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Do You Know Where to Tap the Hammer?

November 24, 2010 By

A parable.

A business owner is horrified to discover one morning that her company’s server is broken. Won’t boot up, won’t turn on. She calls a computer repair expert to come out and see what he can do.

The expert shows up, looks at the machine carefully, and even gives it a careful listen. He runs his fingers lightly on the side of the computer, and then taps it with a small hammer. The computer starts right up, the business owner is happy, and the expert goes away.

Hammer with light streaks

If I had this hammer, man, I could fix ANYTHING!

Two days later, the expert’s bill shows up. “Computer repair, $500,” it says.

The business owner calls up the expert, angry. “$500?! All you did was tap the computer, and you charged me $500?! I need to see an itemized version of your bill, to see why you thought that was worth $500.”

Two days later, the new bill arrives in the mail. “Tapping the computer with a hammer, $1. Knowing where to tap it, $499.”

The Moral

Once, I was talking to a freelance writer friend, and she was worried about charging too much for her services.

“I don’t see how I can charge that much an hour, just to write a single press release,” she said, like she was worried she would be found out as a fraud, or that people would realize anyone could do it.

“Do you have special knowledge that enables you to write that press release in under an hour?”

“Oh sure, I’ve done so many of these, I can write them in 30 minutes sometimes.”

“And do you think your clients could write that same release in under an hour?”

“No, they take 3 or 4 hours to write one.”

So I told her the computer hammer story.

“You know where to tap the computer,” I said. “Your job seems easy to you because you’ve done it for years. But to someone who has never done it, it seems daunting. But then if they see how easy it is for you, they assume it’s that easy for anyone. But if they don’t know how to do it, it’s still a mystery.”

What can you do better than anyone else? What is a special piece of knowledge that you have that could be valuable to someone else? What are you putting your energy and time into?

For me, it’s writing. For Lorraine Ball, it’s PR for small businesses. For Paul D’Andrea, it’s portraits and event photography.

For us hammer tappers, we’re always learning new stuff, new tools and techniques, new ways of doing things.

Knowing where to tap the hammer is what sets us apart from those of us who will try the same things over and over — flipping the computer off and on, trying it in different plugs, shaking it — before declaring it impossible to finish.

My book, Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself (affiliate link), is available for pre-order on Amazon.com. I wrote it with my good friend, Kyle Lacy, who I also helped write Twitter Marketing For Dummies (another affiliate link).

Photo credit: KyleMay (Flickr)

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    Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : Do You Know Where to Tap the Hammer?  •  Keywords : computers, expertise, parable, social media experts, story  • 
    Filed Under: Blog Writing, Public Relations, Social Media, Social Media Experts, Writing Tagged With: , , , ,

    Social Media is NOT an Entry Level Position

    November 2, 2010 By

    I’m shocked at the number of companies who let interns and entry-level employees manage their social media efforts.

    They do it because they believe social media is a young person’s game, and not for the geezers in management. That’s got to be one of the worst hiring decisions a company could make.

    I was reading a February 2010 post from Chris Kieff on the ROI of Social Media. Chris looked at what happens when social media is handed over to an intern, who is usually working for class credit and no pay.Young woman speaking into a megaphone

    VP, “Why is everyone doing spending so much time on social networks? We need more productivity!”

    Manager, “We are learning about how to use them and starting to see some positive results.”

    VP, “What’s the ROI of the time we’ve spent so far?”

    Manager, “We’ve… ummm… got the training wheels on and are just starting to understand how to use social media. We don’t have a formal ROI measurement system in place yet.”

    VP, “Well it’s clear that all this social media crap is overblown B.S. I’m telling IT to shut down Facebook and Twitter so people can get back to work.”

    It’s real simple: managing social media is not for kids. It’s not for rookies. It’s not for 20-year-olds who remembered to delete their drunken Facebook photos two weeks before the interview that landed them their internship.

    Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that interns and entry-level employees should not do social media. I’m not even saying they’re bad people. They just shouldn’t be in charge of it. Think of it this way:

    • You don’t let the new PR associate do media interviews during a company crisis.
    • The marketing intern does not oversee your entire marketing campaign, or even a new product launch.
    • The corporate attorney defending your company in a civil suit didn’t finish law school three months ago.
    • The new HR staffer is not responsible for finding and implement the new employee insurance program.
    • And you certainly don’t let the VP of Finance’s niece, fresh out of business school, make C-level decisions.

    So why on earth would you let a 22-year-old college grad handle one of the most public-facing communication channels your corporation is going to have? Other than PR and traditional marketing, there is no other channel that reaches so many people so permanently as social media. And you want to give it to some rookie who can’t use the phrase “in my experience” without cracking everyone else up?

    At least with corporate PR and marketing, your professionals have the benefit of years of experience and knowledge. But when you appoint a recent college grad to manage your social media, you’re handing the megaphone to someone with no real work experience or a sense of corporate responsibility, and letting them speak to the entire online community (and beyond) in real-time.

    Someone asks a question on your Facebook with 10,000 followers, the social media coordinator answers. The questioner gets a little snotty, so the SMC takes her response up a notch, and the whole thing turns into a pissing match in about 5 minutes, and hits the blogosphere two days later, and the mainstream media a week after that. Do you really want to hand that megaphone to someone who doesn’t even understand message creation, let alone how to handle an angry customer or avoid turning it into an embarrassing gaffe that you can hear about on NPR as you drive into work? (Don’t think it won’t happen, because it has happened several times to other corporations in the last two years.)

    I think it’s a big mistake when any business, but especially the large corporations, hires anyone with less than five years of real-world, full-time work experience to manage all of their social media efforts. To be fair, I know some truly brilliant young 20-somethings who could make a corporate social media marketing campaign succeed, but they’re few and far between. The really good ones have their own agencies and are making more money there than they would working for you. So you get to choose from everyone else.

    Social media is not just for young people. Social media is not only for the hip and the technologically-advanced. It’s for people who understand how to speak to your company’s customers and shareholders. It’s for people who have gravitas and professionalism. It’s for people who know that social media is an important channel of communication that can reach thousands or even millions. It’s for people who truly understand marketing and PR.

    If you’re thinking about social media for your company, and one of your first thoughts is you need someone young to manage it, stop right there. You’re better off avoiding social media altogether than risking a bigger backlash by hiring someone who stares at you blankly when you make an OJ Simpson comment.

    So am I offbase? Any workplace veterans — especially marketers and PR folks — who think you should give the newbies the keys to the social media car? Any interns or entry-level professionals who think I’m full of it, and that you have the experience and professionalism to handle your corporation’s social media campaign? Leave a comment and let’s continue the discussion.

    Photo credit: Allio (Flickr)

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      Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : Social Media is NOT an Entry Level Position  •  Keywords : Chris Kieff, interns, PR, ROI, social media, social media campaigns, social media marketing, social media newbies  • 
      Filed Under: Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Social Media Experts Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

      NY Paper Sues Readers for Reading Their Paper. You’re Doing It Wrong

      November 1, 2010 By

      If you’re in the news business, suing your readers for reading your paper is not actually a good business decision. But if you’re the North Country Gazette, a newspaper from upstate New York, that seems to be the way to do it.

      I’ll admit, I don’t know much about the business side of journalism. Who knows, maybe this is actually a sound business practice. But like particle physics, Latin, or the fascination with Stieg Larsen, I just don’t get it.,

      According to an article on IHeartChaos.com, the the North Country Gazette is threatening to sue anyone who reads more than one article on their site. The problem is they don’t even have a paywall up on their newspaper.

      A subscription is required at North Country Gazette. We allow only one free read per visitor. We are currently gathering IPs and computer info on persistent intruders who refuse to buy subscription and are engaging in a theft of services. We have engaged an attorney who will be doing a bulk subpoena demand on each ISP involved, particularly Verizon Droids, Frontier and Road Runner, and will then pursue individual legal actions.

      In other words, don’t read our stuff, or we’re going to sue the bejeezus out of you.

