Does your company have a social media strategy? If not, don’t panic. I’m going to give you a primer on crafting your very own social media strategy. I promise it’s not that hard to get started. The hard stuff comes later, but don’t worry about that right now. Read the full story on our new blog…
Last week, I took Social Media to task for making us less social. This week, I’m in Palm Springs for TED Active and on Day One, saw three very real examples of how the Internet is also connecting us in ways we never imagined before. They provided a compelling counterpoint to my original argument. Eric Whitacre is a composer and conductor. In Lux Aurumque (Light and Gold) he conducts a choir singing his original composition. The choir, 185 strong, never sang together. They never met each other. They live in 12 different countries. Whitacre posted a video of himself conducting [...]
Sometimes those of us who follow online technology get caught up in the noise of all the different developments that happen every week. If we’re not busy dissecting Google’s latest algorithms or discussing the implications of local search, Facebook’s privacy policies, industry conferences, Apple versus RIM (or Microsoft or…), and all the other tech news, we just might miss the real impact happening all around us. Yes, I’m talking about real people experiencing the real impact of technology. Take shopping, for example. The big buzz around the office lately is all about Twongo.com. They entered our little local market with [...]
Not long ago I sat in on a webinar on social media measurement. I should say I sat in on some of it, because I left after 24 minutes. That’s about 23 minutes longer than I should have spent there. There’s two types of conversations we can have about social media, and measurement in particular: strategic and tactical. They need to happen in that order and you need to understand the difference. This post is a tactical one. If you don’t already understand the need for a clear strategic understanding of your business, your online presence, customers and competitors both [...]
Tackling the field of social media can be daunting. Many clients have been asking us: “Do I need to be on Facebook? Do I need to be on Twitter?”. This isn’t the first question your business needs to ask – it’s actually the last one. You need to know who you want to reach before you can know where to reach them. There’s a number of different methods you can use when developing your social media strategy. One that we’re fond of at Enquiro is Forrester Research’s POST method. POST stands for People, Objectives, Strategy, and Technology. One of the [...]
Twitter’s API allows for external web services to use the platform. This has led to a host of applications that help make managing your Twitter account easier – whether it be for business or personal. Here’s a few worth looking into: Twitterfeed – Twitterfeed integrates with your blog so that every time you publish a new blog post, your Twitter feed is updated automatically. Tweetmeme – For finding new memes and top tweets on Twitter. Sort options include subject, media types (news, images or video), and period of time. We Follow – A director of Twitter users if you are looking to find [...]
One of Enquiro’s core values is to make the world better by contributing to the community. This topic was delved into at Northern Voice by Darren Barefoot, who led a great session on how we can do good deeds online (he also took a little time to bash Luongo). Good deeds don’t necessitate spending money. They can be as simple as retweeting a valuable post or liking something on Facebook – just spreading the message can help to advance social causes. Here are six websites Darren highlighted that are creatively allowing for people to contribute to social issues: - Procrasdonate [...]
Social location sharing is about to hit the mainstream. Services such as Foursquare and Gowalla have been in increasing use by social media hardcores for the last year or so, but haven’t really taken off to a large degree. Foursquare itself only recently hit the one million user mark. But with Facebook announcing that it will be launching new location-based features (known as “Foursquare Killers”) imminently, social location sharing is going to be put front and centre in front of a much broader audience. Social location sharing is not the only location-based tool gaining attention. MyTown and other location-based, augmented [...]
CBC Radio 3 hosted a session at Northern Voice called “Wikifying the CBC: Social Software at CBC Radio 3”. The session took a look at the new Canadian Music Wiki which is expected to launch this Friday. The wiki allows the Canadian public to contribute to an online music database of information about Canadian music. The project is best defined as a user-generated, participatory online resource on Canadian music. People tend to be very enthusiastic about the subject of music. CBC Radio 3 is fortunate as they have a substantial base of online users currently using their web properties. The [...]
Tris Hussey lead a session at Northern Voice called “The ABCs of Blogging”. He is the author of Create Your Own Blog: 6 Easy Blogging Projects to Start Blogging Like a Pro and Using WordPress. Here are some of the highlights of his session: - People get tied up with technology when they get into blogging. Remember: it’s writing. - A good blog post is about the story: whether this is a personal or for business, it doesn’t matter. - Sometimes voice is the issue; you may be using a personal or academic voice in your writing when a different voice is more [...]