Social Media Jedi Blog

Could I demonstrate how to use various social media platforms using the 6 second format of Vine in one day? This was a challenge that I made for myself, as I had wanted to create a new series of how to videos and had recently started spending more time in Vine. It has proved to be a great place to learn, and I am following some companies that have a fresh approach to creating educational videos using Vine, and earlier this year the number of people who watch Vine videos each month crept over 100 million.

The challenge; could I script educational videos and all the visuals, curate voice overs, edit and upload them, plus promote them all in one day? I was up for this fun challenge and using all my own accounts to make it happen.

Social Media in 6 seconds.. Facebook

The 6 second Facebook video demonstrated how to create and schedule a Facebook fan page update, with a separate image added.

Social Media in 6 seconds.. Twitter  The #6secondsSoMe Twitter video demonstrated how to create a new Tweet including an image and a hashtag #6secondsSoMe, and was naturally the first one that I created as Twitter is my favorite social media network. All videos were first launched in Vine, then added to my YouTube account on a new dedicated playlist.

Social Media in 6 seconds.. LinkedIn I decided to demonstrate making an update via the LinkedIn profile page in the Vine video for LinkedIn.

Social Media in 6 seconds.. Pinterest Pinterest is a very comfortable platform to use, either on the desktop or via a mobile device. It is one of those social media platforms that I visit daily. For my #6secondsSoMe Pinterest video I decided to demonstrate uploading an image, adding text to the pin, selecting the board and adding a source link back to Vine.

Social Media in 6 seconds.. YouTube One of the most trickiest to make was the YouTube video. This one included keywords being added and all the other typical tasks like playlist and thumbnail selection.

The Future For Vine? If you have not ventured into using video as a part of your marketing arsenal then maybe Vine could provide you with an alternative format to start using but you will need to think out of the box to make an impression. Vine is perfect for both B2C and B2B and the number of vine loops played daily is tipping the scales at over 1 billion.

Vine has not been sitting still this year. We had the opening up of direct access to Vine to upload video, which some liked and some did not, and they also added new tools to make it easier to shoot and edit videos from the mobile device. Vine has remained popular despite the rise of video being added to other platforms like Instagram, and you can track your Vine video performance so now is the perfect time for you to GET VINED..

By the way, I just about managed to fit in all my #6secondsSoMe activity into one day; idealization, testing, creation, and promotion (creating update posts on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn) of all five videos and this blog in just under 1 day, which was fun!

I am a social media strategist, blogger and speaker about social media marketing. This blog is a fun outlet for me to talk about new trends and applications, especially helpful if you are new to Social media. Subscribe and learn about how to use and adopt Social media for Marketing, and keep up with the latest news. I am also the Head of Social Media for Philips Lighting. I am active with strategy development, activation, governance, projects and educational training activities for all aspects of social media within Philips Lighting. I have been working in the digital marketing area since 1997, and previously held roles in engineering, design and sales. In addition to this blog, I tweet daily on two Twitter accounts, have two Facebook pages, Google+, Pinterest, So.cl, Instagram, and participate in many other social networks.

Connect with me via: Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn | Facebook fan page | SlideShare

I attended the LuxLive 2014 event last week, located at the ExCel in London. I observed how the lighting industry was using social media during the event and I noticed a huge increase in its use compared to past events of similar size. For LuxLive there were over 5,400 social media posts before during and after the event.

This is a good sign for a B2B and OEM event, and is a huge increase on the levels of adoption that I saw 3-4 years ago. I have been in this industry for a long time, and recall being asked to develop a plan for a web page to list the main office address for my employer at that time, similar to others in the lighting industry, at a time when other industries were experimenting with adding databases to their web pages using ODBC ;-).

Progress...

The most impressive aspect for me of the social media use at LuxLive was the presence of the social media co-coordinators actually on the manufacturer stands and the use of mobile. I connected with a few of them and the interaction was quick and responsive. The quality of the posts and tone of voice were very good, especially when compared to my collection of sample lighting industry tweets going back to 2009. The lighting industry is progressing nicely with interactive media on the go!

5,400...

I made an analysis of the social media at LuxLive and you can view the results in an infographic format (see below). 5,400 plus social media posts were made by the lighting industry leading up to, during and after LuxLive. This number includes any social media posts with the LuxLive hashtag or that mentioned the event within the period 24th October and the 23rd November 2014.

Social media is more than mere quantity, and especially in B2B, even more so. Social media has to have business relevance. It can enhance relationships and provide leads and insights.Good to see that after a busy first day it was still not over as I received an invite via Twitter to join a regular Tweet chat being held with a lighting designer about light and architecture that was about to start in the United states. A busy day and day two proved to be just as good, and featured an award dinner and much more all highlighted on social media. The lighting industry looks like it is has moved on well from its early adoption of social media for publishing press releases and price lists to being on the way to an interactive business relevant social future!

Here is a small collection of the LuxLive 2014 event tweets, followed by an infographic of my analysis of the social media around the event.

I am a social media strategist, blogger and speaker about social media marketing. This blog is a fun outlet for me to talk about new trends and applications, especially helpful if you are new to Social media. Subscribe and learn about how to use and adopt Social media for Marketing, and keep up with the latest news. I am also the Head of Social Media for Philips Lighting. I am active with strategy development, activation, governance, projects and educational training activities for all aspects of social media within Philips Lighting. I have been working in the digital marketing area since 1997, and previously held roles in engineering, design and sales. In addition to this blog, I tweet daily on two Twitter accounts, have two Facebook pages, Google+, Pinterest, So.cl, Instagram, and participate in many other social networks.

Connect with me via: Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn | Facebook fan page | SlideShare

Say Ello... Ello is here, and many want to have it, although many do not know what it is about. Fear of missing out (FOMO) is very much the tone of the excitement for many. It has been around for a while. It was created by the entrepreneur Paul Budnitz, and it was used privately as a social network for a year with 100 friends. It had a simple design and was not in the news until just recently.

Ello received some nice comments by the "geek tech" press at the same time as another event that kicked off a large exodus of people from Facebook. That event was Facebook's "real names" policy enforcement.

There are now many Ello users that have simple usernames due to this type of issue, such as a single letter followed by a number(s). Is Ello a haven for the anonymous as well as design geeks and tech nerds and anything in-between? Or is there more to Ello than just this?

The Hype...

Ello started getting major social momentum around September 23rd 2014 and remained invitation only. Twitter was the medium of choice for requesting invites, typically:

- "Does anyone out there have an #Ello invite for me?" - "G'bye @facebook , Hello ELLO! Simple, beautiful & ad-free" - "Is anyone on Ello? The anti Facebook..."

Ello had gone from around 100 mentions a day throughout the summer to 30,000 a day within hours, and would later have estimates of a signup rate of 45,000 an hour.

  Is Ello the "anti-Facebook" as regards data privacy?

Whenever Ello is mentioned, Facebook seems to be following close behind. I even saw a tweet that suggested that Ello should have a "login with Facebook" option. Now that was clever! However, there is a serious side to the data privacy issue. This was highlighted in stunning fashion by a Twitter user by the name of "Maymay" who has a Twitter handle @maymaymx. At the time of writing it had fewer than 500 followers, but a tweet that featured the privacy policy of Ello on the 26th September received around 4,500 retweets and a huge number of comments. Have a look for yourself, it was a lively debate.

    What choice do we have? Is it not true that any social network that starts off acting like Ello ends up like Facebook or any other successful social network once it has grown to a critical size and needs to fully engage advertisers and the big brand spenders? Have a read of this Newswork.org blog post which further explores the data security and Ello discussion. Or would you choose to be like Jon Swartz and decide to jump off the Ello bandwagon before it really got started?

  What is in Ello? What is it like?

Let's assume that you still want to read some more about Ello? You have not moved on in disgust at the privacy angle and the ad free and simple design is still enough to keep you interested to learn more. Let's explore what is in Ello!

It is a very simple interface which took me a while to work things out as there are only limited button labels. It has a refreshing feel, as the interface is free of cluster, and yes, no ads.