      Maybe it’s just me, but I think suing people you want to have as customers is not going to help you. There are much better, and less draconian, ways of making money on a newspaper:

      • Set up an actual paywall. As much of a pain as they are, they cost a lot less than an attorney. You can even just password protect your website to keep out the riffraff.
      • Don’t put your stuff online in the first place. If you’re worried about nonsubscribers reading your content, then don’t waste your time or energy putting it online.
      • Encourage people to subscribe, rather than punish nonsubscribers. The Denver Post is an online newspaper that got enough subscribers to keep their paper running, and they never had to threaten a thing.
      • Actually put up some good content. My guess is that their news is either hyperlocal, in which case, the only readers are going to be people who live in the area, or that it’s so nationally broad that I can just read about it in USA Today. Either way, my guess is that it’s not interesting enough for people to want it so bad they’re willing to subscribe to it.

      Putting your stuff online for people to not read is not a textbook technique for success. It’s like telling people “don’t think of gray elephants.” The North Country Gazette should just take their website down, rather than inflict their poor decision making on the rest of us.

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        Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : NY Paper Sues Readers for Reading Their Paper. You're Doing It Wrong  •  Keywords : mainstream media, newspapers, social media, traditional media, websites  • 
        Filed Under: Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Traditional Media Tagged With: , , , ,

        Watch Out For Bad Social Media Consultants

        October 19, 2010 By

        There are a lot of bad social media consultants out there.

        Some of them are just downright awful. I’ve often said that once the economy recovers and the bartenders and waiters go back to work, there will be a lot fewer social media consultants.

        I can’t wait for that to happen.

        The problem is that these bad social media consultants are just putting out bad information, using poor or unethical practices, and casting social media marketing in a bad light.

        What happens is the bad consultants try some half-cocked idea based on poor information, and the campaign ultimately fails. The customer is left believing that social media is a bad idea, rather than realizing that the consultant didn’t know squat about marketing, social media or otherwise.

        I know of one social media marketing agency in the Midwest that is guilty of this kind of behavior. Not only do they refuse to use Twitter, they tell their clients not to use it because their part of the state is “years behind” the rest of the state, and that by the time the population catches up with the major cities, all us city folk will have moved on to something else.

        All this tells me is that the agency owner is unwilling to use Twitter, doesn’t want to bother with it, and probably doesn’t know enough about it to actually be useful. But rather than admit it, or even, oh I don’t know, try to learn how to use Twitter (for example, by reading Twitter Marketing For Dummies (affiliate link)), he would rather tell people their customers are too backwoodsy and stuck in the 20th century to use Twitter.

        Social media marketing is not about the social media tools, it’s about knowing enough about marketing and PR to know how to use the tools properly.

        I don’t care if you spent hundreds of hours on Facebook, or that you gamed Twitter to get 30,000 followers in 30 days. That just means you played a lot of Farmville and you know how to sign up for Twitter spam sites. That doesn’t mean you know how to actually create persuasive messages that reach your target audience.

        Social media marketing involves knowing how to create effective messages that reach your chosen target audience, not holding parties to drive up “likes” on a client’s Facebook page. It means you know how to use the major tools available to the rest of the industry, even if you don’t recommend clients use them. It means you actually have an inkling about marketing, and know how to harness social media to get your message across.

        If you don’t know how to do something, admit it. Better yet, learn it so you can be a better resource to your clients. But don’t try to pass off willful ignorance and a lack of knowledge as actual expertise. I don’t pour a Scotch neat and call myself a bartender; don’t spend three months playing Mafia Wars and call yourself a social media professional.

        ——
        My book, Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself (affiliate link), is available for pre-order on Amazon.com. I wrote it with my good friend, Kyle Lacy, who I also helped write Twitter Marketing For Dummies (another affiliate link).

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          Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : Watch Out For Bad Social Media Consultants  •  Keywords : Indiana, social media agencies, social media expertise, social media experts, social media marketing, Twitter  • 
          Filed Under: Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Social Media Experts, Social Networks, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , ,

          5 Ways Arts Organizations Should Use Social Media

          August 9, 2010 By

          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.

          Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra

          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.

            1. 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.
            2. 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.
            3. 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.
            4. 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.
            5. 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?

