blog. This is especially true for visual performances, like dance and theatre troupes. This will let people know the kind of thing they can expect when they attend one of your performances. And if they like what they see online, they’ll want to be a part of the experience, and attend a show.
Create a Facebook page for your organization. If there was a single social networking tool that was made for arts organizations, Facebook is it. Not only does it have the largest population of social media users (500 million people around the world), but it’s ideally suited for posting or reposting content from other sites. You can repost your blog content, videos, and photos to your Facebook page. You can ask your members and attendees to join, communicate with them directly, ask them to tell their friends, which will bring in new Facebook friends.
Share your contacts with other organizations. Yeah, I saved this point for last, because a lot of you will think I’m crazy. But think about it for a minute: your biggest competitors are not the other performing arts organizations in the area, it’s television, movies, restaurants, and general laziness. You probably don’t share members, so you’re not competing for the same dollars. But sharing contacts could be a benefit to both organizations. For one thing, you can introduce dance fans to the music that supports the dancers. You can introduce theater goers to dance, another visual art form. And as you cross-pollinate your membership, both organizations will benefit, rather than steal members.
How can you cross-promote with another organization?
- Do a feature of each other in your respective blogs.
- Promote ticket sales (buy one of ours, get one of theirs for 50% off).
- Do a joint performance, like their orchestra playing for your opera. Have their chamber quartet play at your museum event.
- “Like” their Facebook page, and encourage your Facebook friends to like it as well. Ask them to reciprocate.
By combining your social media efforts, you can double your efforts, introduce a whole new audience — who is already predisposed to appreciating the performing arts — to your organization. The result is you’ll be able to add new audience members to each organization, and strengthen both.

What is your organization doing? Are you using social media, or do you want to try using it? And if you’re not in an arts organization, how have you seen other organizations using it?

Tags: facebook, Lead Generation, performing arts, Social Media, social media marketing, tickets
Posted in Lead Generation, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Social Networks | View Comments

Four Blogging Tips for Travel and Tourism Destinations

Monday, July 26th, 2010

One of the best things travel and tourism destinations can use for social media marketing is blogging. It’s a way to share content that:

is easy to update. Writing a blog post is as easy as writing an email.
helps with search engine ranking. Search engines love blog content.
will last for years. Your content can be found years later by interested visitors.

So here are the four things you can do with your blog to help market your tourism destination to your visitors.

1. Tell stories about the stuff your guests are doing.

Rather than just describe the activities that are available at your destination, talk about the things your guests have been doing. Write it more like one of the old weekly newspaper columns that used to tell us when the town’s citizens had visited each other.

The stories should talk about some of the stuff the guests are doing. Do a quick interview with them, find out the favorite part of their activity, and write a brief synopsis of what they did. Include some photos if possible (see #2).

We just heard from David and Sharon A. about the round of golf they played this morning. Sharon is a fair golfer and scored a 91, although David (89) is still recovering from a back injury. David said that while the course was a little challenging, he still couldn’t make it out of the water trap on the 13th hole.

Meanwhile, the Robins just returned from their horseback ride, on Morgan and Shadow. Morgan is always a gentle horse, which is good, because David Robins has never ridden before. They spent the morning out on the trail and stopped for a picnic lunch out on Oak Lookout.

It’s just a short post, and people may not really care about what the families are doing (more on that in a minute), but the people who have gotten caught in the 13th hole water trap, ridden Morgan, or had a picnic lunch on Oak Lookout are going to have their own memories of the place, and will remember the great times they had. (However, the families who are mentioned in your post may also tell their friends about your blog entry, and they’ll get to read about your place as well.

2. Post your photos and videos.

We talked in a previous post about why travel and tourism destinations should use photo and video sharing sites. The only issue is that you can’t always get people to go to those photo and video sites, especially if you’re uploading hundreds and thousands of photos.

But your blog is also an easy place to share those photos and videos. Choose the embed code for your album or video, and paste it into a blog post. You can use this content to reinforce the text you’re writing about, and increase the impact of your posts. Plus, videos and photos embedded on your blog will help your search engine rankings

3. Talk about behind-the-scenes stuff.

Think about your good friends, the ones you really like. How much do you know about their lives, the stuff they don’t tell just everyone? Probably quite a bit. And it’s that non-public knowledge that probably makes you feel closer. You can do the same thing on your blog.