One of the first things you notice is that you can group people into two categories, "Friends" or "Noise." Similar to Google+ circles in that people will only know that you are following them and not which category you put them into. I guess these will have extra functionality in due course.

There is no API so you cannot post into it other than being in it, and you cannot easily share outwards as there are no share buttons. However, you can tweet a link or pin images etc. Here is a pin I made from Ello. Anyone can view it in Pinterest, but following the link takes you to the Ello social network page which shows a credit to the Ello user who posted the image and a navigation menu with buttons to learn more about what Ello is and the "WTF", which translates in Ello speak to "Help, About and Policies."

In the settings section you can fill in your bio, username, links (like blogs etc.) and then there are seven slider button choices like "public or private profile" and lastly the account deletion button.

Selecting the "Say Ello" button is the way to make a post. Had to work that one out. The discover function allows you to find others to follow.

The feature list section is indeed, one to watch. It lists the built and upcoming features. Features that were added recently are highlighted in green. These "features" could be the way that Ello members start to part with their cash when they start to opt for add paid features. For example, Paul Budnitz has said that the ability to control multiple accounts from a single login might be something that Ello might like to charge for when that feature is available. "We might charge a dollar for that. It would be like the App store."

  In Summary.

Ello is new, fresh, and certainly is flavor of the month. I have seen many tweets saying that it will not be around in a month, maybe gone by Christmas. It has had an injection of venture capital and Paul Budnitz insists that "We are building a profitable company, and that is our goal." Personal accounts will be all the rage for now, but as we saw with Google+ and Facebook, brands will no doubt have their day at some time... but with no ads we assume. Can that work in the long term? The feature list section does show progress. Recently added features include these;

- Views per post. - Drag users between Friends & Noise. - In-line Emoji integration - Option to toggle Google Analytics on/off. - Among many others. Still to come features? - User blocking - Private accounts - iOS & Android mobile apps (so just bookmark or add to home screen) - Many more items.

Luckily I had some very nice agency colleagues in London who invited me and thus I could explore Ello. My own strategy for "yet another social network" is a new strategy. I created for myself a new persona with a new style and a series of post styles very unlike my other personal strategies for Google+ and others. I suggest that if you start as a personal account or brand with any new social network, there has to be a purpose and a differentiation from your strategies with you other networks otherwise you are wasting your time.

For now, I say, "Hello to Ello...." Let's see where this one takes us.....

I am a social media strategist, blogger and speaker about social media marketing. This blog is a fun outlet for me to talk about new trends and applications, especially helpful if you are new to Social media. Subscribe and learn about how to use and adopt Social media for Marketing, and keep up with the latest news. I am also the Head of Social Media for Philips Lighting. I am active with strategy development, activation, governance, projects and educational training activities for all aspects of social media within Philips Lighting. I have been working in the digital marketing area since 1997, and previously held roles in engineering, design and sales. In addition to this blog, I tweet daily on two Twitter accounts, have two Facebook pages, Google+, Pinterest, So.cl, Instagram, and participate in many other social networks.

Connect with me via: Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn | Facebook fan page | SlideShare

Radian6 Quick Search Goes Mobile

Radian6 has now introduced "Quick search" into the Radian6 mobile client via the version 1.8.1 upgrade of the app on September 8th 2014. Radian6 then issued an upgrade of the mobile app for iOS8 on the 17th September 2014. I have given the "Quick search" a nice test drive, and found it to be a very welcome addition to the mobile app, which had it's first major version issued as 1.0.2 on August 12, 2011.

The Power Of Radian6 Search While On The Go

Imagine grabbing your mobile or tablet with Radian6 mobile installed and logged in. You can conduct a quick search and see a "river of news" type result set in seconds. I did a test run on the social buzz around one of my Twitter accounts @lighting_jedi, which I have used for many years to join in with the community conversation with lighting professionals and enthusiasts around the world. I found 86 results within the last 7 days. The quick search is restricted to the last 7 days and users the simple keyword query builder type input of the search term but without any proximity adjustment. The results are presented within seconds.

The results are based on all the Radian6 media types, like blogs, forum replies, videos, Twitter, Facebook, Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo etc and you can deselect the ones you want omitted. All the available Radian6 languages are included from Simplified Chinese, Hindi, Malay, Italain, Russian, Traditional Chinese, to English, Japanese and German etc. All the available regions are included so you can search globally or you can tune in to the social buzz in Moldova, Nepal, Solomon Islands, the United States or any combination of regions you like. All these selections can be adjusted via the settings icon situated next to the quick search column name.

You can toggle the output between the river of news format and a dashboard type report which is based on some of the typical Radian6 widgets. The quick search report results can be emailed or saved as an image.

I had to try out the exact same simple keyword search via the Radian6 tool to see the correlation with the mobile app results. The results were the same but took a longer time to create a new topic profile and generate and assemble all the widgets on screen compared to the mobile app.

Obviously there are deeper and advanced options with the Radian6 advanced keyword entry and extended date range and all the many other options available as normal in your Radian6 account setup, but the mobile app now provides a quick 7 day response in seconds while on the go. A nice addition to your portfolio of social listening quick response tools on the go!

Engagement

The process to engage with the river of news results is exactly the same as with the normal engagement type stacks in the mobile Radian6 apps.

The quick actions menu can be used, so just tap and hold a post in the stack to quickly respond (reply, retweet, quote retweet, direct message, or tweet), delete or adjust the sentiment. You do need to have accounts added to the mobile app in order to respond (Twitter or salesforce). Let's say you add both, your company Twitter account and your salesforce account ID. Now you can drive social data back into Salesforce, for future nurturing through campaigns, tagging etc. As an example, spot an interesting new influencer whilst in the mobile app, tap "Create Salesforce Contact" and in one step, that person and their social profile is captured in Salesforce CRM.

As an alternative to the quick actions menu, two taps on a tweet opens it in the app that you have registered to manage Twitter on your mobile device. This is how a tweet appears on my iPad when I do not use quick actions. It opens in the Twitter app on my iPad.

In summary

The power of Radian6 search while on the go is here. It is a very powerful way to demonstrate the recent social buzz on any topic over the recent week by using a global search or by using a very defined search based on your choice of any combination of media type, language and region.

Imagine being in a situation where you want to find out the very latest social media buzz on a given topic. Imagine having the possibility to find out the results using Radian6 at your fingertips any where you are, in seconds. Now you do!

A nice addition to your portfolio of social listening quick response tools while on the go.

I am a social media strategist, blogger and speaker about social media marketing. This blog is a fun outlet for me to talk about new trends and applications, especially helpful if you are new to Social media. Subscribe and learn about how to use and adopt Social media for Marketing, and keep up with the latest news. I am also the Head of Social Media for Philips Lighting. I am active with strategy development, activation, governance, projects and educational training activities for all aspects of social media within Philips Lighting. I have been working in the digital marketing area since 1997, and previously held roles in engineering, design and sales. In addition to this blog, I tweet daily on two Twitter accounts, have two Facebook pages, Google+, Pinterest, So.cl, Instagram, and participate in many other social networks.

Connect with me via: Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn | Facebook fan page | SlideShare

A scattered landscape.

There have been many Pinterest analytics tools over the last few years that have come and gone, and I have had the pleasure of using almost all of them at some time. If you were not satisfied with the basic numbers shown in Pinterest you had to find a tool to provide more information, especially for companies who had to justify that their Pinterest strategy was actually making a contribution to their business plan. I recall Pingraphy that became ViralTag. Other names include 10alike, Reachli, Pinerly, and Pinreach (which is now Tailwind). I have used Curalate which is still available, and of course, there is Piqora. From this collection of tools, some of those that were killed off still have many Twitter accounts live where the last tweet was dated 2012.