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            Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : 5 Ways Arts Organizations Should Use Social Media  •  Keywords : facebook, Lead Generation, performing arts, Social Media, social media marketing, tickets  • 
            Filed Under: Lead Generation, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Social Networks Tagged With: , , , , ,

            Taking Nominations for Social Media’s 40 OVER 40

            August 2, 2010 By

            I’m so sick of these 40 under 40 lists I see going around. Indianapolis Business Journal did a 40 under 40. There are Young Professionals Groups all over the place. And even the trade organizations are getting in on it.

            What’s the big deal with being 39 or less? It’s if 40 is some magical number that anyone over it is no longer good enough to be considered awesome. As if you’re over 40, the rest of society is going to go all Logan’s Run on you. As if being over 40 means you’re a doddering geezer who’s staining their shirtfront with drool and cluelessness.

            The Social Media 40 OVER 40 List

            The Social Media 40 OVER 40

            I’m tired of it, and I’m going to do something about it. So I’m going to compile a Social Media 40 OVER 40 list.

            This isn’t a definitive list yet. In fact, I’m not entirely sure how this is going to turn out. Is it based on voting? Is it an editorial decision? Will we do it state by state? We’re not sure. It depends on how big this gets.

            But here’s what I want. I want nominations of anyone who is 40 years or older and works with social media, whether professionally, or as part of their job responsibilities, or even someone who does it as a sideline or hobby. I just want nominations of someone who is a rock star, or aspiring rock star, in social media.

            If you want to nominate yourself, that’s fine. There is no shame in doing this. If you want to nominate someone else, that’s fine too. Please leave the following information in the comments section:

            • Name
            • City, State
            • Twitter handle
            • Website (hey, you can even link to it so you get some SEO juice out of it)
            • No more than 200 words about how you’re using social media.

            Photo credit: RileyRoxx (Flickr)

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              Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : Taking Nominations for Social Media's 40 OVER 40  •  Keywords : 40 over 40, contest, Social Media  • 
              Filed Under: Marketing, News, Public Relations, Social Media Tagged With: , ,

              4 Ideas for Travel & Tourism Destinations to Get Started in Social Media

              July 21, 2010 By
              Vevay, IN Facebook page

              This week, I’ve been focusing on how travel and tourism destinations can get started in social media.

              (See “5 Reasons Why Travel & Tourism Destinations Need Social Media” and “5 Photo & Video Sharing Sites Travel Destinations Should Use.”)

              I probably jumped the gun a little bit by diving into the photo and video sharing sites before I told you how to actually use social media, but that’s okay. For one thing, social networks are created to be soooo easy for everyone to use that you don’t need me to tell you how to get started. Second, you can start these all in a matter of a couple hours, and then start working to integrate them all together. (We’ll discuss that in a future post.)

              Vevay, IN Facebook page

              Facebook

              What it is: It’s the largest social network in the world with 500 million members. If it was a country, it would be the 3rd largest in the world, behind China and India. Basically, if there is an online place where your guests and customers gather, this is it.
              Get started: Start out by setting up your own personal profile, and connect with friends and family. Keep this separate from your business or organization. You don’t want to combine your business with your personal life on here.
              Strategy: Once you’re comfortable with Facebook, set up a separate business page (what used to be called a “Fan Page”) for your business or destination, and then upload your business email database — you have been saving your guests’ emails, haven’t you? — to build your network. Ask these people to “Like” your page. Start communicating with your page’s network about things going on at your place through status updates, telling people about new photos and videos, new blog posts, and new specials.
              Why? The whole foundation of social media is building relationships with people. You want to evoke a positive emotional response in people when the visit your place, and you want to remind them of that emotional response when they see the latest news or photos. If you remind them of the good feelings they had while they were there, they’ll want to experience them again, and will return again.

              Twitter

              What it is: It’s a 140 character message that is sent out to your followers (people who have started “following” your messages, because they want to see what you have to say). Twitter is like Facebook’s “Status Updates” but without everything else.
              Get started: Go to Twitter.com and sign up for an account, and add your customer list (see Gmail below). Next, download TweetDeck from TweetDeck.com.
              Strategy: Communicate the same information you send out on Facebook and your blog by tweeting your headlines and links to events or new posts.
              Why? Because not everyone is on Facebook at the same time. Because some people prefer Twitter over Facebook. Because with TweetDeck you can update both Twitter and Facebook at the same time. Because there are a lot of other reasons I will cover in a future post.

