Twitter

With some creativity, your business could capitalize off of social networking away from the Internet.

Best Mobile Contracts’ recent article, “New Microsoft Social Networking Phone: The Kin,” detailed how the computing giant’s phone competes with the iPhone, but its interesting twists can apply to non-tech businesses too. Microsoft not only built a phone, but angled its features to focus on younger users and making social networking easier with its applications. Social networking is becoming a booming business that doesn’t have to be limited to Facebook updates and Tweets. Attorneys are boning up on social media legalities, marketers are honing their social skills and, obviously, tech companies are adjusting.

The SSN Take: Social media is sprawling into offline sources and it could be a time for your business to capitalize.

Patrick Roland, April 29, 2010

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Online innovators, Bing, is slowly taking shots at Google, one Tweet at a time.

A recent CNET News article, “Bing Rolls Out Real-Time Twitter Feed,” showed yet another way this upstart search engine is making big strides and providing inspiration. Recent reports show Bing slowly taking away users from Google and its Social Search function is one reason why. Social Search takes the most interesting and timely Tweets of the moment and lists them for users to view. While other search engines are grasping at straws to catch up to Google, Bing uses social media to its advantage and offers solid search options with unique social media additions. Businesses from all walks could learn a few things here.

The SSN Take: Stretch your creativity and use social media to your business’ advantage and there is no giant too big to kill.

Patrick Roland, April 25, 2010

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At the University of Liecester, Senior Lecturer Dr. Alan Cann uses social media to provide a forum for “discussion and feedback” from his students.

“Social networking utilised by academic to improve student satisfaction” discusses the positive response his students have given to the system, powered by the social aggregator site FriendFeed. Because FriendFeed allows a personalized homepage, it can act as a virtual portfolio, “storing all of their posts, forming reflection on what they are doing and explanations of what they do not understand.” Cann adds that it differs from the interaction that the students have on Facebook – the students are extremely social but “very professional.”

Even microblogging social sites have their place in academia. Chris Kobayashi, an English teacher at the University of Northern Colorado, decided to fully integrate Twitter into this curriculum by having his students tweet their progress on an upcoming research paper. “Social media sites like Twitter are finding new fans in academia” describes an entire class run through Twitter, with Kobayashi having students respond his Twitter questions via the site. When his e-mail account crashed one day, he used Twitter to communicate with the students.

Much like Facebook and Twitter’s use in the marketing world, the social media platform allows for a dialogue between a source of information (in this case, a teacher or lesson plan) and a group of users (students). This open discussion can now be fostered outside of the classroom in a medium that many college students are already quite familiar with.

Dr. Cann, using the ‘feed forward’ model, is making academics more accessible and allowing students to give easy and direct feedback through social networks. Kobayashi, too is harnessing the power of real-time interaction. Will we see a revolution in how changes, both academic and administrative, come about? Through social media it is quite possible.

The SSN Take: Integrating a social platform can go beyond the marketing and business realm.

Samuel Hartman, April 23, 2010

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Sure, social media marketing doesn’t cost as much as a minute of Super Bowl advertising, but marketers appear to be vastly underestimating its expense.

Econstituency vice president Rebecca Lieb says 32 percent of marketers who responded to the e-commerce advisory firm’s recent survey said they spend nothing on social media, according to “Live from SES NY: Marketers Claim Social Media Doesn’t Cost a Dime” by Tim Parry on Multichannel Merchant. Lieb theorizes that respondents consider dollar figures to equal the amount of money spent, and are not accounting for resources such as the manpower that go into having a social media presence.

And they are using social media. More than four-fifths – or 86 percent – report marketing on Facebook, while 77 percent are tweeting and 58 percent are using LinkedIn, says Leib.

The SSN take: Either the accounting departments have not caught up with the marketers, or someone is really trying to make social media use look cost efficient. Neither is good business.