One of my Reachli reports from 2013

Upgraded Pinterest analytics now available for business accounts. Pinterest has now upgraded the analytics available from the platform itself that was first launched in 2013. This is what they said when it was first launched "Pinterest Web Analytics helps businesses and website owners understand how pinners are engaging with their content". It looked like this:

Pinterest are clearly expressing why they have upgraded their analytics. Jason Costa, the product manager at Pinterest said the following to Mashable; "We’re pretty excited about this because it's actually our first global business tool launch that we’re doing. We talk here at Pinterest a lot about the importance of the user experience and how the Pinner side of the ecosystem is important to us. Businesses are equally and critically important to us as well." Here is what the overview looks like:

The first section is about your profile in general, the second one about your audience and the third about the activity from your website when images were pinned. You can click on each section to see more details, and there is a colour code for each section. You can hover your mouse pointer on the curves to see data per day.

Your Pinterest profile

Let's look deeper into the first section beyond the overview, "your Pinterest profile". Here you will find separate data about impressions (e.g. average daily impressions), clicks (e.g. average daily clicks), repins (e.g. average daily repinners) and all time data.In the impressions section, it shows two tables as well as data on a curve. Top Pin impressions from the last 30 days and the boards with top Pin impressions from the last 30 days. You can change the date range from 7, 14 or 30 days. You can also export the data. The data exported is what you see on screen. You can also change the view from all apps to just the data for visitors using iPads, or Android tablets, or the mobile web as a whole etc.

Nice to see handy tips throughout. #Kudos

Your Audience

This section features demographic data like countries, cities, languages, and the gender of your visitors. some key metrics which could be used to indicate the business importance of Pinterest can be found here. For example;

Interests: What your audience is into

Brands: Businesses your audience engages

Boards: Audience boards with lots of your Pins

Average monthly engaged

Average monthly viewers.

Naturally, the interest metrics from your audience are key ones. Did you manage to trigger the audience you targeted? This section will confirm that either way.

Tips appear here too plus the export function and the choice to view the data for just the followers of your boards or all the audience that engaged but were not explicitly following your boards.

Activity from your registered web site to Pinterest

The final section looks at the activity from your registered web site to Pinterest. Data in this section is split into these sections; Impressions, repins (how Pins from your website spread across Pinterest), clicks (visits back to your website from Pinterest), original pins (unique Pins created directly from your website), all-time, and the pin it button. Data can be exported and viewed by different apps as before.

You can boost the results in this section by adding the official Pin It button to your website to see how Pins created from your domain send you referral traffic from Pinterest.If you do not have the Pin It button installed, you are very likely to still see results in the original pins and repin sections.

Best of the rest

There are still some very good Pinterest analytics tools available. Piqora Piqora describes itself as the complete marketing suite for the visual web, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr.

Curalate Launch and track user-friendly Pinterest and Instagram promotions and monitor and measure your competitors’ official brand accounts plus much more.

Tailwind pro demo showing competitor benchmarks

Tailwind I still actively use Tailwind. This app says it can monitor all your Pinterest activity related to your company, products and competitors, #hashtags, and can create reports that could turn insights into real business results.

Viraltag A visual marketing tool for small businesses that describes itself as helping to drive engagement and traffic to your website by effectively publishing your visual content.

Twitter list about Pinterest For the past few years I have run a Twitter list that has the Twitter accounts of the Pinterest analytic tools. Feel free to subscribe and keep up to date.

In summary It was about time that Pinterest delivered a solid analytics package for business users and finally we have it. Now businesses can track how their pins perform and in addition see what users are pinning from the web site. Adding demographic information like the brands/ businesses your audience engaged with and the interests they have are really key additions. There is still room for other platforms, that can add competitor benchmarking and hashtag trends but for how long before Pinterest introduces these too?

Now is the time to use these tools to prove to your business sponsors that your visual platforms like Pinterest are returning business value and customer insights.

You can view your own Pinterest analytics by signing up for a business account and then going to https://analytics.pinterest.com/

I am a social media strategist, blogger and speaker about social media marketing. This blog is a fun outlet for me to talk about new trends and applications, especially helpful if you are new to Social media. Subscribe and learn about how to use and adopt Social media for Marketing, and keep up with the latest news. I am also the Head of Social Media for Philips Lighting. I am active with strategy development, activation, governance, projects and educational training activities for all aspects of social media within Philips Lighting. I have been working in the digital marketing area since 1997, and previously held roles in engineering, design and sales. In addition to this blog, I tweet daily on two Twitter accounts, have two Facebook pages, Google+, Pinterest, So.cl, Instagram, and participate in many other social networks.

Connect with me via: Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn | Facebook fan page | SlideShare

Social media moderation is very crucial for brands. Get it wrong and your brand will be talked about for years for the wrong reasons.

"Think of tone as the body language of social media. I can’t see you, I don’t know if we’re forming a connection, so replying to me in a similar tone – whether it be jocular or serious – and in your own voice, helps bridge that gap" - Tamara Littleton from www.emoderation.com (July 2014)

Here is an example of a social media community manager with a great sense of humor. The brand is Sainsbury's. I include it below using Storify, which is great for telling stories!

I am a social media strategist, blogger and speaker about social media marketing. This blog is a fun outlet for me to talk about new trends and applications, especially helpful if you are new to Social media. Subscribe and learn about how to use and adopt Social media for Marketing, and keep up with the latest news. I am also the Head of Social Media for Philips Lighting. I am active with strategy development, activation, governance, projects and educational training activities for all aspects of social media within Philips Lighting. I have been working in the digital marketing area since 1997, and previously held roles in engineering, design and sales. In addition to this blog, I tweet daily on two Twitter accounts, have two Facebook pages, Google+, Pinterest, So.cl, Instagram, and participate in many other social networks.

Connect with me via: Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn | Facebook fan page | SlideShare

The NEW Foursquare - Finding places you'll love!

The all new Foursquare app is with us. I gave it a spin while on holiday to find places to visit and found the new Foursquare very useful indeed.

This is how Foursquare talked about the new app a week or so before it arrived;

"No two people view the world exactly the same, so no two people will have the same experience with the app. Once you teach Foursquare a couple things about you – add tastes, follow experts, or even just walk around for a few days – the app will be 100% yours" "This is the beginning of the ‘personalized local search’ future, with all tips, check-ins, photos layered on top of that" - Team Foursquare

On the Foursquare web site it shows these 6 categories:

On the app I noticed that "Entertainment" has been replaced by "Fun" and "Outdoors" was replaced by "Sights".

Setting up the new Foursquare app.

Foursquare has said that the new app learns what you like, but during set up you will be asked questions that will give it a great start for feeding you with suggestions.

The first few screens asks you what you like. The choices vary from food to activities. I went through 6-8 screens of choices to select keywords.

The app will immediately start suggesting to you great nearby places.

You can always come back and personalize the new Foursquare app at any time by tapping the Foursquare "F" logo in the top left corner. You can add tastes, follow people, search for a person and connect up other apps like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc. There are also suggestions of who to follow that includes companies like Starbucks, The Fast Company, etc.

Now you are good to go!

The Swarm app.

The Swarm app is now the partner app for Foursquare type check-ins. If you are using Foursquare and want to check-in, you will be directed to the Swarm app to do so.

Reviews and tips for the places you have been to.

One of the main aspects that the Foursquare app needs is our collective reviews and tips. I decided to give the new app a whirl. The previous night I had checked-in via the Swarm partner app into the Cafe Ingles restaurant in Silves, Portugal. Now I will leave a review and a tip for it using the new Foursquare app.

The other questions I was asked ranged from did I like it, what was good there (food choices), was it good for late nights, and was it cosy, which it was! I also entered a tip using my Instagram photo of my starter choice:

Finding new places to visit.

This will be the most useful part of the app for most people, and the app really feels great for this, now that all the activity around check-ins have been to the partner Swarm app. You can now use Foursquare for great ideas of where to go even if you never intend to check-in.

The first icon on the navigation bar in the bottom left corner is for "find a place". This is a good place to start searching using the categories I mentioned earlier.

The map icon in the top right corner can be clicked to view all the suggested places on a map view. Here is a screenshot of a map view with filters applied in my search request;

You can also find places near you by using the next option on the navigation menu, "here".

Search filters.

I want to make a special mention for the search filters. Foursquare have spent some time making these really easy to use. There are many simple choices to get going to tune your search:

Here is an example of the "features" and "categories" filters in use..

