Many are discovering the joys of social media, and as more people are pushing out their materials, whether opportunists or conversationalists, I feel like there is more and more pushing happening, than actual listening, are better yet, engaging.
3 Points of Evidence
What’s Your Observation?
Okay, I shared with you mine, and some other people’s opinions, what about yours? Do you feel people are still connecting online? Still engaging in that personal, authentic and communal spirit?
flickr photo credit: Orange_Beard
]]>As a new Twitter member, one may be wondering a series of questions that I hope this post offers a “quick guide” to successful Twitter use and community, with the key ingredient reiterated at the end.
“What is Twitter?”
Twitter is a micro-blogging social media tool that asks the question, “What are you doing?” Individuals, who have logged in and registered for the free service, answer the question within 140 characters or within multiple updates and then ‘update’ their status. Twitter works by individuals agreeing to ‘follow’ a certain Twitter account. Once following this account, the person then gets the account’s updates. It is a great medium that lends itself to both one-to-one communications, as well as one-to-many communications. In the past six months, Twitter has gone from 600k accounts, to 2.9 million accounts.
“How can I/We use Twitter?”
The list below outlines 13 different functions that both individuals and organizations can use Twitter’s platform to accomplish:
1. Inquiry Response
2. Reputation Management
3. Promotion
4. Event Planning
5. Brand Equity
6. Marketing
7. Fundraising
8. Reminders
9. Emergency and Disaster Response
10. Provide information, news and tips
11. Research
12. Conversation Tracking through Hashtags (i.e. #WAD08, #healthcomm)
13. Social Networking
“Now what?”
“How do I connect?”
“Where can I learn more?”
In sum, just add meaning. This may seem easier said than done, so I want to help. What are your other Twitter questions? I can already think of a few (tools, metrics, etc.) Feel free to comment, and I will offer more in the comments. Finally, I too am on Twitter: @socialbttrfly. Feel free to follow, and I look forward to creating meaning together.
]]>Launched in March 2007 by founders Trip Adler, Jared Friedman, and Tikhon Bernstam, the platform now has greated that 50 million readers every month, with over 50,000 documents uploaded every day, and is available in 90 different languages. What rock have I been stuck under? I mean, individuals like Obama and groups like the New York Times and the World Economic Forum are on here too! This looks like a great community, that I look forward to interacting with more.
Not only can you
With Scribd having just raised $9 million, along with a new president for social publishing, I look forward to observing and experiencing how Scribd develops in the future. Granted, the term “social publishing” has meant the publication of documents from “many to many” or “one to many” through a variety of social software mixed with web content management in terms of what the technology offers, however, what would “social publishing” through a non-profit/social change lens look like?
Anxious for your thoughts, as with today’s excitement at the We Are One concert on the mall today, my mind is racing with ideas. Cheers!
Liked what you read? Feel free to share with others: and/or connect with me on Twitter – @socialbttrfly.
]]>To come to this conclusion, Dr. Megan Moreno, a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and fellow researchers, embarked on two separate studies to explore this issue further. Both research studies are to 1) encourage increased parental and adult supervision by family and friends, and 2) to potentially encourage similiar outreach approaches.
Dilemma: To Cross or not to Cross the Ethical Line
The research is very interesting, however, I feel an ethical discussion must be had. I am not saying Moreno’s approach was wrong or right, but I think we should slow down and discuss it further to learn and develop best practices, as well as ethical guidelines, especially since others may adopt this practice towards younger youth.
Headlines have buzzed about “Busybody Dr. Meg,” concluding that this outreach and behavior-change may offer hope to future, similiar methods being implemented by others. To me, I feel there can be high-levels of concerns with a universal application of this approach unless the strategy and concept is stretched. Including, but not limited to – the age those being contacted, how people are being contacted, the language and type of approach involved, the privacy and the stalking-like component, among other items. Additionally, does it matter who, as in which type of organizations embark on this strategy? For example, I can foresee potential problems if adopted by government health agencies and citizens’ concerns over freedom of expression. Curious on others’ thoughts on this!
Background About the Studies
Study 1. For the first, researchers located 190 MySpace public profiles in a single urban ZIP code, randomly selected from 10 U.S. Census areas with the lowest average income because researchers wanted to target adolescents who might have less access to doctors.
All the users involved revealed that they were 18 to 20 years old and their pages included three or more references to sex, drinking, drug use or smoking. Of the 190 profiles selected, half were sent “Dr. Meg” e-mails. After three months, 42% of those getting a “Dr. Meg” e-mail had either set their profiles to “private,” or they had removed both sexual or substance usage references. 29% of those not contacted made changes over the three-month period.
Study 2. In another study, Moreno and other researchers looked at 500 randomly selected MySpace profiles of 18-year-olds nationwide and found that more than half contained references to risky behavior such as sex, drinking and violence.
Your Turn: Crossing the line or a creative cross?
What do you think? I agree that there is a growing issue and concern for online safety and online identity of teens, youth, young adults and people in general, and this is an interesting new development to the field. How can you see this approach being adopted by your organization, or what would be your reaction if you were approached? Am I over-reacting?
photo credit: LoonSky
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Social Networking Sites
Linkedin – Not only does Linkedin allow people to post jobs, but you can also post jobs yourself, or send jobs to your connections. In addition, you can search for jobs at certain firms, see who posted them, and see if you know anyone who works there. Very informative for the investigative types.