Inn-Bedded Resorter Martin Earley is spending two months at The Balsams Grand Resort Hotel as their social media guy. He’s been enjoying all the amenities the guests get to use, but he’s also giving people a behind-the-scenes look at The Balsams. You can see a video of the kitchen during a dinner rush, but he has also spent time with the cleaning staff, and will also spend one night working security.

He’s showing regular and potential guests how things work around the place, so people will understand a little better how their favorite New England resort works, but also so they feel a little closer to it, and will want to return again and again.

4. Write it as a letter.

The biggest mistake beginning bloggers make is writing for posterity. They imagine thousands of readers, book editors, and critics, all poring over their blog. As a result, the posts sound stilted and forced, the language is wooden, and the whole thing sounds like it was written by a marketing committee.

Don’t write it for those people, write it for one person. Pick your favorite guest, your best friend from high school, or your mom. Write it in the same friendly tone as if this was only being read by that one person. In fact, start your post out with “Dear Sharon” or “Dear Mom.” Then, write the post to Sharon or your mom. When you’re finished, go back and delete the salutation. The tone of the post will come across as casual, friendly, and personal. The net result is more people will enjoy reading it, and they’ll want to come back every time you publish a new post.

Photo credit: Erik Deckers (Disclosure: I am a travel writer for the Indiana Tourism Department’s Blog, Indiana Insider.)

Tags: blogging, business blogging, Social Media, social media marketing, tourism blogging, travel and tourism, travel blogging
Posted in Blog Writing, Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Communication, Marketing, Social Media, Social Networks, Tools | View Comments

5 Photo & Video Sharing Sites Travel Destinations Should Use

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

Yesterday, I talked about the 5 Reasons Why Travel & Tourism Destinations Need Social Media, and how social media is being used by more and more people than you may have realized.

Social media helps people share news about their lives with their friends and family. Not only are they telling people they went on vacation, they’re able to show them where they went, what they did, and all the good times they had. They’re especially doing it on the photo and video sharing sites. Here are fives sites you should use to promote your own travel and tourism destination.

YouTube (VIDEO)

What it is: This is the website everyone knows when it comes to video sharing. According to one source, there are 1,500 years worth of videos on YouTube right now. But that’s because they make it so easy.
Get started:Go to YouTube.com and set up your account. If you already have a Google account of some sort (Gmail, iGoogle, Google Docs), you already have an account, because Google owns YouTube. Start finding other friends and guests by importing your email address book. Then follow the instructions to upload your videos.
Strategy: Encourage guests to upload their own videos and tag your destination in it. (This helps you get found for any searches on YouTube.) Upload your own videos (regular or HD) and embed them in your blog or link to your Facebook account.

Vimeo (VIDEO)

What it is: Vimeo is another video sharing site that’s not nearly as big as YouTube. The benefit to you is that you get to be a bigger fish in a bigger pond. According to their website, it was originally “. . . created by filmmakers and video creators who wanted to share their creative work, along with intimate personal moments of their everyday life,” so there tends to be more of an artsy feel to it, but you’re not limited to only being a filmmaker or artist.
Get started: Go to Vimeo.com and set up an account. Import your email address book (Google or Yahoo), and make connections with your guests.
Strategy: Same as Facebook. If your guests use Vimeo, encourage them to upload videos and tag your destination in it. Upload your regular and HD videos, and then use the embed code to place them in your blog or link to your Facebook account.

Flickr

What it is: Flickr is one of the two most popular photo sharing sites. In fact, by strict definition, it’s a social network centered around photo sharing (actually, all the video and photo sharing tools are considered social networks). You upload your photos and share them with your friends, embed them in blog posts, and link to them in Twitter messages.(Note: Flickr has begun accepting 90 second videos for uploading. While they won’t give YouTube a run for their money, they are making it easier for Flickr fans to keep their video in one place too.)
Get started: If you already have a Yahoo account, you have a Flickr account. Otherwise, sign up, import your email address book, and then start uploading photos. If you have an iPhone or Android, you can also upload photos directly to Flickr from your phone. There is also a digital camera storage card called the Eye-Fi that will not only store your photos, but upload them whenever you’re in a wifi hotspot.
Strategy: Hold a best photo contest and encourage guests to upload the photos to Flickr and Picasa (next section), and then embed the photos in the comments section of your website or your Facebook page.. Post the entries to your website, and allow voting for the best photo (use SurveyMonkey.com). Use the best photo(s) on your promotional materials. Also, consider using a Creative Commons license with your photos (this lets other people use your photos as long as they give you credit), and let them use photos that link back to your Flickr page.