What can you do with a Foursquare location.

Once you have found a place, you can look at the ratings and view the all the tips. For this location, it highly suggests being in the front row ;-)

Click the large photo to view all the photos submitted by previous Foursquare users. You can view the rating (based on Foursquare ratings based on people's tips from 1-10) and there is a rate button so that you can add your own feedback. You can view the map by clicking the map icon. You can save the location and share it too. Sharing can be to your contacts or to the social networks you have connected up. You can also share by SMS. If you click the drive icon, a map view opens up and gives you a choice of Apple maps or Google maps to get directions. A neat function. Pity it could not list my own installed choice of app for routing, but never mind.

In summary

I really like this update by Foursquare. Separating the check-in functionality into the Swarm app has allowed the Foursquare app to focus on delivering an experience designed around you and your preferences. The filters allow you to search for a location based on many factors like budget, distance, features, and category matches like shops, and fine tuned aspects like if it has live music or if it is suitable for romance! How could you not give the new Foursquare app a try? let me know what you think about it.

I am a social media strategist, blogger and speaker about social media marketing. This blog is a fun outlet for me to talk about new trends and applications, especially helpful if you are new to Social media. Subscribe and learn about how to use and adopt Social media for Marketing, and keep up with the latest news. I am also the Head of Social Media for Philips Lighting. I am active with strategy development, activation, governance, projects and educational training activities for all aspects of social media within Philips Lighting. I have been working in the digital marketing area since 1997, and previously held roles in engineering, design and sales. In addition to this blog, I tweet daily on two Twitter accounts, have two Facebook pages, Google+, Pinterest, So.cl, Instagram, and participate in many other social networks.

Connect with me via: Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn | Facebook fan page | SlideShare

The latest update to the Facebook Pages app finally enables it to truly mange all your Facebook fan pages in one place. I installed this app from the very first version but was initially disappointed to see that I had to dive to my desktop to enable me to deal with spam time wasters and engage with individual users.

Facebook have finally given us an app that really does us able to manage our Facebook pages while on the go, including the ability to boost posts and promote the page, and also with access to the insights module as well.

This post was made using the iPhone version. All the options described below are replicated on the tablet version as well, but some are located in different places in the interface.

  Manage Multiple Pages.

The first icon on the navigation bar allows you to see an overview of your latest posts, with each post having a small drop down menu in the top right to “pin to top”, “copy link to post” or to delete. These were among the options that the first version did not include. Each post can be boosted here as well but more of that later. You can also see how many of your fans have seen each post, liked and commented. You can also “View posts by others”, and “invite friends to like your page”.

The menu choice in the top right corner shows you a selection of the pages that you have admin access to. There are also more selections at the lower part of the page, including “Create a page”, “App settings”, “Report a problem”, and access to the help center. The last option on the navigation menu is shown by an icon of 3 small dots, and leads you to the “Photos”, “Events” and “Settings”.

  Post at Any Time.

TEXT Enter an update as normal, with the option to select location and schedule the update

Scheduling a post while using the Facebook Pages app

EVENT Input Event name, details, location, date and time.

VIDEO & PHOTO These options lead you to your camera photo album choices.

  Engage.

The second icon on the navigation bar is for your Facebook page activity. You have a selection of four actions: “Notifications”, “Messages”, “New Likes” and lastly “Promote page”. The “Promote Page” option also shows you how many likes you have had that week and the total of your post reach.

You can reply to individual comments, and clicking on each comment allows you to delete, copy or ban the user.

  Promotion While on the Go.

Boosting a post is easy-peasy using the new app. Just select the boost post button and select how you want to target and choose your budget.

  Boosted posts via the Facebook Pages app will be checked exactly like they are checked on the desktop version.

You can view the final results once your budget has been spent.

View Your Insight Analytics. Finally, a very good version of the Facebook Insights module is now included in the Facebook Pages App.

  It Works!

Proof that this new app works as it should is that I have not yet had to reach for the desktop version to complete an action that I had started doing while using the app. Have you tried the new version yet? Was your experience with the app complete as well? Give it a try if you have not tried it yet.

I am a social media strategist, blogger and speaker about social media marketing. This blog is a fun outlet for me to talk about new trends and applications, especially helpful if you are new to Social media. Subscribe and learn about how to use and adopt Social media for Marketing, and keep up with the latest news. I am also the Head of Social Media for Philips Lighting. I am active with strategy development, activation, governance, projects and educational training activities for all aspects of social media within Philips Lighting. I have been working in the digital marketing area since 1997, and previously held roles in engineering, design and sales. In addition to this blog, I tweet daily on two Twitter accounts, have two Facebook pages, Google+, Pinterest, So.cl, Instagram, and participate in many other social networks.

Connect with me via: Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn | Facebook fan page | SlideShare

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with nearly 300 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the globe. It is seen as essential for most professionals as a networking platform, or for recruitment. The member numbers have been growing steadily for many years, as this recent diagram from eMarketer shows:

LinkedIn basics

Members are encouraged to fill out their profile pages, and images and video assets can be added to express your accomplishments using rich media. LinkedIn help is a super guide for this. However, looking ahead, what would be the next level after member status? Jedi status of course!

LinkedIn Jedi status

Regular updates will show that you are up to date and relevant. Making comments and starting discussions in LinkedIn groups will show that you can network and guide group debate. You have to show that you can take advantage of all the measurement tools that LinkedIn makes available. Darth Vader himself has provided guidance on measuring success in LinkedIn.

Tips to become a LinkedIn Jedi (Infographic)

The infographic below by Gryffin provides all the information you need to become a LinkedIn jedi.

Show your expertise

Grow your brand

Master the use of Slideshare PRO presentations

Company pages c/w Showcase pages

LinkedIn groups; Becoming lead contributors

Master Sponsored updates

Now you can rock LinkedIn!

Infographic by Gryffin

I am a social media strategist, blogger and speaker about social media marketing. This blog is a fun outlet for me to talk about new trends and applications, especially helpful if you are new to Social media. Subscribe and learn about how to use and adopt Social media for Marketing, and keep up with the latest news. I am also the Head of Social Media for Philips Lighting. I am active with strategy development, activation, governance, projects and educational training activities for all aspects of social media within Philips Lighting. I have been working in the digital marketing area since 1997, and previously held roles in engineering, design and sales. In addition to this blog, I tweet daily on two Twitter accounts, have two Facebook pages, Google+, Pinterest, So.cl, Instagram, and participate in many other social networks.

Connect with me via: Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn | Facebook fan page | SlideShare

Geo target tweets with HootSuite

Have you ever wanted to geo target tweets in a similar way to how it is possible to geo target Facebook posts? Without the possibility to geo target tweets, companies often create additional Twitter accounts to deliver tweets in the local language of their countries. All Twitter accounts should have adequate resources and a local well managed content calendar in order for them to be effective. If the local content flow is anticipated to be low and the local resources are not available, and there is no long term budget for a local agency to help out, then using HootSuite to geo target tweets from the main company account is a viable option.

Here is a simple guide how you can do this.

  “How to” video about geo targeting tweets with HootSuite.

  The video highlights an important point that geo targeted tweets for a specific country will only appear to the followers of that account when they log into their Twitter accounts. Otherwise they see all the other non geo targeted tweets as normal.

  HootSuite Pro, Enterprise, and free versions

They all have the geo targeted process demonstrated in the video. 

  In summary

The geo targeting tweets process in HootSuite is very simple to use and is available in all the versions of HootSuite. This provides us all with a ready and simple solution to the headache of creating separate language Twitter account just to send the odd local language tweet. The advantages are numerous, but here are just a few..

  Reduction in local language Twitter accounts created for low volumes of Tweets. These can now be geo targeted using the main Twitter accounts. Local accounts work best with a solid resource and content plan.

Increased Twitter social authority as your local language Tweets are not sent to all your followers, obtaining low engagement figures.

Less annoyed main account followers, who will be spared seeing their Twitter feeds filled with your “other language” tweets not meant for them.

