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Keyword ‘social media’

by Andrew Swenson

Image Credit: Thanachart R.

When we talk about the practice of community management, we often speak only of the external relationship between an organization and its customers. I contend that organizations must weave together the practice of active online customer engagement with the management of in-house culture.

Culture Meets Customers

Considering that 60% of employees are considering jumping ship for new opportunities as soon as the recession ends, I’d say we have some work to do in company culture development.

What’s scary is that your company’s culture is important not just internally, but externally as well. As Bradford Shimp remarks:

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keywords: Community Management, Corp, critical thinking, Customer Relationships, engagement, social media
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Life

The Paradox of Constant Connection

by Andrew Swenson

Image Credit: Igor Kasalovic

With my wife’s grandmother’s death this past week, I was out of the office for a few days. As my luck runs, a relatively serious issue came up at work that required my professional attention. So in the midst of grieving with my family, I was furiously thumbing my iPhone for updates. As one co-worker put it, “It’s the paradox of being ‘always’ connected – makes it hard to feel like you can disconnect.” And she was exactly right.

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keywords: connection, family, Life, social media
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Business Practice

In the future, connection may be more important than products

by Andrew Swenson

Image Credit: miamiamia

This past weekend, my wife’s grandmother passed away. Sitting in an intensive care waiting room I did what any other person in need of an escape would do—I started Tweeting.

Mostly it was a way to distract myself, but being on Twitter was far more valuable to me than grabbing a magazine or watching TV.

The reason? Human connection.

The social shift

When the internet was born, the availability of products at good prices is what drove commerce. Think of the Amazon empire—a store smart enough to provide you with personalized recommendations for products you’d probably like. For Amazon, product is king.

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keywords: connection, Customer Relationships, future, social media
19 Comments »

Marketing

Considering Your Competition’s Use of Social Media

by Andrew Swenson

Photo Credit: Griszka Niewiadomski

For detracting from the intelligence of social business as we know it, I advocate flogging the next person you hear say, “we’re really pleased that we have 100 more Facebook fans than our top competitor” (unless he or she is your boss, in which case a more diplomatic approach may be warranted).

Beyond the Surface Level

With as much good advice there is out there about social media ROI, it’s appalling to me that many companies still use fluffy anecdotal evidence to support how they stack up against their competition in the social sphere.

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keywords: competition, ROI, social media
14 Comments »

Marketing

Twitter Lists and Influence: Shut up, Relax, and Measure Quality

by Andrew Swenson

photo credit: Flaviu Lupoian

Besides the buzz about whether Twitter’s list function will make people feel left out (Chris Brogan; see also Robert Scoble’s rebuttal), there’s a lot of talk about how lists will be used to measure influence. Like so many things in the social sphere, most of these commentaries are shallow and don’t really consider all of the variables. But I can’t say I’m shocked.

The short-sighted claims

Skeptic Geek recently posted the following links as in intro to it’s analysis of present Twitter influence metrics (from Analyzing Twitter Lists-Follower Ratio As An Indicator of Influence):

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keywords: complex issues, critical thinking, metrics, social media, strategy, Twitter
23 Comments »

Business Practice

We’re transparent, authentic, and on Twitter…now what?

by Andrew Swenson

photo credit: Troy Newell

I think we’ve reached the point at which if you aren’t transparent, authentic, and/or human you’ll be treated like a dirt sucking, crap-eating spammer. I think we have to start talking more about what’s next.

I realize that I’ve regurgitated some of the hackneyed language of social media in Tweets and posts. But now is the time to move beyond those second order concepts like “relationships.” We don’t need any more lists of tips to help us get more followers. We need a strategic understanding of what the real-time web will look like so that we can write our business plans and outline our strategies for community engagement.

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keywords: Business, critical thinking, Marketing, progress, social media, Straight-up Snark, strategy, Twitter
20 Comments »

Business Practice

Agents of Meaning: Let All of Your Employees Tweet

by Andrew Swenson

Adrainna Huffington @ #140conf

Attending #140conf so far has been a great experience, but beyond right now, I believe the real challenge for #140conf participants is to put the values we talk about so often (transparency, authenticity, etc.) into specific, measurable actions.

I think the first step for any company is not on the level of grand social media strategy, but in allowing all of their employees full access to social networks and the invitation to interact with customers. This being driven, of course, by a set of organizational guidelines for use.

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keywords: relationships, social media, trust, Twitter
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Straight-up Snark

CMOs: “Social Media is Better In-House”…DUH

by Andrew Swenson

Some things are just painfully obvious.

When a group of CMOs were asked which group was best equipped to help them with social media, a recent post on Business Week reported the following:

65.6% In House
15.6% Interactive Agency
9.4% PR Firm
9.4% Social Media Agency
0% Creative/Ad Agenc

I may anger some of my friends in the agency world (I know, I was there once too), but I firmly believe social media MUST come from inside an organization in order to be credible. I think this is best illustrated in a quote from one respondent:

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keywords: Customer Relationships, Marketing, social media, Straight-up Snark, Twitter
7 Comments »

Career

The Silent Interview: 3 Simple Ways Social Media Helps Job Seekers and HR

by Andrew Swenson

With constant tales of people either (1) getting hired because their online presence is so phenomenal or (2) posting stupid things and getting caught, there’s no doubt that social media is factoring into the hiring process.

But it’s not always simple for HR. Chris Penttilla (@workplacediva) writes on Entrepreneur.com:

Social media sites have become an integral piece of the hiring puzzle; it’s how to leverage these sites most effectively as a recruiting tool that has companies scrambling.

Add corporate confusion to the already blurry professional/personal line in social media, and you’ve got yourself a real HR conundrum.

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keywords: Gen Y, HR, jobs, Passion, social media
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Critical Thinking

5 reasons to ignore “5 Twitter Tips” posts

by Andrew Swenson

I’m sick of all the posts out there telling me how tweet, how not to tweet, how to increase my following, and how I can earn millions of dollars in my sleep with Twitter. I’m especially sick of the “5 Twitter Tips” posts.

Unless links about improving my social media presence are coming from someone I know and trust (e.g. @mashable), I ignore them. Here are five reasons why:

Many Twitter tips are a regurgitation of the same hackneyed advice. Once you’ve read two or three “top five” lists, you’ll notice that everything starts to sound the same.

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keywords: social media, Straight-up Snark, Twitter
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