John Sniffen, April 22, 2010

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Like living organisms adapting to their environment, news, marketing and other websites are evolving from their original forms.

For instance, David Kaplan in “HuffPo Launches Separate ‘Twitter Edition’; More Focus on Real-Time News” on paidContent.org, says that the new edition’s main purpose is “to harness the social networking aspects of the site to create a real-time news service” for each of website’s sections. It will be “an entirely separate edition” but “with the same kind of content we always have provided—but super-charged, if you will, for Twitter users,” he quotes HuffPo chairman Ken Lerer.

The tweets won’t just come from HuffPo regulars, says CEO Eric Hippeau. “This is our way of doing breaking news, using real-time Twitter feeds of people that we have followed, people who have a certain authority on the news we cover. … We’re one part social network, one part news content site. So for us, the question has always been how to use Facebook, Twitter and other social networking tools and our content and integrate it with our advertisers.” Yes, they will seek to raise money from the Twitter edition, but they were not ready to say how or when.

The SSN take: Most websites are becoming amalgams of social media and other communication tools on the Internet.

John Sniffen, April 21, 2010

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If your business deals with entertainment, Twitter could be a goose laying golden eggs.

A recent ThoughtPick article, “InfoPorn: Twitter by the Numbers” regurgitated a lot of commonly known data about Twitter, but tossed in one surprising nugget about where Tweeters disappear to. The bulk of the information focused on how Twitter boasts having millions of users, but about 80% of accounts are dormant. It’s no secret a small concentration of users do most of theTweeting. While this didn’t raise any eyebrows, a graphic about sites users visit from Twitter links was shocking. According to a study by Hitwise, over 30% of users went directly to entertainment sites—more than any other destination, including other social media.

The SSN take: If you have a business dealing in entertainment, consider Twitter a holding pen for future customers.

Patrick Roland, April 19, 2010

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“Twitter Buys Tweetie iPhone Client” confirms it – Twitter will be launching an official app for the iPhone, and it will be free.

But the Twitter team’s app isn’t brand new; they acquired Tweetie, a Twitter-branded mobile client that won a 2009 Apple Design Award. A BlackBerry app is on the way as well. Named “Twitter for iPhone,” the app will be optimized by Tweetie’s developer LorieBritcher. Not everyone is happy though – once the change happens, all other Twitter-capable apps will be “implicity labeled as second-class citizens,” possibly affecting Twitter’s success given the multitude of Twitter-capable mobile interfaces. But Twitter wants to avoid the “confusion” users experience when searching for a way to tweet on the go, and who can blame them? The microblogging site still has room for growth, and needs to dominate in the mobile market.

The SSN Take: Twitter’s open-source, friendly persona may be on the line with an official iPhone app.

Samuel Hartman, April 18, 2010

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Several new tools give you a bird’s eye view of social media and allow you to see what people think.

A recent 10,000 Words article, “10 Ways to Track What People are Saying About You on Twitter” provides some excellent tools for honing your social media marketing plan. Each of the 10 ways involve a website that allows you to search Twitter for specific words, ideally your name or your business’ name. Some, like Social Mention, are more in depth and say whether reaction is positive or negative. These sites should take up an important space in your social media toolbox, because it allows you to see what strategies receive positive reviews, which ones get negative reviews and which ones simply fall flat on their faces.

The SSN Take: Utilize new Twitter tracking technology to strengthen your message.

Patrick Roland, April 18, 2010

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Communiscpace CEO Diane Hessan has some advice about using social media and the common element is this: use your head.

In “Lessons From Leno and Twitter Bombers: 3 Rules for Next-Gen Marketing,” Austin Carr writes in FastCompany about Hessan’s recent presentation at the Advertising Research Foundation’s (ARF) 2010 Re: Think Conference in New York. Hessan presented eight rules for next-gen marketing research based on feedback from over 200 consumer-insight professionals. Carr focused on three of them: 1) manage social media jitters; 2) game-changing insights don’t usually come from testing; and 3) don’t underestimate the power of one.