              Blogging

              What it is: Blogging is a way to publish information, like articles and stories, for other people to read and for search engines to find. It’s a way to share photos and videos, without sending people off to Picasa and YouTube (see yesterday’s post, “5 Photo & Video Sharing Sites Travel Destinations Should Use.”)
              Get started: Visit Blogger.com or WordPress.com and follow the instructions. You won’t need to upload an address book to find connections.
              Strategy: Blog on a regular basis — at least once a week, but preferably more — about what’s going on at your destination or business. Show photos and videos of the fun stuff other people are doing. Talk about any special events or festivals, both before and after they take place. Share testimonials from your guests.
              Why? For two reasons: 1) you can rank high in the search engines with a lot of interesting content like this, and 2) it helps your guests feel more connected if they can visit your site and feel like they’re visiting your location. (See the Facebook section above.)

              Gmail

              What it is: A free email network owned by the folks at Google.
              Get started: Set up an account at Gmail.com, and import all of your addresses from your different email profiles, whether it’s Yahoo, Hotmail, your local cable provider, or the address book on your computer. Next, clean it up by eliminating duplicates, deleting out of date entries, and adding missing information.
              Strategy: You won’t use this for social networking. You’ll use it for uploading all the addresses of your guests to the other networks. Any new social network you join will let you “see if your friends are on here!” And every social network will plug into Gmail with ease, so this makes it so much easier to build your network in just a couple minutes.
              Why? Because you want to have a master list of all your email addresses somewhere other than your computer, in case your computer breaks down.

              I was recently in a contest to become the “Inn-Bedded Resorter” at the Balsams Grand Resort Hotel in New Hampshire, and had a chance to be their social media specialist for two months. This was a novel approach, because the Resorter was going to be a guest, do all the guest activities, and then report it via social media. They were starting to use all of these technologies to communicate with their fans and guests, and have seen some great success with these technologies. You ought to give them a try and see what you can do with it.

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                Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : 4 Ideas for Travel & Tourism Destinations to Get Started in Social Media  •  Keywords : blogging, facebook, Gmail, photo sharing, tourism, travel, travel and tourism, twitter, video sharing  • 
                Filed Under: Blogging, Facebook, Lead Generation, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Tools, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

                5 Photo & Video Sharing Sites Travel Destinations Should Use

                July 20, 2010 By

                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.

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                  Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : 5 Photo & Video Sharing Sites Travel Destinations Should Use  •  Keywords : facebook, Flickr, Picasa, social networking, social networks, tourism, travel, travel and tourism, Vimeo, youtube  • 
                  Filed Under: Facebook, Lead Generation, Networking, Photo, Public Relations, Reputation Management, Social Media, Social Networks, Video Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

                  New ebook Available: Social Media and Crisis Communication for Government Communicators

                  July 1, 2010 By

                  I just published a new ebook, Social Media and Crisis Communication for Government Communicators. I wrote it after giving a presentation to a public health conference, and realizing that many of them did not even have access to the different social media tools.

                  So I based it on several blog posts I’ve posted here, as well as some new information. The ebook is free, and there is both a PDF version and a Kindle version available.

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                    Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : New ebook Available: Social Media and Crisis Communication for Government Communicators - Professional Blog Service  •  Keywords : Crisis Communication, ebook, government agencies, Social Media  • 
                    Filed Under: Blogging, Communication, crisis communication, Public Health, Public Relations, Social Media, Tools, Twitter Tagged With: , , ,

                    Four Ways Government Agencies Should Use Social Media

                    June 23, 2010 By

                    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.

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                      Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : Four Ways Government Agencies Should Use Social Media  •  Keywords : Crisis Communication, government agencies, Social Media  • 
                      Filed Under: Blogging, Communication, crisis communication, Facebook, Public Health, Public Relations, Social Media, Social Networks, Tools Tagged With: , ,
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