I have recently began working on a new project that takes a different spin on Social Media tools and Social Networking.  This project focuses on using Social Media tools in the work place to create a more connected organization, encouraging employees to embrace these tools and begin to share content and have conversations that may have normally occurred via email.

This area of Social Networking has not received as much attention or publicity as the side that focuses on marketing and connecting with customers and building your brand.  It is however something with great value and something I feel that every large organization should look at.

If you are able to move your employees to using Social Media tools such as internal blogs, yammer or other internal like Twitter clients as well as online document sharing tools and encourage your employees to watch for updates via an RSS Reader tool there are several benefits that can be achieved.  These benefits could be:

• Reduction in Email Traffic
• Improved Collaboration
• Faster Decision Making
• And much more

As this project progresses I will document the experience and also would love to hear input from others on your thoughts and experiences with Social Media tools in organizations for internal communication and collaboration.

-          Stefanie

Twitter is truly one of my favorite social media tools and continues to be.  I find Twitter a great resource for keeping a pulse on top information and making connections with others with common interests and goals.  Since I have been on Twitter I have had many occasions to tweet with others and connect with great people who I have been able to build friendships with as well as do business with.

This brings me to some great Twitter Infographics that I recently came across.  Here are just a couple of them:

Is Twitter a Waste of Time By ProBlogger:

The Who Why and How of Twitter by The Next Web

I would love to see your favorite infographics as well if you have any you want to share.

- Stefanie

One question I hear a lot is, “how will I know if our social media efforts are successful?”  This is a very valid question, but one that doesn’t have a straight forward answer.  The answer really depends on what your goals are for social media.

The following are some items that I would consider indicators of success with your Social Media efforts:

• Number of Visitors to your web site or blog
• Number of visitors that sign up for your mailing list or special offer
• Number of Sales Made
• You are an influencer and your tweets, posts and blog postings are shared by many others
• Engagement of your following – look at the activity on your Facebook pages and Twitter streams and other networks are you communicating with your target market

If you are a job seeker or self employed you may measure your success by one of these items:

• Getting hired by a company as a result of your Social Media efforts and connections
• An invitation to speak at an event through your Social Network
• Landing a Business deal through Social Networking
• Establishing Relationships with influential people
• Finding a Business Partner

As you can see there are many ways to measure if you are achieving Social Media Success.  I measure my success in Social Media in a variety of different ways.  The following are some of the top indicators I look at:

• Traffic to my blog
• Connections with Influencers
• How often my information is shared and or commented on
• Landing Business Deals

Social Media usage is still pretty new and as it evolves the ways that success is measured will change, right now the biggest focus should be on what are your goals and are you hitting them – if not what do you need to do different?

Have you ever wondered what chats are available on Twitter and when they are and how to participate?

I was wondering myself this evening how many new and different Twitter Chats are available and which ones that I would like to participate in and maybe should participate in.  This prompted me to do a little digging and a little googling for some lists.

The following are my finds for you to use as a resource when you are looking for a Twitter Chat to join:

• A spreadsheet of over 430 Twitter Chats
• The 12 Most Stimulating Twitter Chats
• Twitter Chat Schedule (another spreadsheet)
• Twebevent – a great resource
• 13 Twitter Chats for PR Pros
• Twitter Chats Category List
• Public Relations and Social Media Twitter Chat Schedules

If you have other lists or Twitter Chats that you would like to suggest please feel free to comment and share this information.

- Stefanie

P.S.

Once you have found your chat you can use TweetChat to follow along.

I have heard many businesses ask, “What is the best way to get my team members or employees to embrace Social Media and use it effectively and not waste time?”  This is a very valid question and one that can be addressed in a few different ways.

Once it is decided that you will begin using Social Media in your business it is important to outline the goals you hope to achieve by using Social Media and a policy around the usage.  Establishing your goals and a policy will help you when you start getting your team engaged in using Social Media.

Once you have your goals and policy it is time to share this with your team and begin to get them on board.

The first piece of getting your team on board is to explain why Social Media is important and the goals that your company hopes to achieve with it.  The team needs to understand why they are doing this and what the goals are.  Understanding the goals will help direct the Social Media activities your team engages in.

The next step after ensuring everyone understands the goals and why Social Media is important is to make sure your team is properly trained.  This training should include an over view of the Social Media tools that the company is using, how to use them and examples of both proper and improper usage.  A key element that should be included in this is also how to effectively use them without wasting time.  Often it is very helpful to have a schedule and a plan that is followed.

Ensuring that your team understands the Social Media policy is also a crucial part of your success.  The team must understand the direction the company wants to go in and the guidelines around what information can be posted and shared and where.

The last component I would suggest to help your team jump on board and use Social Media effectively is to measure the activity and results on a regular basis and share this.  Review the number of Facebook Page likes and interactions, the number of Twitter followers and interactions and also try to map this over to company growth.  If your team sees the results of their efforts they will be encouraged to keep up the work.

