City attacks unemployment through social media
Aug 8th
Jennifer Yeager, Marketing Communications Manager, said some of the success so far includes:
o 112,00 webpage views
o More than 1,000 registered job seekers
o 1,500 Twitter followers (growing >100/month)
o 6,331 job-related Twitter posts
o Anecdotal evidece of succes from emails and direct messages:
“Your work helped us close that candidate”
“Awesome twitter feeds on jobs in Richmond!”
“The folks at Richmond Jobs Net sincerely care about finding Richmonders jobs in the community.”
Social media: Old people rule!
Aug 7th
This week, my boss asked me to construct his company’s first Facebook page and establish a presence on Twitter. My qualification? I’m young.
The truth is, I probably know less about social media marketing than he does … Tweet what?
Sure, I am a child of the new media generation. But, the truth is, my generation is still trying to figure all this stuff out too! Granted, there are a handful of SM savvy hipsters who can tweet and blog their way through life, but half of us can’t figure out what to do with all this stuff.
Sure, we all have Facebook or MySpace pages and we love YouTube, but at college, we’re using these channels just for fun and we’re too self-involved to realize that SM can be used by businesses on so many other levels.
The “youth-as-social-media-change-agents” myth got pumped up to a whole new level a few weeks ago when a much-publicized 15-year-old delivered a report on media channels to Morgan Stanley. Not all of us in the under-25 bracket can do that … most of us are just not that precocious!
The only reason I’m on Twitter is because my Dad is there. When I found out he was on Twitter I thought, “Whoa! The old man is on Twitter? I must be falling behind!” Truth is, my whole generation is behind. Nearly every study shows that people OVER 25 are the ones most rapidly adopting social media … not us. And the fastest-growing category on Facebook is over 50!
Here’s my point: For all of you from the generation ahead of me who have been running rampant through SM sites to compete with my generation of “digital natives,” SLOW DOWN. You’re winning a race against a competitor that doesn’t even know the race exists!
The social media finish line looks a lot clearer in your reading glasses, than in my generation’s youthful 20-20 vision.
The biggest obstacle to social media business success
Aug 5th
To turn online connections into serious business relationships, you need to surround your cyber-self with useful, interesting content. Difficulty in providing consistent, meaningful content is the NUMBER ONE reason people give up and never achieve social media business benefits. So you just have to find a way to do it! First, let’s get those excuses out of the way:
- If you’re interesting, entertaining and funny, people will be drawn to you. But if you’re shy and have difficulty being entertaining, you just can’t provide content, so why try?
- Takes too much time. No person with a full-time job can possibly have time for the incremental effort needed for social media. Who has time to write a blog???
- Social media is just a stupid fad any way.
We are not going to accept these excuses, right? RIGHT! So, I’ve worked up a strategy for you to efficiently deliver meaningful content even if you’re not a natural writer. All you have to do is be yourself and tenaciously ENGAGE. Ideas to create content for the non-writer, in just a few minutes a day:
- In the last post, I emphasized the importance of joining Linked-In Groups. Now become INVOLVED. Twice a week, respond to a question or comment in the group. You can answer questions can’t you? Of course you can! Time commitment: 20 min/week.
- Once a week, peruse online magazines related to your industry. Find an interesting article. Leave an opinion or your appreciation in the comment section then tweet the article out to your followers on Twitter. You’ve created meaningful content twice. Time = 15 min
- Find five or more blogs related to your industry and put them in an aggregator like Google Reader. Once you have this set up, review blog content at least once a week and comment + tweet out your favorite articles. 15 min
- Find interesting and useful content that has already been created by your company. Are there ways you can reference this content to help others, solve problems, and answer questions?
- In the last post we talked about finding connections through Facebook. Now visit them. Share, engage, comment, react, ask more questions. 20 min
- Tweet AT LEAST three times a day (at different times), AT LEAST three days a week. (45 min/week)
At first, I know it can be difficult to figure out what to tweet, but you have to keep at it! When you get stuck, here are some subject matter ideas to get you going again.
- An entertaining observation you made – it could be a funny bumper sticker, a movie or a commercial you saw on TV.
- Something interesting related to your business or industry. But DO NOT SELL. Here’s an example of something appropriate: “Finally landed a great contract – business has been tough.” Or, “Went to a great training program on social media today – I recommend it”
- Re-tweet a particularly good article or post provided by somebody you follow.
- Comment on an observation made by one of your followers.
- Take a picture from a place you’re visiting and comment on it.
- Express an opinion on a national news story.
- Ask a question and authentically seek help from the community.
- Thank followers who do something nice for you, like mentioning you on a Follow Friday.
To provide meaningful content, you don’t have to write a lot, but you MUST COMMIT. You know that old saying: You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him tweet. I can’t make you engage, but I promise that you can’t be successful without it.
If you were to help a friend get started in social media, what other ideas do you have?
Tomorrow, the final part of the success formula: Authentic Helpfulness.
Other articles in this series:
Part 1: A formula for social media business success
Part 2: Building meaningful business connections
Part 4: Social Media’s Economy of Giving
Social media influence in the workplace may be relatively small
Jul 29th
- Is the use of social media at work increasing or decreasing?
- How is the access to social media being influenced by emerging corporate policies?
Do the trends differ by industry? - 18% acting on SM product recommendations seems significant, especially since the channel is still developing. How rapidly is this going to develop?
- Since work/personal behavior on social media is merging, what about home access to SM?
- How does this workplace study compare to other populations like students or people who work from the home?
Welcome to {grow}
You’re in marketing for one reason: Grow.
Grow your company, reputation, customers, impact, profits. Grow yourself. This is a community that will help. It will stretch your mind, connect you to fascinating people, and provide some fun along the way. I am so glad you’re here.
-Mark SchaeferFollow Mark
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