You will be less likely to be “muted” by your main account followers while “other language” tweets are sent out via your main Twitter feed, especially during high output occasions like events etc.

Reduction in costs if you used promoted tweets in order to send “other language” tweets.

I am a social media strategist, blogger and speaker about social media marketing. This blog is a fun outlet for me to talk about new trends and applications, especially helpful if you are new to Social media. Subscribe and learn about how to use and adopt Social media for Marketing, and keep up with the latest news. I am also the Head of Social Media for Philips Lighting. I am active with strategy development, activation, governance, projects and educational training activities for all aspects of social media within Philips Lighting. I have been working in the digital marketing area since 1997, and previously held roles in engineering, design and sales. In addition to this blog, I tweet daily on two Twitter accounts, have two Facebook pages, Google+, Pinterest, So.cl, Instagram, and participate in many other social networks.

Connect with me via: Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn | Facebook fan page | SlideShare

  Social selling defined

Could social selling be the secret jewel for companies, especially B2B? Let’s start by defining social selling, as there are a few variants. Michael Brenner is my favorite writer on the subject of social selling, so I will use his definition of variant of social selling that I want to spotlight in this post: “Social selling is not just about starting the sales process with social tools like LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. Social selling is about sales people building a strong personal brand. It is about understanding the role of content and how content can be used to tell a powerful and emotional story. And it is about growing your social connections."

"Social Selling Can be used to tell an impactful story, growing social connections through leads to orders" Social selling prerequisites

I really think that B2B companies should start investing in social media selling pilots. There are many aspects to be reviewed when getting started with social selling pilots. It is very important to consider the basics similar to any social media activity or campaign, like identifying your customer type, where and how your customers use social media, your objectives, budgets and list your expected business value outcomes. Getting started with B2B social media has many aspects. In my opinion, there are four success factors that need deep consideration in addition to the usual aspects listed above;

a) Social Media maturity. There has to be some degree of social media maturity as regards your existing processes and the role that social media has in your digital marketing strategy, especially in the area of how social media leads are handled within your company.

b) Having a coordinated multichannel approach. In this era, having a coordinated multichannel go to market approach is a vital success factor for managing leads. A project lead may appear in several forms at different times so it is key to be able to identify the pieces and be able to construct a picture of how the project is progressing and this helps to identify the players, the contacts involved. Contextual intelligence! Software can really help here! I recall my previous sales life as an account manager and my card index system, cold calling and flipping through my post for updates from a lead management company. The world has moved on.. have you?

Executive buyers do still prefer email and phone when it comes to touch points for contact. However, social networks like LinkedIn make up a good share of the % of the other channels that they prefer to use so make sure you start to include social selling.

  Source: Forrester Research, Inc., Executive Buyers Prefer Email And Phone, July 26, 2013

To amplify the point, I recall an eMarketer interview with Vala Afshar, the CMO of Extreme Networks. In that interview he talked about the use of a multichannel approach. I quote Vala Afshar: “We see that we need to have a significant number of touchpoints with a client before we successfully win business. When you have multiple touchpoints, it’s important to understand the impact that you have along the buying journey” . He also said; “All of these touchpoints have a certain amount of influence, but customers are more influenced by their peers, especially in the B2B space.”

c) A cultural fit for social media. Social selling pilots often need a top down support network. This helps fund the pilots, ensure that the result and key learning points can be spread to other segments to build on the work done. There has to be a cultural fit otherwise it could end in disappointment. The “hearts and minds” need to align. You also need to make sure that all aspects of your company social media policy are covered and also your company ethics should be aligned (assuming you have a list of company ethics ;-).

Here is an example where the culture did not match in Oracle and the social media sales expert was fired. The social media sales expert in this example was Jill Rowley. She was the best salesperson at her former company, Eloqua. She was consistently ranked as the top- or second-best performing salesperson, with clients like Wells Fargo, Square, McAfee and Salesforce. She was very skilled at using social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

  d) Managing risk There might be many industry / country combinations that might not be a great fit for a social selling approach. I always say that risk assessments should always be a part of doing social media for the first time, and a risk audit might be needed for social selling pilots in some industries, or to calm fears when the culture leads to uneasy feelings. Regulated industries need some consideration. There are over 12 major regulatory bodies — including FINRA, FFIEC, FDA, FTC, SEC, and NLRB — all having something to say about how social media can be utilized safely to avoid a warning notice or much worse.

Forrester Research published a report that talked about “a growing market for social risk and compliance (SRC) solutions. These products help enable, and even optimize, social engagement while enhancing oversight and mitigating risk and compliance concerns”.

  What about YOU?

If social selling is not just about starting the sales process with social tools but more about sales people building a strong personal brand, how would this fit in your company? Is your company ready for this? Do you have the support of the C-suite? Could social selling be the next logical step in maturity plan for your social media catalysts?

Could your culture cope assuming you had mitigated any risks and had a rock solid deployment plan?

There are potentially big rewards awaiting companies that can safely navigate all these aspects, and Jill Rowley’s sales record while at Eloqua is a great example of what can be achieved when all the aspects I mentioned are aligned and Jill Rowley’s career at Oracle is a great example of what can happen when they are not.

I am a social media strategist, blogger and speaker about social media marketing. This blog is a fun outlet for me to talk about new trends and applications, especially helpful if you are new to Social media. Subscribe and learn about how to use and adopt Social media for Marketing, and keep up with the latest news. I am also the Head of Social Media for Philips Lighting. I am active with strategy development, activation, governance, projects and educational training activities for all aspects of social media within Philips Lighting. I have been working in the digital marketing area since 1997, and previously held roles in engineering, design and sales. In addition to this blog, I tweet daily on two Twitter accounts, have two Facebook pages, Google+, Pinterest, So.cl, Instagram, and participate in many other social networks.

Connect with me via: Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn | Facebook fan page | SlideShare

I love being a catalyst for new things. I have been a catalyst in the companies I have worked for with regards to Internets, Intranets in 1997, Extranets in 1999, .NET based product catalogues in 2001, and finally social media in 2009. I took all the lessons from 1997 and found that the 2009 adoption of social media was following the same path but just so much faster. Very much faster, but the same steps were there. This kept me calm as I knew fairly well that once I had achieved a certain type of proof point then I could guess what the next stage would be in the maturity path and so I could mentally prepare myself for it and the others around me.

Spock from Star Trek reminds me of the typical type of character that I have encountered on the path to social media maturity. I decided to use Spock to illustrate 8 aspects of being a social media catalyst.

"Social media catalysts need to develop proof points to get the C-suite going from skeptic, interested to fascinated"

  Venturing into a new world Spock – “Insufficient facts always invite danger”

Being a new media catalyst often involves striding into the unknown in terms of what your company is used to. Catalysts have a firm belief that they have grasped the future and go boldly where no one has gone before.

I have an engineering background and I used this methodical approach to find out from as many case studies as I could before proposing a fresh new direction. I have a rich directory of these case studies now on almost any aspect of social media that you can imagine. I appreciate the concerns of Spock, and I would rather avoid danger and uncertainty too if I can possibly do so.

  Empowered social media catalysts Spock – “If I seem insensitive to what you’re going through, Captain, understand – it’s the way I am”

In 2010 the “Empowered” book was published, written by Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler. It described empowered catalysts as HEROes. Chapter 9 in the book is entitled “leading and managing HEROes”. It is not as easy as it looks to manage social media catalysts when they are busy innovating and testing new programs almost every week.

Can the managers of empowered social media catalysts cope? Chapter 9 of the book suggested that there are two sides to getting HEROes to deliver actual results. “First you have to lead them, and then you have to manage them”. Wise words for managers of catalysts.

Asking lots of questions Spock - “Has it occurred to you that there is a certain inefficiency in constantly questioning me on things you’ve already made up your mind about?”

One of the things I learnt from my years as an engineer; GET THE BRIEF RIGHT. Social media catalysts are used to experimentation to help achieve success, nothing wrong in that. Catalysts know the value of turning early pilots into success stories so that they can be used for internal promotion, knocking down barriers to other departments or business segments. So ask all the right questions so that successful social media pilots actually add business value. Many pilots often finish as successful but did not add business value because key questions that align results to business outcomes remained un-answered.