Regarding responding to social media, Hessan prescribes a balance between reaction and overreaction. “We need to listen hard to consumers, for sure, but if your target consumers are not on Twitter, for instance, then you don’t necessarily need to change strategy because of an angry tweet or two.” Hessan said that research doesn’t always translate into success. Game-changing insight may instead come from ongoing discovery, which she views as a necessary part of marketing. And Hessan said “the big breakthroughs often happen away from the spotlight. … The one lone voice in the background” may have the best insight.

The SSN take: Rules can be good guidelines, but in the end you still need to think.

John Sniffen, April 17, 2010

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When it comes to using social media for recruiting, Deloitte—which provides auditing, consulting, financial advisory, risk management, and tax services through independent firms worldwide—deploys a full-court press.

“Deloitte is taking a multifaceted digital approach to recruiting by using a blend of social networking resources and multimedia elements. A versatile introduction to their company is available at the click of a button,” reports the T+D Blog in “Deloitte: The Future of Recruiting is Social Media.” Deloitte’s program integrates several interactive media outlets, including a micro-site, a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, a LinkedIn group and a YouTube channel.

The micro-site provides an in-depth look into the lives of the firm’s Gen Y workers through a series of profiles and short films. The Twitter feed, “Life at Deloitte,”features daily tweets designed to provide insight into the company’s different practice areas and the latest hot topics from a variety of business leaders. The “Your Future at Deloitte (U.S.)” Facebook page also has interactive message boards where potential job candidates can join the discussion. A campus-focused LinkedIn group helps connect college students with employees and recruiters.

Deloitte’s YouTube channel, “Your Future at Deloitte,” features video testimonies from employees about why they chose the company and what the work means to them.

Deloitte, which has about 169,000 employees worldwide, estimates it will hire about 4,800 full- and part-time employees during 2010.

Sodexo USA, the global food and facilities management services provider which was recently awarded ERE’s 2010 excellence in recruiting award, also makes use of a full social media arsenal. “Sodexo’s social media initiative is on the leading edge of best practices,” writes John Sullivan in “Best Practices in Recruiting” on ERE.net. “Its web presence effectively communicates Sodexo’s company culture, and opportunities across a Careers blog, Facebook page, LinkedIn group, YouTube channel, Twitter and Flickr.” The Society for New Communications Research has recognized Sodexo for its pioneering work in microblogging.

Employing a more one-dimensional social media recruiting campaign, Sears Holding Corp., recently posted 7,000 positions with TweetMyJOBS, a Twitter-based job board service. Writing for ReadWriteWeb , Sarah Perez says TweetMyJOBS president and founder Gary Zukowski claims the partnership makes Sears, which also includes the Kmart chain, one of the largest brands to embrace mobile recruiting. The service lets job seekers receive instant notification on their cell phones via Twitter when new jobs are posted online.

The partnership has a large potential to grow as Sears posted more than 500,000 job openings last year via traditional recruiting channels.

Another social media recruiting partnership features CareerBuilder.com and Facebook.

In “It’s time to update your Facebook status—recruitment strategies move toward social media in 2010” on examiner.com, Megan Munch notes that job postings from CareerBuilder now also post directly to Facebook. “The best matched candidates will be able to see the company’s job advertisement on the side of their Facebook page.”

Careerbuilder and Facebook also cooperate in helping the more than 700,000 local companies that have Facebook pages improve their image. CareerBuilder consultants work with clients, checking their Facebook pages weekly—blogging, posting updates, new hires and accomplishments—as well as monitoring site activity.

Munch offers one bit of advice to potential job seekers using social media, especially those fresh out of college. “I would advise taking down [photo] albums titled ‘The Hangover Album.’ Inappropriate behavior can and will affect job and internship opportunities.”

John Sniffen, April 14, 2010

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