Those that know me know I am always on the look out for new online tools that can be used for productivity, collaboration and just plain social news.  I often find some great ones as well as some that just don’t measure up.

Here are a few that I came across recently that seem to be promising:

Post Post is one of my favorite recent finds.  It connects with your Facebook account and provides a graphical view of the items shared by friends and pages in your stream.  I only wish you could also use this tool as a page and not just your personal profile.

Bag the Web – this is a new tool that I just found and have began to play with.  It allows you to place information including posts, links and other bags into a bag for reference for yourself and others.  You can also embed your bag into a website or blog.  I created my first bag for Social Media Tools today.

Summify – I just came across this tool and it is pretty neat.  It creates a summary of your social feeds and shows you what connections shared which stories.  Like PostPost it is a good way to see what your connections are sharing.

-          Stefanie

Productivity

 
 photo credit: Johan Larsson

This has been a very busy week for me with various projects on all fronts that need to be accomplished in a short time frame – not to mention the kiddos are almost out of school for summer so we have had many additional activities there.  Due to the craziness of the week I have decided to step back and look at the top of productivity and the various ways a person can stay productive, increase productivity and manage it.

I personally think that being productive has many components of it.  A biggie is mindset – how do we stay focused when we have a lot on our plate.  Another aspect is managing tasks and sometimes this means offloading some of these tasks.  I recently started having someone come clean my house again on a regular basis and have found it a great help and time saver.  Another huge aspect of being productive are the tools and systems that we use.

In today’s technology world we have a lot of tools available to us to help with productivity.  These tools range from the old fashion pen and paper, to online tools, downloadable tools and tools on our phones.  I have a handful of tools that I use on a regular basis, however I would like to create a list of some of the tools that others use in your daily life and quest to be productive.

There are literally 1000’s of tools available out there but which ones do you like the best?

I am also asking this question on Twitter and will be posting a list of the tools that are suggested by others in the next couple of days.

To start with here are two of my favorites for managing Social Media:

Hootsuite – a great tool to manage your Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and more

Feedly –  a great RSS feed reader

Please share your comments on your favorite tools

-          Stefanie

Top Reads of the week  (Friday 5/6/2011)

 photo credit: Dominique Godbout

Every day I usually spend about 30-60 minutes reviewing my news feeds of blogs that I find useful and full of good information on either marketing, social media, connecting and sometimes just great life tips.  Using an RSS Feed Reader like Google Reader or Feedly allows me to quickly and easily manage the information I view on a regular basis.

Here are a handful of the top reads for the week that I found valuable and useful:

How to understand Daily Active Users in Facebook Insights – good quick read on some data for your Facebook Page Activity

How I Organize Google Reader for Blog Commenting – Kristi Hines did a great job with this post sharing how she uses Google Reader to organize her RSS feeds and how she is now able to comment easily on blogs, even though she is following over 500 blogs.  I use a combination of Google Reader and Feedly to manage my feeds on a daily basis.

Successful Small Businesses Know the Best Marketing Strategy.  Do you? – This is a good article on how you should be managing your daily activities for marketing and blogging and keeping time wasters at bay

Facebook Allows @ Mention Tags of Friends to be Shortened – Facebook now allows you to tag others with just using their names in your post instead of the @ Mention method.  This post does a good job of covering this change

Time Management Secrets Every Entrepreneur Should know – Dr Mani shared a great post on time management secrets

3 Sites to Get Free News Related  Images – finding images for your blogs posts can sometimes be challenging – especially since you want to be sure to use an image you have the rights to use.  This is a great post with 3 sites that offer some options.

There were several great posts and pieces of information I read this week, however these are just a handful that I wanted to share with you today.

Have a wonderful week-end

Stefanie

Blogging is a great tool to use in your Social Media mix, but it can often be hard to get started and sometimes you will experience times when you just can’t seem to figure out what  information to share or what topic to blog about it – I have been there.

Today, I came across a great post that I wanted to share with you though on Blogging and a recap of what Tony Hastings, the man behind the Top 10 Blog shared on his first year of blogging. I thought it was a great post and shared some really good information on blogging and some things you should think about as you blog.

Please take a minute and read the article over here @Spin Sucks

- Stefanie

Twitter is truly one of my favorite social networking platforms and tools to use.  I have found it is quick and easy to use and a great way to learn from others, share and connect.  I have also found that there are several tools available that can be used with Twitter.

The tools that work with Twitter seem to be increasing on a steady rate as well.  There are tools for business, fun, tracking, to make twitter do more, tools to manage your followers and your tweets and much more.

I started to put together a list of all of the Twitter tools available the other day and in doing this I found a great mind map already completed that broke down the Twitter tools available.  I will be putting this list together still, however this is a great starting point:

If you have tools that you love and don’t see them on this list I would love to hear from you.