  Innovation, Inspiration and Creativity Spock - “Change is the essential process of all existence”

This was the mission statement for SXSW interactive; Innovation, Inspiration and Creativity. SXSW is one of the best events to provide social media catalysts with a fresh injection of energy. I could not attend the event this year but I did managed to attend the Iris agency event SXSW – “The best bits” in Amsterdam in May 2014 (#SXSWAMS). I heard lots of great ideas and case studies varying from content, wearables, to marketing campaigns etc.

Spock once said “change is the essential process of all existence”. Catalysts sometimes get swamped with day to day activities and then need events like SXSW to get them up and out of the daily grind, re-acquiring the spark of creativity based on the latest ideas and trends.

  Catalysts should be able to demonstrate business value without expensive enterprise tools. Spock – “I'm afraid that's illogical captain”

In the early days a social media catalyst needs to have enough room and freedom to show the impact that social media can have on the business. Essential for this is an executive sponsor and the ability to pick small pilots to create the first proof points. I spent my first two years in social media with a small amount of budget and I proved that proof points can be obtained without huge amounts of budget.

I think it was actually a good thing to start without a huge budget, as it removed the temptation to invest in one or more expensive enterprise tools to do all the work. I believe that obtaining an enterprise tool as the first action could lead to a tool based approach rather than developing a process tuned for overcoming those “hearts and minds” barriers. Catalysts need time to develop those techniques that work best for certain types of people. In the early days I created a process framework that helped people get through 90% of the thinking and planning, with the remaining 10% fueled by the use of smaller tools in specific areas. These were a mixture of 30 day free trial periods and free tools. I developed a personal program testing a new startup or free to use tool every 1-2 weeks.

  Connecting with other catalysts Spock – “Nowhere am I so desperately needed as among a shipload of illogical humans”

I first learnt the value of connecting with like-minded souls in a digital world when I was started the first Intranet project for Thorn Lighting in 1997. I attended as many Intranet events as I could mainly to hear from the speakers but then I found that I was not among a shipload of illogical humans. I found myself talking to other Intranet catalysts fired up with the exact same assignment as I had ... “Go and create our first Intranet”.

I have repeated that basic trick each time I had a new assignment to lead in the development of a new technology. Internet sites followed the Intranet, then Extranets, product catalogues and then I tackled social media in 2009. I recommend that social media catalysts surround themselves with other catalysts to keep their drive and enthusiasm up and this helped me to benchmark my progress as well. Sponsors love to know if they are ahead of the pack!

  New roles and responsibilities in the era of emerging media Spock - “Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected, in this case I would think interesting would suffice.”

Brian Solis listed the fresh roles that the new media era is cultivating in his book “Engage” in the chapter “Divide and conquer”. This book has been my flight companion on many long transatlantic flights! Here are some of the interesting role names Brian mentioned in that chapter:  - Digital Sociologists  - Digital Ethnographers  - Research Librarians  - Digital or Social Architects  - Cartographers

I also saw a recent list of 51 hilarious social media job titles. Here are some of the ones I like the most from that list:  - Social Media Profit Mechanic  - Social Mercenary  - Social Media Assassin, Of course, the elegant… Social Media Badass

For a social media catalyst, the job title is almost irrelevant in most cases. In my opinion, social media catalysts need to develop processes and proof points to get the business C-suite like Spock going from skeptic, interested, to fascinated!

  Social media maturity Spock - “I am endeavoring, ma'am, to construct a mnemonic circuit using stone knives and bearskins”

Social media catalysts are often active transforming their companies from the inside in the area of communication and collaboration. Forrester Research detailed 6 aspects to address that could guide companies onto the path of social media maturity. These six aspects were listed in a report called “Accelerate Your Social Maturity” from June 2012 by Christine Spivey Overby with David M. Cooperstein. I had the pleasure of meeting Christine and I used this report to model the social media maturity of my company at that time and shared this back to Forrester in 2012. Looking back, the benchmarking was very effective indeed. Here are the 6 highlighted aspects:  

  1. Experience Doing social media.

  2. Resources Companies are in need of new responsibilities and skills.

  3. Process. This one is close to my heart. Social media catalysts are often busy creating pilots and examples of what social media could do for their business but eventually you have to tie them down to document the various processes. Do this before they courted away to startup the fire in another company.

  4. Measurement. This topic goes much further than the usual ROI aspect.

  5. Commitment. Long term plans supported by management

  6. Culture. I am glad that Forrester research sees this aspect as both bottom up and top down when applied to the startup nature of social media adoption. 5 years ago I was working at both ends to start up the social media fire.

In summary

Disruptive technologies are innovations adapted so fast that they become a part of everyday life. Social media and social networking technologies are both disruptive technologies and often a catalyst is deployed to start the company adoption of them. Forget the strange job titles, or the geek appearance that some catalysts might display. They could be crucial to the adoption of a disruptive technology especially at the early stages. People that have a deep knowledge of the business, experience of the processes, and yet can perform the role of a game changer catalyst are an essential component to the adoption speed of a disruptive technology within a company.

What experience do you have with social media catalysts?

Were they successful?

Let me leave the last word to Spock and Captain Kirk…

[Spock]: “Captain, you almost make me believe in luck.” [Captain Kirk]:  “Why, Mr. Spock, you almost make me believe in miracles.”

I am a social media strategist, blogger and speaker about social media marketing. This blog is a fun outlet for me to talk about new trends and applications, especially helpful if you are new to Social media. Subscribe and learn about how to use and adopt Social media for Marketing, and keep up with the latest news. I am also the Head of Social Media for Philips Lighting. I am active with strategy development, activation, governance, projects and educational training activities for all aspects of social media within Philips Lighting. I have been working in the digital marketing area since 1997, and previously held roles in engineering, design and sales. In addition to this blog, I tweet daily on two Twitter accounts, have two Facebook pages, Google+, Pinterest, So.cl, Instagram, and participate in many other social networks.

Connect with me via: Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn | Facebook fan page | SlideShare

Darth Vader's Guide to measuring LinkedIn Success

LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network with over 250 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the globe. It is seen as essential for most professionals as a networking platform, or for recruitment. If you look a little deeper, LinkedIn provides us with many ways to measure our networking reach and the results of our efforts in groups and on brand pages.

Your LinkedIn professional universe and timeline. Darth Vader: "The Force is strong with this one"

Over 3 years ago the LinkedIn labs gave us tools to visualize our career timeline and the extent of our connections. The great news is that as of today, these tools are still live. I created my first LinkedIn timeline in 2011. You can track your connections that you have made over the years and animate it using the slider.

The LinkedIn InMap is an interactive visual representation of your professional universe, based on the relationships between your connections. Different color zones represent different periods in your career and school. Here is mine;

Profile page statistics Darth Vader: "You have only begun to discover your power"

Fast forward to today and LinkedIn are still providing us with ways to fully grasp the reach that our actions have. For example, if you are logged in and visit your homepage, you will now see a graphic on the right hand side that shows the reach of the last few updates that you have made. Here is an example:

The color of the dots represents views (purple), likes (green) and comments (red), and the circles represent 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree connections. 1st degree is the smallest size circle, 3rd degree the largest. Finally you can now see the type of updates that your connections really like to view and engage on.

LinkedIn also informs you how many times your profile has been viewed and how many times your name came up in a LinkedIn search. You can also view statistics for your total interconnected LinkedIn network and the number of new people added within the last 3 days or so to that network.

Company page statistics Darth Vader: "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed"

Do you have a company page live in LinkedIn? If you do you will find a wealth of statistics to gauge the networking reach that your posts and recommendations have. Company updates can be sponsored so admin users will be able to compare the organic and paid reach and engagement figures. I have detailed how to use the sponsored update process from Linkedin in a previous post.

Recommendations are valuable. These can be obtained if you go live with the product and services page. The statistics section will provide you with a rich set of statistics to gauge your success journey.