Picasa

What it is: Another photo sharing site, but this one is owned by Google. I like Picasa a little more because it’s easier to integrate with a Blogger blog, plus they have different paid subscription levels. You can get 20GB for $5, or 200GB for $50.
Get started: If you have a Gmail account or a YouTube account, you’re all set. Otherwise, go to picasaweb.google.com Next, go to Picasa.com and download the Photo Uploader. This will let you upload photos in batches, rather than a few at a time.
Strategy: First, don’t worry about whether you can upload videos to Picasa, because you can also use YouTube. (Remember, they’re both owned by Google.) Next, just like with Flickr, hold a photo contest, and use the best photos in your promotional material. And consider using a Creative Commons license with your Picasa photos.

Facebook

What it is: The biggest social network in the world. We talked about it previously.
Get started: Hopefully you already started a Facebook account, but if not, go to Facebook.com and start an account. Get comfortable with it and then start a business page (what they used to call a “Fan Page”) for your own business. Invite friends to “Like” your business page, and do it more than once (people need reminding).
Strategy: While this won’t be the hub of your social media campaign, it needs to be a major part of it. Facebook will have more of your guests and customers on it than any other social network. This is where you need to push a lot of your marketing message, which will drive people back to your main website or blog.

Where should you start?

While there is a chicken and egg question about whether you should join social networks first or start with photo and video sites, it ultimately doesn’t matter. It will take a few days to get everything ramped up. Focus on one video site and one photo site. Pick the one you like the best, and the one that is easiest to use, and just start using it.

At the same time, pick the social network you want to start on (I recommend Facebook, since that’s where everyone is), and work on that one as well. You’ll ultimately spend more time on Facebook than you will on your photo and video sites, so consider these sites as supporting sites for your social network.

Tags: facebook, Flickr, Picasa, social networking, social networks, Vimeo, youtube
Posted in Facebook, Lead Generation, Networking, Photo, Public Relations, Reputation Management, Social Media, Social Networks, Video | View Comments

5 Reasons Email Is NOT Going Away. I Don’t Care What Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Says

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Email is NOT going away.

South African blogger Arthur Charles Van Wyk thinks Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg is just a bit crazy when she says that email is going to die off, because only 11% of teens are using email these days. (You can watch the video below.)

Email is not obsolete. Not yet, anyway.

The premise is an interesting one: if you want to figure out what kind of consumer technology we’ll be using in several years, look at what the teens are using right now. And the teens aren’t using email, they’re using SMS on cell phones, or they’re using social networks like Facebook.

Does this mean that we will all write in text speak? Will sexting become an appropriate form of communication?

I don’t care what anyone says. Email is not, NOT NOT going to die off. Here are 5 reasons email is not going away:

Email is widely used in the business world. We’ve got so many companies using it, it’s never going to be dislodged, at least not in my lifetime. Until someone finds an easier way to transfer large documents and files only to specific individuals, it’s going to be the communication tool of choice. Can you see corporations — many of whom were reluctant to start letting people get email addresses and Internet access in the first place — dropping a tool that they fought against adopting? They’re still using fax machines, for God’s sake! So, sure teenagers aren’t using it now, but wait until they get assimilated into the corporate collective. They’ll be forced to use it whether they want to or not.
How do you get notified when you get a new friend, get tagged in a photo, have someone comment on your status update? Right now it’s by email. Do you really want your phone to buzz every time someone wants to be your Farmville friend on Facebook, or responds to someone else’s status update? While everyone likes their mobile phones, getting buzzed by an abundance of social network messages is going to get tiresome.
Our mobile phones can only hold so many texts. I have emails from 5 years ago that I still need to keep, but I can’t say the same for text messages. But if I did what happens if my cell phone gets too full? And then what if I lose it? Sure, those things can be saved in the cloud, but that’s where my email messages are anyway. Plus, my emails are easier to organize and search for.
Mobile phones and text messages are not ideal for important communications. While email may be less formal than, say, a certified letter, it’s more formal than a text message. What kind of damage are you doing to your personal brand if you tell a potential employer, “just text me,” especially if you’re someone who got a cell number that spells a naughty word? Or what if you got a job offer (or didn’t)? Do you want to get “Dude, u r not hired. Sry. Better luck nxt time” from an employer? Communicating with people who will be important to your life needs to be done in a way that’s more dignified than a cell phone.
Email is free, text messaging is not. I have to pay $10 every month to get unlimited texting, but my Gmail account is free. Admittedly neither cell phones nor computers are in every home in this country, but while text messages still cost money — even though they cost the cell carriers nothing to send (don’t get me started on that!) — it’s going to be a barrier for people to adopt it wholesale around the country

