Wonders and Mysteries of Social Networking

For anyone just starting out with social media, the choices can be daunting. Where is the best place to invest my precious time? What shall I tweet or post? Is one enough? Are ten too many? How can I measure the effectiveness of a campaign of posts and tweets?

We hear these questions every day. These are the kinds of issues our clients face and I bet they are ones you ask yourself, too. Our answer..."It depends."

Before you jump in the pool, you need to ask yourself some challenging questions and be ready to develop the answers.

Stay tuned, next installment - The Top Five Questions You Need to Answer BEFORE you begin your Social Network Marketing.

Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin - Oh My!

Just like Dorothy, you might feel swept up in a frenzy of marketing strategies. You can't stay up in the air forever. Sooner or later, you'll slam down on some poor unsuspecting client base and they won't know what hit them. The sad thing is that you'll never know how your landing impacted them.

Business marketing has a new paradigm - Social Networking. It's Web 3.0, the neural web, where you always know what your clients and prospects think about your company, its products, its services, and most importantly, its people.

Social Media Best Practices for your Business - It's not just the next wave, it's a Tsunami

Are you ignoring the potential of social networking?


Case Study: A growing litigation finance company sales agent wished to expand her reach into her client base. She was making 100s of calls a week, mailing letters and brochures. She attended conferences. She needed to market with a personal touch.

We started her on the path. Facebook page first, Twitter second. Using Twitterfall (www.twitterfall.com) she started following the people in her universe. In every phone call she made she mentioned she was on twitter and facebook. In three weeks she went from zero to 225 followers, quality followers. She's converted conversations to sales. She's a "New Socialist."

Now, the reality...

Are you or your clients afraid of Social Networking for business? To some it's a security issue. To others, it's a legal minefield. For the IT department, it's a support issue. For the sales manager, it's too personal. But to the salesperson, it's nirvana.

We have to face it. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and the rest...you can't stop it. You can try, but this is the new marketing, the new socialism, and you either learn to control it or it your competition will.

Where to start....

1. Admit that your salespeople will text, Tweet, and Post.
2. Determine what's appropriate and what's not.
3. Follow their tweets and posts, coaching and praising.
4. Lead by announcing that your sales team is available via Social Networking.

Cautions:
The legal issues are still not well defined. Is a Tweet where a salesperson makes a statement to a client binding the company to deliver what's in the tweet?

Some ideas:
How about a corporate Twitter and Facebook client/server that runs through the firm's proxy? This way all outbound and incoming, direct messages could be monitored and intercepted if needed.

In Summary:
Don't go blindly into the social network, plan and act carefully.

Is eLearning failing its audience?

Are you faced with demands from managers to "Get my people up to speed ASAP!" Are your timelines and budgets shrinking? Of course they are! If you are like most Instructional Designers, expecting to perform a needs analysis, define your client's Knowledge Skills, and Abilities and respective gaps, and develop a prototype and shake it out over time, you are living in the last century.

As wonderful as PowerPoint is, it has clouded the eLearning vision. Can we all agree that PowerPoint is NOT eLearning? One of my client's managers all screamed for PowerPoint to load on their LMS (Learning Management Systems) but the users begged me not to do it. When I slipped them a Flash simulation, accessible via a public website, that gave them the same information but was branchable and self-directed; they loved how they could find answers quickly and how empowered they felt.

My mantra? eSimulation!

Cheers,

Doug

Big Changes for 2010

1. The challenge of 3D. What does this mean for cable TV and satellite? Is there enough bandwidth? Will this benefit Verizon (FiOS) over copper?
   
2. Microsoft Office 2010. Just when you thought it was safe to use Word, here comes a MAJOR shift in the office suite we all love and hate. Is Google Docs a real threat to Office?
   
3. Adobe Creative Suite CS5. Do away with all those plug ins and think - "They finally got it!" We'll see a lot more user-friendly WOW-factor stuff built right in to Photoshop, Flash, and Dreamweaver.
   
4. e-Learning struggles for true acceptance. With drop-out rates still high across the board, will e-Learning ever win the hearts and minds of the masses? What has to change? Is it Management or Development that doesn't understand the mind of the user?