Facebook – Certain Facebook group and fan pages are used for recruiting potential job candidates. For example, the U.S. Department of State uses its fan page as a recruiting tool into foreign policy, public affairs, foreign services officer, or even offers to help navigate a career path.
MyWorkster – MyWorkster offers its users a professional presence online. You can create a profile, resume and even a video resume. This network also has a job listing database, blogs, and more.
Twitter Recruiter’s/Job Postings
Many people post job openings they’ve either heard about or are currently trying to fill in a tweet, with a link to the job posting. (One great reason alone to become a Twitter-er!) However, more companies and individuals are creating Twitter-streams to post jobs and recruit talent. Some include:
Jim Stroud over at the Recruiters Lounge has posted about recruiters and Twitter…surprised that he could only find 85 recruiters in a Twitter search! In my opinion, that’s 85 reasons right there to start a twitter feed.
To find information on a particular industry or job field, use Twitter Search to conduct a search query for certain keywords like “job positions,” “recruiter” or “career advice.”
TwitHire is also a Twitter application that lets you bundle your job postings into 140 characters. It’s also a great resource to look at current job openings.
Blogs
Jeremiah Owyang has created a blog series “On the Move,” highlighting individuals moving within the social media profession. The series also lists great resources to getting plugged into a social media job, as well as listing current high-profile movers and shakers in the social media world (those who work at Fortune 5000 firms with 1000 employees or more).
Alltop.com, a blog aggregate service by topic, has a ‘career‘ page, which features numerous blogs about how to get a job, keep a job, recruit for jobs and more.
Search for blogs based in the city you want to work. For example, KCRecruiting is a Kansas city blog that works to connect job seekers with KC opportunities or author Jim Durbin’s other more general blog, Social Media Headhunter.
More
There’s also other, perhaps more traditional, job search and recruiting strategies too:
Basically, my research has shown that social media is revolutionizing now only business – but how to get employees, find employees and to become an employee.
I know this is a huge, developing topic. And, there’s lots to add, so I look forward to hearing from you all and your experiences. =)
*Note: I didn’t make this information industry specific, but I could if you guys would like. It does lean a bit towards those in social media….course, I’ve also noticed that for social media job searchers, in a way, you have the easiest of jobs because those are the jobs people are posting in the social media space. Other fields/industries are a bit slow to catch on…are
am I wrong?
photo credit: rockronie on flickr
]]>For many Gen-Yers and young professionals, Facebook started out as a social network. Then, high-schoolers were allowed in. Now, understandably, more and more people are joining that range in age – and in relationship to you. Point in case:
Thus, with Facebook going from social status —> professional network, it begs the question, what are the new the rules of thumb for one’s Facebook account? So I asked followers on Twitter. The results:
No matter what you prefer, it’s best to adopt a strategy early, be wise, cautious and careful. Even those that believed in full access agreed that in the past year, they’ve tweaked their their own personal guidelines. i.e. Adopting the self-policy that one must meet someone in their professional network in person before they cozy up on Facebook.
For me, currently, I adopt a mix between the full access and the limited profile. This is largely for one reasons:
Some other guidelines friends mentioned through my Twitter survey. Don’t post:
What’s your Facebook Professionalism Policy? or, what do you think of mine?
photo credit: Flickr, Amit Gupta (from Newsweek article)
]]>About: Ning was co-founded by Netscape founder Marc Andressen and onetime Goldman Sachs banker Gina Binachini in 2004. It’s software enables anyone to create their own social network based around any idea, topic or mission. There are Ning groups about hobbies, gourmet food, geographic locations, causes and more. Interestingly, 50 Cent has his own Ning with over 100,000 members. Ning was recently estimated to be worth half a billion dollars with 237,000 current networks and growing at 1000 a day!
Use: Ning allows for any user to create his or her own social network. The service is free, and you don’t have to know how to code. Ning is currently all the buzz and is said to have a bright future as more and more capabilities are added onto to service. Currently, Ning can incorporate video, music, discussion forums, google maps, flickr, web badges, and ways to cross promote with Myspace and Facebook.
Demographics: Anyone and Everyone. NING features a diverse group of users that run the gamut in uses and interests. However, according to Quantcast, Ning is especially popular with African-Americans, who make up 75% of Ning’s users. With age, Ning is most popular among users 18-34, followed by users 35-49.
My Rating: 3 out of 5 wings
Rationale:
Social Marketing and Ning:
What do you think? How would you rate Ning?
]]>Stay with me. Obviously, not all may agree on the content. But, this is worth taking a few minutes to review even if only:
IJNP, In Jesus’ Name Productions, launched last week during the Cannes Film Festival. It’s promotional video is below. It’s a bit long, but fast forward to the last minute, and you can get the *details.*
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMwVSUQtWaQ
In sum:
IJNP desires to leverage social networks with the purpose of uniting Christians around the world to have a ‘say’ in the making of film. IJNP offers Christians to have an influential role in determining which movies the studio makes and/or partners with.
First thoughts? And, this is posted in terms of looking at the non-profit business model and the use of social media through social networks.
This should be interesting… =)
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