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Social Media: Getting Started

by Jimmy Marks

Many companies worry about their involvement with social media (or lack thereof). We've talked about social media before, but we've never really given a list of "getting started" instructions. Hopefully, this will help your business get its feet wet. 

STEP 1: Sign up, Get going

No more of this "will we, won't we?" business. Get moving! Start turning out those blog posts, recording messages from the CEO to upload to YouTube, twittering, facebooking, emailing...whatever fits your member's tastes. Don't know what members are interested in? Hit them with a quick survey to sharpen your focus. 

More importantly, make this new communication channel someone's job. Make them track results and feedback. Stay on top of it. 

Best Practice - Set a bar and meet it. What do you WANT out of Social Media? Before you get going with anything, read this from thefinancialbrand.com about ROI and social media. 

STEP 2: Learn to Share

If you are running a blog or sending out a monthly email newsletter, you can make individual stories or pages shareable via the major social networks. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and most other networks provide links that, when set up properly, allow readers to share your content via their own account. Most blogging services provide a widget for sharing this information around. If you are a DigitalMailer ARB user, we can get you set up with the proper links and icons for sharing. 

You've probably seen buttons such as these before. When readers/members/users click these buttons, they're sharing your content and information with other people. Encourage them! 

Best Practice - Worried you don't have enough followers after a week? Don't. Building out this new way of talking to members and customers can take time. Read the CU Soapbox article "Follow-and-Friend Freeze Out" to give yourself and your organization a realistic idea of a "healthy" follower count.

STEP 3: Refine and Realign

Don't get comfy, social media trends and usage are changing day to day. Know which methods and messages are working and which aren't. Keep an eye on your stats and your referrals and make note of which method/network is giving you the best response.

Best Practice - Don't just talk, listen. If you have followers or friends eager to speak with you, address them and meet the need. You'll find that you can help users and members in a way that's simple, light and smart. You may also pick up new members and customers as a result. 

Some final food for thought:

Take a look at this video on "socialnomics". VERY thought provoking. 

Twitter gets hacked. Why you need to care.

 

by Ron Daly 

BREAKING NEWS! Fox News has outed Bill O'Reilly, Rick Sanchez at CNN is addicted to crack and Britney Spears...well, the less said the better.

Obvioulsy, ALL THESE CLAIMS ARE FALSE. We have a hacker to thank for all these tidbits, which came from the fount of Internet knowledge: Twitter. 

Yes, Twitter. Folks these days don't know whether to call it a micro-blog or an instant messenger. But they do know, now, that there's a major security hole somewhere through which someone drove a bus (click here to read the story). 

Some of the biggest Twitterers (Tweeters? Tweets? Toots? Honestly, Jimmy's the one who keeps up with this stuff) were hit, including President-Elect Barack Obama, Britney Spears, Fox News and CNN Anchor Rick Sanchez. 

As someone who spends a lot of time talking about online security, I wondered whether or not this was all that news-worthy. Most twitter pages are just little blurbs about what people are doing, links to their favorite news stories, jokes back and forth with friends, etc. But then I read this article from NetworkWorld.com (read the article here). 

What would have happened if this hacker - who just threw out humiliating little gibes - had posted links to a virus? What if he'd have used email addresses or passwords he'd found to disturb people's private accounts on non-Twitter services? Does this tell you, dear reader, anything about how important it is to guard passwords? 

Jimmy and I jawboned about this for a little while. I asked what he thought was the biggest threat facing Twitter and he told me that there are so many peripheral Twitter applications that require username and password to operate. Seems like a tough sell for me, the thought of giving away security information. What do you think, folks? Respond below.

Feed Me, Seymour! Why you need to get with the RSS program.

by Jimmy Marks

There was a time when I didn't see the point of RSS feeds. I didn't care to get all the information I wanted from one source. Who needs that kind of headache? 

Turns out I do. When I'm here in my office, I'm usually working on twelve things at once (thanks, TV, for giving me the attention span of a three-month-old puppy, an asset of my personality that's both depressing and productive). Why go to 19 different news/magazine/blog sites when I can go to one site and get all the information? 