Email may not be the communication tool of choice, but it’s not going anywhere. And while SMS will become more prevalent in this country, I don’t believe it’s going to kill email, and I think people who say so are doing it for shock. We haven’t even killed postal mail, and yet the hip thing to do is to declare the death of free mail?

Kill off postal mail first, and then I’m more likely to believe you.

Photo credit: Jparise (Flickr)

Tags: Communication, email, social networks
Posted in Communication, Facebook, Networking, Social Media, Social Networks, Twitter | View Comments

5 Questions To Ask After Your Social Media “Expert” Has Started

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

We’d all like to think our social media consultants — any of our consultants, actually — know what they’re doing, and have our organization’s best interests at heart. But there are times that, despite all the good they promised, things don’t go the way we had hoped or were led to believe.

Too often, organizations don’t realize they were sold a bill of goods until after the campaign has ended, and they try to figure out what the ROI on the entire project was. That’s when they have the horrible realization they just spent thousands of dollars on a project and got almost nothing for it in return.

Measuring ROI is important, even in the middle of the campaign. But about a month after your campaign has kicked off, start asking these questions:

Does your social media consultant avoid using Twitter or other social media tools? Ask what they think about these tools. If you hear “I don’t use _____ because I think it’s stupid” or “because no one uses it,” ask them for data to back up their statement, and a better explanation than “it’s stupid.” The question is not whether they think it’s stupid, it’s whether your customers do. If your customers are on there, then it doesn’t matter what the consultant thinks.
Who are your social media followers? Are they your target audience, or are they filler followers? (Filler-wers?) Some disreputable social media consultants will fill a company’s follower ranks with spammers, high school students, or offshore account holders, none of whom are your target audience (unless you’re selling stuff to spammers, high school students, or offshore outsourced workers). Pay close attention to your followers, and see if they’re the kinds of people you normally do business with. Ask yourself the likelihood of being followed by several hundred high school students, when you normally sell stuff to their parents. Or by computer experts from the Philippines, when your customer base lives within three miles of your store.
Does your social media company have a strategy, a look, a campaign that is unique to you? Or does it look exactly the same as everyone else’s? Does it involve some new thinking and challenges for you, as a way to reach a new audience, or is it just an online version of what you’re doing offline? While a social media campaign won’t reinvent the wheel, it shouldn’t just be a retread of your old campaign. It’s also a good idea to avoid the “everyone else is doing it” type of program, like free giveaways to site visitors. While that may bring in visitors, they may not really be potential customers (see the previous point).
What do you know about the business or the people at the business that you have entrusted with the reputation of your company? What is their reputation around the community? Do they hold to your business ethics, or do they do some things that you disagree with? While you can expect some disagreements politically — that sort of thing just happens, and is a poor excuse to not do business with someone — you should make sure that the person’s personal brand and reputation matches your own. For example, would you want an avid hunter representing your animal rights organization? Should a mixed martial arts fighter be a spokesperson for your pacifist organization? And do you want someone who tells racist or sexist jokes to represent your third world relief organization? You can find things like this on someone’s Facebook page or blog, and they should be a serious cause for concern.
Would you hand your social media consultant a microphone and let them tell the world they are representing you? In essence, are you comfortable saying, “this is our employee. We trust her enough to give her money and speak on our behalf.”
If you’re having problems answering the first four questions, the answer to this question, I hope, is “no.” Your consultant is an employee, albeit a temporary, part-time contract employee, but they are your representative nevertheless. And if you can’t trust them with little things like not hiring a bunch of offshore freelancers to create hundreds of fake social media accounts, you can’t trust them with big things, like telling members of your community that you hired them.

I realize I’m picking on my own industry, but it’s necessary to be proactive, and to point out some of the scams and poor practices that exist. Most real social media professionals do everything we can to help our clients, and do what we promised them in the spirit of the agreement, not just the letter of the agreement (that is, when we say we’ll grow their network, we grow it with likely, real customers, not people with a pulse).

