Latest Social Media News

Google's trend chart shows what we sense. Gamification is HOT and getting hotter.

 

Via Martin (Marty) Smith

This piece is from Fastcompany it's from The World Vision Activism Network. (October 2012) I selected it because there are some great takeaways whether you have a community or are starting one from scratch.

 

Intro:

 

When you build a brand, one of the most important measures of success is the actual engagement and connection of your loyal customers, followers, supporters, partners, fans and friends--your community.

 

The digital age and 24/7 connectivity, social platforms are forcing companies to find new and compelling ways to keep up with daily communication and connection with the people who matter the most

Here are a few highlights:

Create a long-term relationship

 

**You must understand your audience's interessts

 

**Use the most popular form of communication

 

**You have to be available and ready to interact to keep them actively engaged.

 

. Listen to people

 

**Pay attention to where and how your key people want to communicate, what they want to talk about and what they actualy do.

 

**Build the community they demand - use posters, art, videos and whatever connects with your audience on a digital platform that is eaily accessed & shred through a space where your audience is already spending time

 

Create it & Continually Influence Your Audience

 

**You must be an active participant on a regular basis

]

**By continually sharing, creating, leading and converse with the people you want to influence to establish a long-lasting relationship.

 

**By staying actively engaged, you will become easy to relate to and your audience will learn more about you, creating a closer relationship

 

Selected by Jan Gordon covering, "Curation, Social Business & Beyond"

 

Read article here: [http://bit.ly/TEKl4n]

Via janlgordon

This piece and infographic is from Adam Vincenzini on his blog.

 

I selected this article because it's another way for you to find key influencers and these tools will help to narrow your search

 

Here are some highlights:

 

Instead of focusing on the subjectivity of this process (and how this insight is deployed) Here's how you can use a combination of free tools to narrow your search.

 

Where do online influencers operate?

**They are active everywhere:

 

     Most popular are:

     blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Online

     communities, discussion boards

 

Assumptions:

 

**Influencers are active on Twitter

**Influencers operate some for of blogging hub

 

Focus on the intelligence you can glean from Twitter initially then verify this initial sweep with blog (or relevant hub) data

 

The initial steps involve:

 

1. Search by keyword

2. Search by location

 

3 tools useful in the process: The first two you can also search by location:

 

**followerwonk.com - then run this through another influencer tool -   

     tweetlevel to give it even more relevance (this isn't fool proof)

**locafollow.com

**twingulate.com

 

There are more suggestions in this piece having said that:

 

**No matter how hard we try, a 100% fool proof influence rating is near on impossible because influence is not a science, it can't be.

 

** this can help narrow things down, significantly

 

Selected by Jan Gordon covering "Content Curation, Social Business and Beyond"

 

Read full article here: [http://tinyurl.com/7humubp]

Via janlgordon, Brian Yanish - MarketingHits.com

I selected this piece was written by Chris Sietsema for convinceandconvert blog because the post plus the infographic lays out a very clear and concise plan to create your content marketing strategy.

 

**Whether you're creating or curating content, this is something I think is very useful. This is why I rescooped this from my content marketing, social media and beyond  topic.

 

Here are a few highlights from the article:

 

He compares selecting and producing content to what he calls "bricks" and "feathers".

 

Bricks are referred to as research reports

 

**are larger content productions such as research reports, events, white papers        .

    video series, mobile apps, etc

 

**have the potential to make a larger splash when executed and promoted correctly.

 

Feathers are comprised of simple text and photo content published via popular social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, etc.

 

**Less intensive than bricks from a production budget standpoint, feathers are created consistently to maintain an ongoing stream of communication between a brand and its audience.

 

The infographic shows you how to discern what content to use and illustrates the how, what, why and when to use it.

 

Curated by Jan Gordon covering, "Content Marketing, Social Media and Beyond"

 

Read article and see infographic here: [http://bit.ly/A6NhFb]

Via janlgordon, ABroaderView, roberto toppi