Darth Vader: "Calculate every possible destination along their last known trajectory"

You will be able to view statistics for reach, engagement, follower demographics, trends and tips to help you improve. You can vary the date range from "today" to the "last 6 months" and you have 7 date range choices in between those limits. You will also see a small table showing how your follower count compares to a few other companies within your business segment. Ahh, the competition! Darth Vader: "If he could be turned, he would be a powerful ally"

Using 3rd party platforms and LinkedIn data.

There are many platforms that will allow you to view your company page data and will also allow you to download it. For example, Buddy Media from SalesForce will allow you to link up your page and then view the data in the analytics section. I can view the number of updates and interactions over any date range. It will also give you trend data, if these figures are trending up or down. The export in CSV file format will also allow you to view interaction broken down into likes and comments. Now you can graph out to assess your most interactive post! Darth Vader approves of this type of analysis, but you cannot tell if he is smiling when he does his own analysis. For group analysis, I recommended using Engagor.

Group statistics - Darth Vader: "With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy"

If you have a profile in LinkedIn, it is likely that you have opted to join at least one group. LinkedIn opened up the group statistic dashboards so that they are public. I recall the day very well! Now we can look before we choose to join a group. Is it active? Are the members based only in a few countries or spread globally? Are directors and senior managers in the group? All is revealed;

If you have the ability to run polls in your group, you can use this as a valuable resource for opinion data (UPDATE; LinkedIn's Sponsored Poll product will be shut down as of April 17th 2014)

If you want to gain much more deeper insight information for a LinkedIn group that you are an admin of, I suggest to contact LinkedIn to arrange to have to a custom group arrangement. This is invaluable for rich data on how your group is growing and I have experience of this for a number of years.

In Summary

In addition to the profile, company page and group statistics that I have mentioned, there is also information that you can get if you have paid for recruitment seats, or run inmails, or have a career section open on your company page. If you are an online marketer, and you have a business that has a B2B approach, then LinkedIn will be a valuable social network for your business. However, I advise to first plan your objectives carefully. What are you trying to achieve? Insights, leads, or new connections? You could even use the product and services section to find new influencers that have recommended your products that also have an ability to get others to engage with what they have done.

Darth Vader: "Impressive. Most impressive. Obi-Wan has taught you well"

I am a social media strategist, blogger and speaker about social media marketing. This blog is a fun outlet for me to talk about new trends and applications, especially helpful if you are new to Social media. Subscribe and learn about how to use and adopt Social media for Marketing, and keep up with the latest news. I am also the Head of Social Media for Philips Lighting. I am active with strategy development, activation, governance, projects and educational training activities for all aspects of social media within Philips Lighting. I have been working in the digital marketing area since 1997, and previously held roles in engineering, design and sales. In addition to this blog, I tweet daily on two Twitter accounts, have two Facebook pages, Google+, Pinterest, So.cl, Instagram, and participate in many other social networks.

Connect with me via: Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn | Facebook fan page | SlideShare

(Click for a larger image version)

The Dummies' Social Media Guide to Thought Leadership Portals

Thought leadership, what is it? Wikipedia defines a thought leader as “an individual or firm that is recognized as an authority in a specialized field and whose expertise is sought and often rewarded.” If we take this definition, a company that creates a thought leadership portal seeks to be recognized as an authority in a specialized field. This is over and above a normal web site, that often promotes products and services. Expertise is different. It needs a special approach. The Wikipedia definition mentions rewards. A basic reward in a social media context would be for a thought leadership portal to help establish a company as the most talked about within a specialized field compared to its competitors. The most talked about should lead to advantages in referrals, leads and sales. Why would you bother to create a thought leadership portal if it gave you no reward(s)?

Let's explore the social media aspects of thought leadership portals from six major companies including Coca Cola, SAP, Intel and others.  - What was the social media impact?  - What lessons can we learn?  - How can thought leadership portals be created that drive business results?

Adidas Go All In

Adidas has a thought leadership portal called ‘Go All In’, which has some interesting, mainly sports related content, with vibrant images, videos, and appealing stories. There are three sections; News, Events and Challenges. Within each section, you can view articles ranging from the latest to the most popular. You can also filter by interest or filter by all posts. Only the News section contained articles. I am surprised the other two sections were not loaded with content at launch. Challenges sounds like it could have added some viral impact.

Social sharing is included courtesy of Gigya. This produced a more elegant share experience very much aligned with the style of the Adidas "Go All In" site.

Users are given the opportunity to comment on each article, so Adidas is the only thought leadership platform I have reviewed for this post that supports this functionality. However, the vast majority of articles do not have any comments, which I find odd. I only found four articles that had comments. The only issues I found on the Adidas site were that the terms of service and privacy policy links were faulty.

http://discover.adidas.com/com/goallin/

  Coca Cola Journey

The Coca Cola journey is available for eight countries plus global. It has six sections; Front page, Brands, Videos, Food, Music and the well named "Unbottled", which is a blog. This was my favorite section. I quickly noticed this article "Share Your Story #OutofOffice: What Inspires You? Send us your photos, videos and stories!" which was accompanied by a big red call to action button "upload your photos". In the music section you can play music from Coca Cola via Spotify. You can submit recipes in the food section, and there are also polls. Here is a poll from the food section;

I was soon given an opportunity to sign up to their newsletter by a pop up box that said “Thanks for Visiting! We're on a mission to refresh the world, one story at a time. Try our newsletter, The Optimist, and see for yourself!”

I love the tone of voice on this portal. Examples of fun "must visit" sections on the Front page are "just poured", "Staff pics" and the "stay and sip" section. So much content, every section brimming with images, things to do and read.

This portal also includes quick links to the company’s branded social media accounts. Well done Coca Cola.

http://www.coca-colacompany.com/

  Pepsi pulse

This is a major portal initiative, evident by the huge choice of languages. The interface is filled with articles ranging from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, audio (via soundcloud) and video. The result is a ginormous range of user generated content and branded posts. I felt very much involved in the Pepsi brand message after a few minutes browsing. Each article can be shared to Google+, Twitter, Facebook etc. The sections are what’s now, your voice, spotlight, brands and contact. The "What's now"section has the Pepsi content and the “Your voice” section is where you will find the user generated content. "Brands" is the section which contained the product information. In summary, a fully immersive experience, with a nice mix of cool Pepsi content and user generated content delivered in a highly visual interface, with a huge selection of languages and lots of social sharing opportunities. Bravo Pepsi!

http://www.pepsi.com/

  Intel IQ

So how does Intel describe their IQ portal? "iQ by Intel explores technology culture, news, trends, innovations, and the people behind them. We focus on the role of technology in our daily lives and human ambitions for making the world a better, more interconnected place. We dig into health, entertainment, fashion, sports, automotive, and other areas to understand how science and design bring new experiences to the things which fascinate us. iQ is where we hear from experts, innovators, researchers, and futurists who help us understand the benefits and challenges these new technologies bring to our lives. iQ by Intel is brought to you by the employees of Intel and our global partners."

The site mainly has the articles presented in a grid design. The IQ Intel portal only has Twitter, Facebook and email share buttons. There is no user generated content or collaboration opportunities.

http://iq.intel.com/

  Ford Social

Fordsocial describes itself as a "fresh way of thinking, interacting and creating that puts you in the driver’s seat. Ford friends, fans and aficionados—this is for you. A place to share your stories, pics, ideas and more. So press play to see what Ford Social has to offer. And then come on in and be a part of the action". This description is very accurate as this thought leadership portal allows user generated content to be posted, unlike many of the others. Users can also read about first-hand experiences from other members and submit their own.

In addition they can post ideas and submit pictures. You can also grab a badge that shows your love for Ford. A very nice easy to use portal.

http://social.ford.com/

  GE Reports

GEReports has been around for many years. Interesting to see that it is located on Tumblr. "GE Reports is a daily, award-winning online magazine published by GE. The website and its companion Twitter handle feature stories about innovation, science and technology, as well as viewpoints on important issues regarding GE and the world". This portal makes use of the standard share bar in Tumblr, so that Tumblr users can like and reblog articles and follow GEReports in Tumblr. In addition, GE has added social share options for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Reddit for each article.

