Blog Carnival

Ladies and gentlemen, let the carnival begin. Yes, I am participating in a blog carnival with fellow classmates from my e-Communications in the 21^st Century course. I read several of my classmate’s blogs, but below I have highlighted four of my favorite blog posts.

It’s Just Facebook, Who Needs a Plan? By Jamie Richards

Jamie did an excellent job recapping why businesses today need a social media plan. Social media cannot be used blindly. Particularly, I thought the seven key elements for every social media strategy was informational. Businesses need to consider all seven elements prior to implementing social media channels into their marketing plans.

 FacebookMark Zuckerberg’s New Acquisition:Whatsapp By Oludare Samuel Pipeola

Great blog post Oludare. Oludare shares the background on Facebook swallowing up Whatsapp in February 2014. Prior to reading this blog post, I had no idea what Whatsapp was?  I thought Oludare really seemed to question Mark Zuckerberg’s credibility through his decision to acquire Whatsapp. I wonder if there are features to Whatsapp that enhance Facebook, or will enhance Facebook in the future. I can only imagine that Mark Zuckerberg was thinking big when we acquired Whatsapp. It will be interesting to watch how Whatsapp is integrated into Facebook over time.

What is Klout? By Joey Alabbassi

Joey does a great job summarizing Klout in his blog post. Klout seems to be an effective tool to measure how successful a business is in the social world, and it allows you to measure social media effectiveness. After all, if you want to get a message out on social media, I do believe you have to be influential. Klout allows you to measure how influential you really are from a 1 to 100 scale. More specifically, I really like that Klout allows you to connect and search on other influencers with similar interests. Great post Joey!

LinkedIn for Windows Phone 8 By Matt Schroeder
I was particularly interested in Matt’s blog post on the LinkedIn application for Windows Phone 8 because I also get annoyed with the LinkedIn application for the iPhone. Matt does a great job identifying annoyances of the LinkedIn application, but his ultimate conclusion is the application lacks as a valuable networking tool. It drives me crazy on the LinkedIn application for iPhone that I cannot see who views my profile, ever. Also, it displays job recommendations for all over the U.S. and I cannot figure out how to change the setting. I agree that LinkedIn needs to get busy making a better mobile application.

That’s a wrap on this blog carnival. It was fun riding with everyone. I learned a ton.   

Is social media a reputation management risk?

Recently, I walked into my director’s office to show him how to add the Twitter handle for our business onto his Twitter application within his iPhone. Before I left, reiterated how easy it is to mistakenly post tweets on the wrong Twitter handle due to the easy ability to switch between a personal and business Twitter handle. I knew it could be disastrous, but he is the boss right. Two weeks later, our business’s Twitter handle posts a strongly backed Republican political tweet supporting the government shut down. Uh-oh!  This business has about 2100 Twitter followers. Luckily, the Twitter handle is monitored pretty regularly and the posts were deleted within ten minutes of publishing.

How do we handle this PR nightmare? Was it deleted fast enough that no one saw it? The next morning a team meeting was held to discuss all of these questions. Ultimately, the company decided to post a Tweet saying an employee had accidentally tweeted on the wrong profile and the company has taken necessary steps to ensure it will not happen again.

In this instance, the company was lucky because not one follower picked up on the message. The company was safe from positioning themselves in an inappropriate political manner.

This is not always the case. Red Cross and Chrysler both have experience with tweets that were published accidentally with inappropriate content. Click below to read about these business' experience.

http://mashable.com/2011/03/09/chrysler-drops-the-f-bomb-on-twitter/

Facebook Pages Manager Phone Application - An easy app to manage business and Facebook!

In the past year couple years, Facebook rolled out a new iPhone application called Facebook Pages Manager. As a social media coordinator for a local business, this excited me. I had been trying to manage the page through the Facebook user application and it was just not as user-friendly as Facebook Pages Manager. Facebook Pages Manager allows you to view the pages you manage as an admin. Facebook Pages allows companies to write posts and publish photos right from the iPhone verse having to login to a desktop computer of some sort. In addition, page admins can view how many new likes have populated since checking the page the last time. Admins can view any private messages sent to the page and respond. Last, page admins can view all the notifications, which identify who has liked content, posted content, or shared content.

