The first one was : “How to build your business network with social media” and as promised, we compiled all the relevant info below:

• Full recording of the webinar
• The slides
• The conversation thread under the Twitter tag #sm4biz
• Some questions…

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The slides are already available on our Slideshare account!

My Power Point slides also contributed to the Twitter conversation
Have a look at what was said during the webinar by clicking on the image below:

Thanks very much to everyone that helped us spread the word in the different social networks.
We’re looking forward to have you on our next free monthly webinar:  “Social Media for Sales & Marketing Departments“.

Got questions or comments? Add them to the thread below!

Facebook copying Twitter

Back in March of this year, Facebook’s redesign offered a new experience… but wait a minute, didn’t that look like Twitter? Yes, so what? Even though that was immediately rejected by 94% of the users, Facebook felt it was the right decision and kept it. Soon, millions of users would get less passionate and forget about this “new design experience” and carry on enjoying the platform. From March ’09 to present, Facebook welcomed close to 100 million new and active users… looks like the Twitter thing worked out…

Facebook have also brought more Twitter stuff to the table: the “@mentions” that now appear as anchor text on the status updates. Great move. I wonder when will Twitter start adding some Facebook spice as “Like” on tweets for example. Blogs have adopted that in comments already. (Twitter and Facebook! what about a “Dislike” button?? Maybe too negative? Over to you…)

LinkedIn copying Twitter

First, they came up with status updates . Then, they made the most obvious change (and a great one I must say) that was including avatars! Recently they implemented the feature “follow” for LinkedIn groups (you can also follow people that you’re not necessarily connected with).
The most obvious one is the integration announced last week (An official partnership) about status updates from Twitter to LinkedIn and vice versa.  Furthermore, a Twitter client functionality (right from your LinkedIn homepage) was just added.

Orkut copying Twitter and Facebook

On October 30th, Orkut (Now owned by Google) relaunched with features very similar to their cousins Facebook and Twitter… Don’t even need to say more. Have a look…

The question is: Will a new trend setter appear or we’ll keep seeing this kind of predictable changes? Would Bebo, My Space and other sites need to integrate with their brothers or launch the same features to retain users or simply to survive?

Come on, tell us… What’s next?

Best,

Fred

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I have made this quick video to share with all of you three new ways to use Tweetdeck wisely Would love to hear your comments and hopefully you can share with us other your strategies as well! Looking forward to that…

The video below will show you:

1. How to filter content from your followers’ column
2. How to find out what’s most popular from your stream of tweets
3. How to use Tweetdeck’s directory

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Best,

Fred

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Mike Roche, Chief Architect, IBM

“Social Networking in the Workplace – The IBM Experience”

Aengus McClean, Vice President, AOL Technologies

“Social Media as a profitable Business Tool”

Rick Kelley, Head of European SMB Sales, Facebook

“Acquiring new customers & engaging existing customers through social media”

Ronan Harris, Director Online Sales & Operations, Google

“Increase revenue & generate business intelligence using Google Tools”

Richard Develan, Managing Director, McConnells Digital.

“Coping with constant change”

A few people including us were tweeting LIVE during the event with the hashtag #profittools, so you can check out all the comments HERE.

It was a good event in general, more suitable for those making their first steps into the digital arena. I have to say though, lately, these events with big names, are not covering the basic questions that 90% of the SMEs have.
For example:  “How much will it cost me? How do I go about it?”

To Channelship, it was a perfect opportunity to see who was interested in the subject and listen to their feedback and queries about social media. Watch below the questions from Cathy McGennis (SPSS), Evelyn Fitzpatrick (Financial advisor) and Lynda McCracken (Innovation Employment). I’ll try to answer them below:

“What’s your main concern about social media?”

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1. “Quality control of the message and bad language”: One of the first acknowledgements we need to make in social media is that we will lose control of the message.
   People make comments, recommend services or say good or bad things about a brand online, exactly the same way it happens offline.
   Now, what happens if someone says something negative about my company and uses bad language? First of all, it’s OK. Social media gives you an equal opportunity to join that conversation (imagine before, you would’ve never heard of that complaint, right?) an get a customer for life. Also, when you engage, ask and answer questions as a business, you’ll keep your audience always interested in your message (Hosting company, Blacknight are a good example of this).
   Also, as Rick Kelley from Facebook highlighted: “Sometimes, your fans come in your defence with good feedback and stories about your product or service“. I bet many people never thought of that
   When it comes to blogging for instance, you control the comments to be published. So, if someone used bad language or made an inappropriate comment you may simply not “approve” it. Ideally you will want to publish all of them, including those of people disagreeing with your company or post. It will make your company more transparent.
2. “What happens with the personal information you put out there?” Years ago, the Internet was simply another spot, full of data made simpler to find by search engines. Nowadays, all this data became “sociable” and thousands of social networking platforms contribute to deliver tones of conversations and comments to the Internet everyday. This means that we need to think about our message before we “put it out there“. As a business, I would even recommend that you plan for this.
   In each one of the social networking platforms, you will find “the button” that lets you edit or remove a comment immediately. The problem is when some time has passed and you can’t go back to change it.
3. “How much time will it take me?” Well, this question was answered by Richard from McConnells Digital and he suggested “to invest 5 to 10 hours a week”. I would agree with Beth Kanter that those hours should be used just for LISTENING. I believe that what’s critical here is that when we answer this question, we are all on the same page: You are NOT advertising in social media, you’re trying to build a relevant community around your brand and strong, long term relationships (as anything good in life, it cannot be built overnight).
   Most SMEs, literally think that by engaging in social media, they would have to drop everything else and, obviously that can’t happen.
   My advise: Engaging in social media and creating that community does not differ much from the concept of building your community through traditional face-to-face networking. The main differences with social networking are that you can get to know a lot more people, even from other geographical regions, stay in touch, learn more about them, etc. In other words, take the traditional networking concept and multiply it by 1000
   In order to do that well, get advise from someone that are using social media, go to a workshop or simply try it yourself and see how you get on. Then, you DO NOT need to go with every single tool, simply pick one or two and learn from those that are using them already.
   When you plan your day/week, simply plan to use the platforms chosen during the periods that you will be in front of your computer ONE STEP AT A TIME. The more value you find every day, the simpler it’ll become to use these tools and the better you will be at judging the time you need to invest.
   I feel that if you explain the “time investment” like these terms, everybody will take their own time and approach, instead of starting by having in mind that it’s “X” amount of hours… That’s a turn-off, especially for those that haven’t made a move yet.