So I use Google Reader, which comes with signing up for a Google account that gets you your gmail and your personalized Google information. It's not the fanciest thing in the world, but it does what I want. And when there's new sites that might interest me, I can look them up with Google's feed finder and they're all right there for me. Convenience, thy name is RSS. 

So you're not into getting yourself a reader? Fine...here's another golden egg that's just been laid. It's called Tabbloid, and it's a service offered by Hewlett-Packard that takes RSS feeds and turns them into a PDF that gets delivered to your email account. The service is pretty new and it takes very little know-how to get going, so jump on it while it's fresh (go to tabbloid.com by clicking here). How did I know about Tabbloid? It came up as an article on a blog I read called "brand new". Which I have in my RSS FEED READER. Is this sinking in yet!?! (Thanks, brand new, for being great! A Link to their Article on Tabbloid)

But what if your site doesn't use RSS? Odds are if you're reading this, you're a professional our company works with or just someone with a curiosity about Web 2.0 type stuff. Well, your site can have an RSS feed and not be a blog site. It's true! There's a service called Feedity that turns static web pages into dynamic RSS feeds. It's a nifty tool and it's free (for the stripped down, ready-to-run version). Just type in your web address and use Feedity to start generating RSS feeds about your frequently updated content. Then offer that feed as a service to clients/people who use your site a lot. Go to Feedity by clicking here. 

I get tired of repeating myself, so this is the last time I'll say it: you're wasting time "surfing" when you could be just reading. Web 2.0 is a way of making the internet come to you. So start getting in! You don't want to be standing on the dock when Web 3.0 (whatever that is) leaves port. Get in the game now and start eating up those feeds. 

Presidential Campaigns’ Email Tactics: Good Lessons in What Not to Do

by Ron Daly

This election season, both presidential candidates have turned up the heat with their email programs. They know email is an efficient, fast, and cost-effective way to reach supporters and to bring in donations. But according to Email Insider’s Jordan Ayan, both campaigns are “abysmally poor at executing based on today’s best practices.” (The Real Presidential Debate: What’s up with Candidates’ Email Campaigns, Oct. 1, 2008).

While we won’t have a winner until tonight, the presidential race is a dead heat when it comes to email no-no’s. Here are a few examples:

• Sending too many emails. Like many companies, presidential campaigns have many departments and offices, making it hard to keep track of the various messages being sent out on behalf of the candidate. Both the McCain and Obama campaigns regularly send numerous emails within the same day, giving recipients the impression of not just a poorly managed email policy, but a campaign that doesn’t value their time or respect their inbox. 

• Using multiple and irregular “from” addresses. When trying to build a brand or establish consistency, the email rule of thumb is to use familiar name(s) in the “from” line, which improves open and readership rates. Both the McCain and Obama campaigns send emails under various names – some are familiar, like their VP candidates and spouses, but many are unfamiliar, like state chairpersons and major supporters. This tactic is confusing and increases the likelihood that the messages will go unnoticed.

• Ignoring CAN-SPAM guidelines. The FTC ruled that emailers must provide a simple unsubscribe process that doesn’t make the recipient give information other than their email address and opt-out choices, and does not require them do more than send a reply message or visit a single Web page to unsubscribe. Neither campaign follows these guidelines … Obama’s sends recipients to a designated webpage to receive a special code number that they must enter on a designated browser form; McCain’s requires recipients to give a reason for unsubscribing.

Today, many financial institutions recognize that email is a valuable tool when it comes to communicating with members/customers and marketing products. The secret to success is knowing the right way (and wrong way) to plan your email strategy – and putting that knowledge into practice. 

Surveys: How's Web 2.0 Treating You?

by Greg Crandell

Give us your feedback: has social media made a big difference in your businesses' online presence?

Take our surveys below and let us know. Thanks!

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

Some news from the folks at C.C.C.Blog

by The Contributors

Well, it's been a hum-dinger of a five months here at the C.C.C.Blog (Note: That's our new nickname for ourselves! Ya like? It goes with our logo that goes out with our email stories: 

Cool, huh?)