 

Facebook has done a great job at creating the Facebook Pages Manager application for businesses. In addition, it is nice to keep your personal Facebook profile separate from the Facebook Pages profiles. This reduces the risk of accidently posting on the wrong Facebook Page.

Here is a link to Facebook, which provides additional information on this application. https://www.facebook.com/help/261725130600682/

Reference

Facebook. iPhone Application. Accessed March 6, 2014. www.facebook.com

The Tweet That Saved Delta

In the E-Communications in the 21st century offered at the University of Denver, students dive into the evolving world of social media as it relates to marketing and public relations. As a student who participated in class discussions, I was able to share this fun video about how quickly a consumer's social experience can make or break a brand. This video titled, "The Tweet That Saved Delta" demonstrates how a brand can successful squash a video that could go viral quickly due to their reputation management program. Delta does a great job responding to this customers concern. Check out the video, it is funny.

Adobe Connects, what?

The University of Denver provides students and faculty access to use the online webinar tool called Adobe Connect. I am currently taking E-Communications in the 21^st Century, which required students to present twice using the Adobe Connect feature. Personally, I thought the Adobe Connect application was very user-friendly. After receiving a training sessions with DU’s IT staff, I quickly grasped how to raise my hand, share my screen, and share my PowerPoint. In addition, it was very easy to troubleshoot, check and connect audio, and understand how the mute features work.

I did experience some connectivity issues due to my wonderful Internet Service Provider, CenturyLink. However, during both of my presentations I hard wired into my Internet connection and the Adobe Connect Sessions worked fabulously.

I really like the session record feature, which was controlled by the professor. It was nice to access recorded presentation in the case I was unable to attend a student’s presentation.

I have used Go To Meeting, which is a similar application. Truly, these web sharing applications have developed very user-friendly platforms to make live presentations.

The University of Denver should allow students to access and schedule Adobe Connect sessions. It would give students who take classes online the opportunity to connect more with their fellow classmates. Overall, Adobe Connect is an excellent and user-friendly tool.

Blogging Best Practices

HELP, my blog is boring! Check out these blogging best practices to make your blog a success

According to Michael Lewis’ book, Social Media Leadership, there are over 70 million people who publish a blog in the blogosphere (Lewis 2011, 57). As a blogger, what are the best practices? Do you think all these blogs pose relevancy to their audiences? Are some boring and subpar? Let’s take a look at a few common blogging best practices, followed by examples of blogs adhering to these practices.

 

Blogging Best Practices

1. Blogs demonstrate expertise, share vision, curate market and trend information, and host dialogue (Solis 2011, 27).

2. Blog require coherency within its content and a voice readers can connect with (Solis 2011, 27).

3. Blogs should incorporate influential voices from people who hold knowledge and thought leadership surrounding the blog content (Solis 2011, 27).

4. All blogs should have an editor-in-chief to maintain the content and vision (Solis 2011, 28).

5. All blog entries should be titled with a catchy headline (Social Media Today, 2014).

References:

Lewis, Michael F. Social Media Leadership: How to Get Off the Bench and Into the Game. USA: Leigh Walker Books, 2011.

Social Media Today. “How to Blog: (Even If You Can’t Write).”Accessed March 4, 2014. http://socialmediatoday.com/hishaman/1545026/how-to-blog

Solis, Brian. Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011.

Blog Motivation

In Engage, Brian Solis purposes blogs as “your hub for demonstrating expertise, sharing vision, listening and responding to customers, communicating progress, curating relevant market and trend information and hosting dialogues to further the company’s values and principles.” Solis goes on further telling bloggers to identify the blog’s intent, cause, and audiences purpose. (Solis 2011, 27).

 My motivation for using this blog is to practice being a blogger. I do not have a ton of blog experience, so understanding and applying best practices will strengthen my social knowledge. In particular, I have not created a blog for a business, so understanding how to blog for business will be beneficial. In addition, I hope to relay to my audience that I am a social media subject matter expert through the entries. I hope to gain some additional knowledge on various blogging tools and the capabilities within them.

 Last, interacting and reading my classmate’s blogs will also further educate me on proper blog practices. In addition, I hope to become savvier on social media applications that my classmates write about in their blogs. Overall, this writing assignment should provide me the necessary tools to correctly implement a successful blog for business or personal use.