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Social Media

Twitter Strategy, Take Two

by RandallCraig on June 7, 2013

Filed in: Blog, Make It Happen Tipsheet, Social Media

Tagged as: ,

Are you one of the millions who remain mystified about Twitter? While I’ve written about this before (Twitter Strategies), I thought it might be worthwhile to boil it down again, but from a different perspective.

Here are five key Twitter activities that might expose a previously hidden opportunity:

  1. Monitor: Professional development, risk mitigation, or keeping tabs on prospective clients (or employers) are great ways to stay in the loop of what’s going on. How: Use a tool such as Hootsuite.com, and set up streams that track relevant keywords – one per column. Each morning, do a quick scan to review any relevant posts.
  2. Discover: Identifying today’s trends – and seeing tomorrow’s news today – gives you a unique perspective on the world. How: Click on Discover within Twitter to discover trending topics. Many will be irrelevant, but a quick scan can separate the wheat from the chaff. Key question is so what?: Thinking through the relevance (and impact) of those topics for your business is the key to unlocking the value of discovery.
  3. Interact: Discussions with others who have similar interests can have many benefits, including professional development, business development, and personal connection. How: LinkedIn has groups, Facebook has pages, and Twitter has … #hashtags. Here’s how they work: 
    • Groups decide on unique hashtags as an identifier for open discussion on a specific  topic
    • Individuals then include that hashtag when tweeting on that topic
    • Individuals set Hootsuite to monitor that hashtag, which then displays the stream of relevant conversation
  4. Share: Passing relevant information – Retweeting – to your followers sends two messages – the tweet itself, and that you are “connected” as an in-the-know source. How: Find a relevant tweet, and click the Retweet button.
  5. Direct Message: This is a private one-to-one message to a specific person, exactly like a (very short) email. How: A DM conversation is possible only when both people follow each other.

The value of what you share on this platform – tweet, retweet, DM, and interact via hashtag – is a direct reflection of your brand online. In this way, Twitter is no different than any other interaction.

This week’s action plan: How are you currently using Twitter? This week, develop more comfort with the channel: choose one “new” activity, and see what happens. You may just make an important discovery: a better return on your time investment.

Note: The Make It Happen Tipsheet is also available by email. Go to www.RandallCraig.com to register.

Randall Craig

@RandallCraig (follow me)
www.RandallCraig.com
www.108ideaspace.com
www.ProfessionallySpeakingTV.com

 

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Social Over-Indulgence

by RandallCraig on May 24, 2013

Filed in: Blog, Make It Happen Tipsheet, Social Media

Tagged as: ,

Social Media is here.  It’s everywhere.  In fact, the absence of it sends a signal that the sponsoring organization is completely disconnected, un-hip, and behind the times.

Unfortunately, this zeal to include Social Media is often taken to the extreme.  There are numerous cases where “doing” Social Media makes no sense at all.  Three examples:

1) When the target audience is not using the platform.  After all, what is the goal of the effort in the first place – for the organization to have a conversation… with itself?  Nursing home residents are not as likely a target, although their families may be.

2) When there is no call to action – or when there isn’t even a social address provided. In the picture below, taken at Toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition, there are helpful Facebook and Twitter stickers on the doors to one of the major buildings – but zero indication about what the patron should do.

cne-facebook-icons

3) When it is physically impossible for users to act.  How often, for example have you noticed QR codes in places where there is no internet service – such as within an airline magazine.  Worse is the picture below – one of many examples of ads that appear in underground subways:

QR-code-advertisement

This week’s action plan:  While Social Media is indeed everywhere, it shouldn’t be.  This week, look for other examples of over-indulgence – starting with your own.

Note: The Make It Happen Tipsheet is also available by email. Go to www.RandallCraig.com to register.

Randall Craig

@RandallCraig (follow me)
www.RandallCraig.com
www.108ideaspace.com
www.ProfessionallySpeakingTV.com

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Social Relevance: Improving Your Signal-to-Noise Ratio

by RandallCraig May 17, 2013

No one cares about you – they care about how you can solve their problems. Write for your readers. These two expressions epitomize the most important marketing (and social media) concept: relevance. How often have you seen a post, picture, tweet, or comment that adds zero value? Or where the signal-to-noise ratio is, well, noisy? [...]

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Scenario Planning: Social Response Strategy

by RandallCraig May 3, 2013

What do you do when you are disappointed with a product or service that you have purchased?  Most people turn to the web: a quick check on Google solves many problems.  And a few choice words on Twitter or Facebook can let everyone know about the experience. From an organization’s perspective however, those “choice” words [...]

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Social Media Planning Calendar

by RandallCraig April 19, 2013

How do you organize your Social Media activities?  Most people have a system – whiteboards, excel documents, Google Calendar, or often, scraps of paper.  Unfortunately, none of these are particularly effective, nor are they efficient.  And they certainly don’t help you share your activities with your colleagues. Our take on scheduling and planning:  Social Media [...]