We make sure we do it ethically, and that our own personal and corporate brand is something another company is pleased to be associated with.

So it’s incumbent upon the social media industry to police ourselves, so charlatans and snake-oil salesmen don’t ruin it for those of us who are actually doing it correctly. All it takes is for one person to smear the industry’s reputation by totally screwing a small company out of thousands of dollars. Then the honest professionals suffer for it.

If you find you’re being given bad information by your consultant, speak with another social media professional you trust, and get a second opinion. Find out what questions you should be asking, and what answers you should be getting. Then, double-check your information, speak to your hired consultant, listen carefully, and be prepared to cancel the contract if need be.

Yes, it’s harsh, but it’s your organization’s budget, reputation, and brand on the line. They’re counting on you to not tell anyone else about it, so they can continue to leech off your community or your industry. Protect yourself first, and make sure you’re getting what you should be.

Tags: facebook, followers, Social Media, social media campaign, social media expert, twitter
Posted in Blogging, Facebook, Reputation Management, Social Media, Social Networks, Twitter | View Comments

Four Ways Government Agencies Should Use Social Media

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

While I’m a frequent speaker about whether government agencies should use social media for crisis communication (they should), I was recently asked whether agencies should use it for non-crisis communication.

Of course they should.

Having worked in public affairs (that’s government talk for “public relations”), I have seen the frustration many agencies experience in trying to get their messages out to the mainstream media, or media representing their particular niche.

The Indiana Board of Animal Health and the Indiana Department of Agriculture have great relationships with the different farm newspapers and radio stations in the state. The Indiana Arts Commission has a tie-in with many of the arts media in the state. And the Indiana Office of Tourism Development’s Visit Indiana initiative works closely with the travel media in the region. (Full disclosure: I am a blogger for Visit Indiana.)

And many of these agencies are using social media, but they’re using it as a broadcast tool, rather than a communication tool. However, I have to applaud these agencies for using social media at all. There are still several agencies within my own state government that are relying on fax machines and emails to send press releases to mainstream media. I’m not saying they should completely drop that method of communication, but rather, they should add social media to their efforts. Part of the problem is the decision makers within these agencies who don’t understand social media, and therefore assume the public doesn’t use it. The other part of the problem is the IT departments who are worried that allowing people to access YouTube or Twitter will open a huge Pandora’s box of ills. (But will never switch to Firefox to combat this problem…)

So if an agency is on the fence about using social media or not, here are five ways they could use it for great benefit.

Use a blog to promote different programs, news releases, announce grants, release official statements, post job openings, and solicit feedback from the public. A blog is the easiest way to communicate with the public, because it’s created specifically for that purpose. No more asking your IT department or web developer to add a new page on your website. Just click the New Post (or New Page button, if you’re lucky enough to have WordPress on your server), add in the appropriate text and photos, click Submit, and voila! you created a new post/page. No programming, no delays, no excuses of “I’ve been backed up with a bunch of requests from other departments.
Create videos to educate the public about your different programs. Government agencies are notorious for starting programs, but often have no way to promote them. With a $200 Flip camera, or even someone’s point-and-shoot digital camera, you can create basic videos that can be uploaded to YouTube, Vimeo, and Viddler. You can even embed your videos in new blog posts.
Use social media as part of your media relation efforts. Post videos of press conferences to YouTube and your blog. Post press releases to the blog, and then announce them on Twitter. Encourage citizen journalists and bloggers to use your content in their own blogs, which will help promote your media efforts.
Maintain a network of professionals or citizens who are associated with your agency. If you’re in public health, maintain a Twitter account of public health professionals. Keep in contact with those professionals and follow what they’re doing. If you’re in agriculture, create a social network of farmers, animal producers, extension agents, and associated vendors. Let them provide support, answer questions, and create new opportunities with each other. If you’re in tourism, create a blog for potential visitors to learn about what your area has to offer.

What are some ways you think government agencies could use social media? How have you seen it done, or how has your agency used it? Leave a comment in the comments section and let us know what you think.

Tags: Crisis Communication, government agencies, Social Media
Posted in Blogging, Communication, Crisis Communication, Facebook, Public Health, Public Relations, Social Media, Social Networks, Tools | View Comments

What Auto Racing Has Learned From Social Media

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

For the past week, I’ve been at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, covering the race for my Laughing Stalk blog as a media blogger. I’m one of the only, if not the only, non-race blogger here in the media center.