There is no user generated content or collaboration opportunities.

 http://www.gereports.com/

  SAP Business Innovation

This portal has sections called the Future Of Business, Technologies, Line Of Business, Industries and finally SMB. All the main navigation sections except SMB break down into smaller sections. The Technologies section breaks down into subjects like cloud, mobile, big data to mention a few. Each article has an AddThis share button bar as the main way to share. SAP allows non SAP people to become contributors on request by email. There is more than enough content to keep you interested; a proof point for opening up the portal to external authors. We shall see if the huge amount of user generated content would add anything to the social media impact of the SAP Business Innovation portal, and I repeat, the user generated content is huge here!

http://blogs.sap.com/innovation/

The Social Media Impact of Thought Leadership Portals

If your company created a thought leadership portal, you would expect that it would (or should) give your company some rewards, some business advantage. What are the benefits of having a thought leadership position? "The benefits of Thought leadership start with brand affinity. By communicating thought leadership you become part of the conversation, early in the buying journey. You allow your audience to get to know you." So be a part of the conversation, you must be found, be heard. I conducted a simple exercise to see how many social media mentions had occurred within the last 30 days directly linked or referring to an of the above six thought leadership portals. Here are the results:

(Click for a larger image version)

There was not much between them, with the exception of SAP. It had almost 3x the figure of the smallest result. The SAP social media buzz was mainly powered by Twitter, but was the only one with a global spread. All the other five had their social buzz centered around the United States for the URLs listed in this post. All of the company results were strongest in Twitter with the exception of Pepsi, which had the majority of buzz generated via Facebook.

How To Create Thought Leadership That Drives Results?

I will conclude with 5 steps suggested by Michael Brenner (SAP), in a post published by Forbes.

Identify the questions your customers are asking.

Answer those questions.

“Give to Get”. 

Make it interesting. 

Invite customers to participate.

These steps drive social media results. Business results are measured by a different bean counting device. Thought leadership platforms should be carefully plotted to track how they contribute. They might ideally be best deployed at the top wide end of the traditional sales funnel. They can contribute throughout the funnel, but this must be carefully plotted and measured.

The sections and content direction of thought leadership platforms must have their roots embedded within the key themes or segments of the business from the very start. Coca Cola once said that the "s" in social media did not stand for sales, and this blog post details the story behind that quite well. However, did Coca cola really understand what their platform should contribute and where and how?

Thought leadership platforms that just broadcast will not get the job done. Aim to create awareness, engagement opportunities and then conversion. Understand where the thought leadership portal "adds value" along this path and plot your digital Eco-system including all your relevant digital touch points, above the line, below the line, and hand shakes between them, and measure, and adjust for success!

I am a social media strategist, blogger and speaker about social media marketing. This blog is a fun outlet for me to talk about new trends and applications, especially helpful if you are new to Social media. Subscribe and learn about how to use and adopt Social media for Marketing, and keep up with the latest news. I am also the Head of Social Media for Philips Lighting. I am active with strategy development, activation, governance, projects and educational training activities for all aspects of social media within Philips Lighting. I have been working in the digital marketing area since 1997, and previously held roles in engineering, design and sales. In addition to this blog, I tweet daily on two Twitter accounts, have two Facebook pages, Google+, Pinterest, So.cl, Instagram, and participate in many other social networks.

Connect with me via: Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn | Facebook fan page | SlideShare

New Klout is out, but has it improved?

On the 6th Feb 2014 the new Klout was launched with the hashtag #NewKlout.

I recall creating a blog post when Klout had its last major overhaul in Aug 2012.

Has the new Klout improved with today's update? Did they make changes to the algorithm? Can we still dish out +K to people who influenced us? Are there more changes on the way? Read on..

The process to add +K seems to have gone under the radar, but Klout insist it is still there. We can still give +K by searching for a user and then rolling over (and clicking) on one of their topics.

What has disappeared from Klout this time?

The functionality to see lists of members by Klout Score and topic has disappeared. Klout has launched many things that it later killed off. Do you recall the Klout achievement badges? Two years ago I created a blog post about those colorful badges long since killed off. Create and Share great content

This is the biggest change by far for new Klout, especially so since it is the first item you see when you login. You can also navigate to this section via the "create" menu option, which is the top item in the navigation, with the link where you can view your score now moved to the third position.

Klout describes this section as "helping you to find great articles and posts worth sharing with your audience. Unlike most apps that suggest content for your personal consumption, Klout intelligently recommends content that will strike a chord with your unique set". Did it switch you on?

You can add your own topics to those that Klout has recalled from the previous interface. You can review the articles and select the thumbs up or down bottom to indicate what you want to see more of and less of. You can see the source, date and category of each content item.

Where does Klout get the content from and how do they know if it fits your network? Klout currently monitors posts from a mixture of social media (like Twitter and Facebook) as well as a hand-curated list of thousands of RSS feeds from diverse publishers with whom they do not have financial relationships. By combining their natural language processing technologies with their understanding of you and your audience, Klout recommends content that is topically relevant and predicted to resonate with your audience.

Content can appear with a label so you get a feel of how new it is. All the content articles look new, so I wonder what extra impact the labels will have?

This is an interesting move to supply curated content. If you have a high Klout score it is likely that you already share content. So adding this section might be a driver to get more time spent in the Klout site itself and a reason to come back more often? We shall see over time if this has the desired effect. There is no advertising on the site, but the Klout Perk program is still alive and kicking so maybe the create section might help with the visits to the Klout Perk page? Maybe obtaining better quality perks might have been a simpler idea if that was the aim to have more return visits? We shall see!

Scheduled updates

You can also schedule posts. The interface first asks you what timezone you are in.

Here is piece of content I selected to share and I scheduled it for my Twitter account.

The tweet was sent out on time, and looked OK. See it here. Notice that the scheduled tweet used a Klout short link.

Measure

The Klout score information has now been moved to the "measure" menu option. Not many changes here. You can still see a list of the posts that contributed to your score, but they are no longer labelled "moments". I had previously described Klout "moments" in detail soon after it was first introduced.

You can also see a breakdown of your score.

The activity shown in the measure section contributes to your Klout Score. Only you can see this information. Activity should appear within 72 hours.

Settings

In the settings section you can review your connected networks as well as change your email address used by Klout and a few other choices are available there.

Has the scoring algorithm changed? The simple answer, no.

Are more changes on the way?

The simple answer, yes. I quote Klout; "over the coming weeks we’ll be launching tools that help you with original content creation and provide deeper insights into your impact on social."

In summary

Klout has tried a few ideas over the years. From achievement badges, to moments and the +K. Now we have the most simplest interface yet. Lean and mean with the addition of content that Klout users can share. A few will no doubt look to the fact that there were no changes to the scoring algorithm as a missed opportunity. There are many shortcomings which are still yet to be addressed, like not having self hosted WordPress blogs available as a connected account type contributing to the scoring.

My view is that the interface is less cluttered and less gimmicky. Will they add the Klout Cinch question and answer appliation in a future update for all countries?  I have answered a few of those Cinch questions via the former Klout website but I cannot install the app unless I am in a country where it is supported and it is not shown anywhere on the new site. Will they address the longstanding issues with the scoring? Do we all still care anymore as we have all found other ways better placed to measure influence than one numerical score. We shall see.

I am a social media strategist, blogger and speaker about social media marketing. This blog is a fun outlet for me to talk about new trends and applications, especially helpful if you are new to Social media. Subscribe and learn about how to use and adopt Social media for Marketing, and keep up with the latest news. I am also the Head of Social Media for Philips Lighting. I am active with strategy development, activation, governance, projects and educational training activities for all aspects of social media within Philips Lighting. I have been working in the digital marketing area since 1997, and previously held roles in engineering, design and sales. In addition to this blog, I tweet daily on two Twitter accounts, have two Facebook pages, Google+, Pinterest, So.cl, Instagram, and participate in many other social networks.

Connect with me via: Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn | Facebook fan page | SlideShare