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Viewpoint: Social Media – Going Out of Business

by RandallCraig March 21, 2013

Before Social Media really took off, the number of tools for engaging stakeholders online was very, very small.  You could create a bulletin board on your site.  An interactive calculator. A “guestbook” (remember those?)  Or get people to sign up to a ListServ and participate in a discussion via email.  These all had one thing [...]

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17 Ways to Great Social Engagement

by RandallCraig January 25, 2013

Have you ever been disappointed with the engagement level of your blog?  Have you decided that this year something “better happen”, to make it all worthwhile?  If so, you’re not alone.  Here are 17 ways drive more users to your blog, and increase their engagement with it: Write great content.  If you write poorly, or [...]

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What’s your 365?

by RandallCraig January 3, 2013

January 11, 2006 holds a special significance.  Over a decade before that date I had put the Toronto Star online, as well as completed substantive work with the Globe and Mail and several major book publishers.  I was at the vanguard of online publishing (blogging wasn’t invented then), yet I wasn’t publishing myself.  On January [...]

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Eight Great Social Media Reads

by RandallCraig December 21, 2012

Out of all of the thinking, blogging, tweeting, posting, and speaking on the subject, here are some of the most practical – and thought-provoking articles on the topic. 1) When users defect:  Understanding why users leave, and what to do about it. 2) Six Steps to Strategic Blogging:  How to build an effective, focused, and [...]

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Social Networking Integration

by RandallCraig November 30, 2012

Have you ever considered how some words (and technologies) are so important, yet in the fullness of time completely disappear?  Buggy whips, Barrel makers (“coopers”), and Telex machines  are but a few examples.  Not fifteen years ago, the term “ebusiness” was popular, until people figured out that there was no such thing as ebusiness – [...]

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LinkedIn Crowdsourcing

by RandallCraig November 16, 2012

Are you befuddled whenever a new “feature” gets added to your favorite Social Media site?  Or are you excited about the possibility that the new feature may unlock for you?  The Endorsement feature of LinkedIn holds fascinating possibilities, but unlike every other part of your profile, it is the one that is completely beyond your [...]

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Just In Time

by RandallCraig November 1, 2012

What can the world of manufacturing teach us about Social Media, Marketing, and Stakeholder Engagement?  On the face of it, not much, but look more closely, and there are two concepts that are surprisingly relevant: Continuous Improvement, and Just-in-Time. Continuous Improvement:  In the manufacturing world, continuous improvement is all about making incremental improvements in product [...]

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Social Media Tick Box

by RandallCraig October 25, 2012

“We’ve got that covered” is a very satisfying thing to say when you are asked what your organization is doing in the area of Social Media. Sadly, our research, covering 400 different organizations across the country, shows this isn’t true. This year’s research on the same topic also appears to indicate a yawning gap. The [...]

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Earning the Right

by RandallCraig October 18, 2012

Have you ever felt that something was missing with your social media communications? That your Tweets, Posts, and Status Updates were being disregarded – almost as if you are speaking to an empty auditorium? That you may have lots of “friends”, but it seems that they are more absent than friendly. Sadly, this is too [...]

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Social Capability

by RandallCraig October 11, 2012

With so much focus on Social ROI and social performance, an important issue is often forgotten: social capability. This concept refers to an organization’s ability to take advantage of the promise of social media. Too often, the limiting factor for social performance is not what is being done, but rather what cannot be done. Removing [...]

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Viewpoint: Facebook – Billions Served

by RandallCraig October 4, 2012

Facebook just announced that it now has one billion users – an astounding number. On the other hand, you (or your organization) may have but 1000 or 10,000 – hardly a dent, and at best, a rounding error. Whether your number is on the lower side or hovering at a billion, this singular measure of [...]

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Landing Pages

by RandallCraig September 28, 2012

$37 Billion:  This is the amount that Google earned in 2011, 97% from advertising. Google’s keyword-savvy Pay-per-click selling machine allows any organization (or person) to specify keywords, construct an ad, and specify how much they would pay for a click.  Google then puts the ad on a web page that contains the keywords. When a [...]

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Social Effectiveness: Not about me

by RandallCraig July 5, 2012

Maybe you also have seen this TV commercial. After a service encounter, an attractive business woman (an actress, no doubt) faces the camera, smiles and says, “It’s all about me.” If someone said this type of comment to you, what would you think? If everyone had this type of attitude, we wouldn’t have volunteers, mentors, [...]

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Attraction and Conversion

by RandallCraig June 29, 2012

Are you one of those thousands (millions?) who build a social profile, only to find that you have very few friends? Maybe you are one of those millions (or billions?) of businesses that have built a website, but have found that no one is calling? Or no one is buying? If this sounds familiar, there [...]

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The Social Bubble: Finding Your Tribe

by RandallCraig June 21, 2012

Do you actively seek out different opinions than your own, or unwittingly reinforce your personal world-view by only consuming “agreeable” content? While we may think it is the former – who doesn’t have a self image of being open-minded – too often we live in a bubble. The promise of the social web was connection [...]

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