I’ve seen some pretty awesome stuff while I’ve been here. I met Rick Mears, interviewed Justin Wilson, but I think the coolest thing I’ve experienced is hearing that a race car designer has embraced social media and plans on making all their car designs and plans available to the public, a la open source.

I had a chance to talk with Ben Bowlby, the Chief Technology Officer for DeltaWing Racing about this impressive new car. While this model is only a wind tunnel model — the proposed version wouldn’t actually look like this, and it’s already 6 months out of date — a lot of people aren’t real wild about it. Of course, that’s because most of them haven’t understood the concept behind it.

What I was especially impressed by was that DeltaWing wants to make all of their designs available to the public, to students, to the media, and to the entire racing community. People are allowed to take the designs, copy them, modify them, incorporate bits of it into their own design, whatever they want.

If a student wants to make an improvement to the front wishbone, he can submit it back to DeltaWing, and if they approve it, the student gets royalties from any racing team that uses it.

The only other place I’ve seen this is in social media and open source software, Linux and Mozilla being the two biggest examples.

Whether you like the new design or not, you have to admit the open source concept is pretty cool.

Tags: auto racing, Indianapolis 500, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, open source, race cars, Social Media
Posted in Networking, Social Media, Social Networks | View Comments

New Social Media Revolution 2 Video from Erik Qualman

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business (affiliate link) launched a new Social Media Revolution video a couple weeks ago, matching the same look, sound, and interesting ideas as his original Social Media Revolution video.

It’s a great video. It has a lot of interesting statistics, and you can really dance to it.

If you work with some social media non-believers, make sure they watch this new video, as well as the last one. I can tell you that Erik’s last video played a large part in helping us land a church as a client. They saw the video, said, “oh man, is it really growing this fast? We have to tap into this,” and called us. (So thanks, Erik, I owe you a beer. A really nice one too, not one of those beers whose names appear on the side of a race car.)

Tags: Erik Qualman, socialnomics
Posted in Communication, Social Media, Social Media Analytics, Social Networks | View Comments

If We Used FourSquare for Sex

Friday, May 7th, 2010

There can sometimes be a little too much sharing about our personal lives.

Back in October, I wrote about how 36% of people under 35 had tweeted or status updated after sex.

That is, 36 percent of the 35-and-under crowd have not only tweeted or given status updates after sex, they were updates that they’d just had sex.

Now that FourSquare is getting more and more popular with the Twitterati, I’m worried what it’s going to look like if people start using FourSquare to check in after sex.

	Just checking in on my honeymoon. Hey, I scored the Newbie badge for scoring my first check-in! My new bride didn’t get one. I’ll have to ask her about that later.
	I just got the Local badge. FourSquare says that means I’ve been to the same place 3 times in one week. Wow, FourSquare is fun. So is being married.
	Woo-hoo! The Bender badge. That’s 4 nights in a row for me. Man, this honeymoon is awesome!
	Kelli has been crying for a couple hours. Apparently some guy named Trevor is now the mayor of 12 different places.
	The Crunked badge. 4 stops in one night? I need some Gatorade. And a nap.
	Whew, it took me three months, but I finally just became the mayor of my wife! I thought I saw that I “ousted” someone else (ousted? Is that the right word? Wonder what that means), but Kelli grabbed my iPhone before I could read it and smashed it on the nightstand.
	Kelli went to SXSW2010, and I saw she got the hookup badge for visiting two different hotels. So did that guy, Trevor. She must be attending a lot of parties. Also, she’s staying up awfully late. How else would she have gotten this at 3:00 in the morning. Also, what does it mean if I’m “ousted” as the mayor of something?

Tags: facebook, FourSquare, geo-location, sex, twitter
Posted in Social Media, Social Networks, Twitter | View Comments

Category: Social Networks

Five signs you suck at Twitter.

Arts organizations are facing funding cuts all over the world.

So here are five ways arts organizations should use social media.

1. Tell stories about the stuff your guests are doing.

2. Post your photos and videos.

3. Talk about behind-the-scenes stuff.

4. Write it as a letter.

YouTube (VIDEO)

Vimeo (VIDEO)

Flickr

Picasa

Facebook

Where should you start?

Email is NOT going away.

There can sometimes be a little too much sharing about our personal lives.

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