We've just ticked past 40 stories and we've got some exciting new updates to talk about. First: We recognized just the other day that our feed for this site was a little hard to get to. Luckily, we've put a BIG, HONKIN' LOGO linking to our feed right on our sidebar there! -->>

Click it and sign up for our feed in your favorite feed reader. If you don't have a favorite feed reader or don't want one, that's okay, too...we now deliver through email. Just click on the subscribe via email link right under the BIG, HONKIN' LOGO over there. -->>

So, what else is new? 

>Due to the popularity of our quiz from a post or so ago, we're going to start offering more quizzes...maybe on a particular day? Contact us, let us know when's a good time to be tested.

>Jimmy had a post featured in the CUES Techport newsletter! Click here to visit the CUES Techport website, or just go to the story itself by clicking here!

>Rob emerged from a posting dry-spell to give us his thoughts on the financial crisis...click here to read!

>We're STILL so excited to be bringing you advice and opinion! Speaking of advice, do you have questions you want us to answer? About anything? Let us know, we'll do our best to bring you enlightenment.

Onward and upward!

Great ideas for drunks: Google creates "Mail Goggles" for e-Mail sobriety test

from Greg Crandell

Apparently, there's a problem with e-mail that even the SPAM filter didn't see coming.

With new methods of communication come new desires to communicate whenever we can. Twitter makes for quick updates about our personal lives, Yelp makes it easy to find what you like in and around your living area, JuicyCampus lets your kids have another way to blow all that wonderful tuition money (other than Facebook, of course).

But with new communication methods come old worries. You can hang on to an angry letter after you write it - rip it up, throw it away, what have you. But when you send an e-mail, it's gone. Apparently, this happens a lot when people are drinking. So much so that Google created "Mail Goggles" - a filter that stops you from sending drunk e-mails.

You install Mail Goggles yourself, setting it for certain times you might be...well, let's just say polluted. When you e-mail at those hours, Mail Goggles asks you a series of math questions. Get them wrong and you'll have to wait until you're sober to get that idea across. Sound like a good idea? Maybe, if you happen to be a drunk web-user. According to our whippersnapper-in-chief Jimmy Marks:

I think they need to make one for cell phones. I got a call from a friend of mine at four in the morning asking me to send him a fax on my cell. We haven't spoken since. Maybe new phones should come with breathalyzers? Just thinking ahead of the curve here.

Web 2.0 Makes a Difference in Disaster

by Greg Crandell

When the Virginia Tech shooting occurred on April 16, 2007, the news was hard to follow. At least, at first. CNN responded with scant reports and hard-to-follow coverage. Numbers were varied, details were scarce. But then something happened that changed the face of news forever: the witnesses started making the news itself (click here).

Cut to today, where Web 2.0 is a crucial ingredient in a disaster preparedness package. How do you quickly reach your customer base/ employees and let them know what's happening and what they can expect?

Just Browsing: Google debuts its browser and becomes the Internet's Big Box Store.

by Greg Crandell

The year was 1998. Titanic was winning all the Oscars it could manage, Windows 98 had just come along to teach us all what a computer could REALLY do, and a little-known company called "Google" had just arrived with a funny-looking logo and a really simple site design: an image, a text-field, and two buttons.

Google went from clever idea to Internet juggernaut in a few short years. Searches were quick, easy, and surprisingly thorough. After that came things like Google news, Google sports and GMail. Everyone was thrilled, because suddenly the Internet made sense.

And then something strange happened. Google became the "big box chain" of the Web.

Why I Read Blogs --or-- There Goes Three Hours I'll Never Get Back

Rob Banker talks about the right way to read a blog.

At this very moment, I subscribe to 57 blogs. I'll explain in a bit what it means to subscribe to a blog. I will not, however, at any point attempt to explain what a blog is. First, it's called Wikipedia -- use it. Second, an attempted definitive definition of blogging would be total flame-bait. Although, that might solve the readership issue, but I'd prefer to have a reputation for accurate analysis.

So, 57 blogs. I don't know if that's a large number or not amongst the blogerati. But I clear my list of unread posts almost every day (I'm a little behind because of travel last week). Why? It goes back to the Zero Inbox-thing (token Merlin Mann reference). My blog reading list is as important to me as my email Inbox. Granted some of the content is just for fun (see www.xkcd.com), but blogs are one of my main sources of news -- either job related or the world in general.