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Have a look at the pics from te event here or at our Facebook page!

Best,

Fred

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I went yesterday to the Simply Zesty Summer Camp about social media. Nice day with great discussions and speakers. All presentations should be available soon.

Philip Macartney, Sales director at Bebo Ireland kicked off. The presentation included a few good examples including the famous “Pat the Baker“, yearbookyourself.com and the Fanta competition.
When I asked Philip about Facebook’s non-stop growth and how would Bebo overcome that, he mentioned that they are working on a few modifications that will enrich the interaction and engaging experience. Looking forward to that. See Philip in action below…

Nial Harbison from Lookandtaste.com was next. He shared some interesting slides about the simplicity of online video and how easy is to get started without any fancy equipment at all.
I liked that as an example, he used probably the most unusual type of person/business to go on social media: “a butcher”. I believe that more down-to-earth approches like that, will surely help several companies understand in plain English, how to finally benefit from social media. See Niall in action below…

Alastair McDermott from Websitedoctor.com was up next. He covered Search Engine Optimisation and also discussed social media.
There were a few good tips about on-site/off-site optimisation for the audience but what I liked the most was Alastair’s opening…Have a look below:

Next was Conall McDevitt from PR company: Webber Shandwick, with a very interesting presentation. He covered some angles about reputation, igniting conversations, good examples of Advocates (great one-to-one live discussion with Darragh Doyle at the end) and the importance of relevant communities about topics that would have never reached a significant audience before. People interested in bikes, stamps, knitting… They now have a voice. As Conall said several times: “they’re out there”.
I also found very interesting the shift from broad to “narrowcasting” (the importance of creating a relevant community) and finally two slides where he explained what exactly changed in the process of a PR firm in order to approach social media. See Conall in action below…

Finally, a great panel of Internet/social media specialists (Darragh Doyle from Boards.ie, Technology consultant, Jason Roe and Marie Boran, journalist at Siliconrepublic.com) shared interesting thoughts and answer interesting questions from the audience. For example:

1. How to approach a blogger
2. Where is traditional media going?
3. The importance of having your own voice and answering questions as companies as opposed to not listening/engaging.
4. What NOT to do in Boards.ie. (Darragh had some really funny examples)

The evening finished with informal networking and a  lovely BBQ.
I had a chance to talk to Ernie from Findahotel.ie and Denise from a children’s charity, that shared their recent experiences with Facebook pages.

FYI: there’s already a hot conversation going on over at Simply Zesty’s blog. Don’t miss it

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Best,

Fred

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While tweeting yesterday I came to know about the huge problem that the Eircom DNS outage is causing. I did a bit of research and spoke to some other people on Twitter and came to the conclusion that I had to put this video together to share some points with all of you, especially business owners.

The following video will show:

• The Eircom problem officially posted
• What are people in Ireland saying about it?
• Are Eircom using Twitter or more importantly “listening”?
• What is the competition doing?
• Final message: “don’t let this happen to you”

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UPDATE:  In January, 2010, Eircom finally joined Twitter for its broadband divission. You can chat with them @eircomconnect

Did you like the post? don’t be shy, make a comment below and share it!

Best,

Fred

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Last Wednesday we finished the last pilot for Up & Connected: Social Media Training for Irish Companies.
We received great feedback and questions about leveraging the different social networking tools available to enhance business opportunities in today’s marketplace.

I’ve worked on three short videos based on some of the main questions:

• Facebook for busisness: How to remove photo tags and how to set up a Facebook ad.
• Linkedin: Is there an “insights” feature available?
• Twitter alerts: How to set up an alert with “Twilert” to track specific keywords/keyphrases.

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Best,

Fred

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Thousands of business owners attend networking events in Ireland. The average is once every 30 days. At that pace, is it possible to remember people’s names, companies and what they do? Also, how long does it take them to know me? What are my chances of being seen as the expert in my field in a very short period of time?
We raised these and more constraints relevant to offline business networking and tried to overcome every single one by explaining the core networking benefits of Twitter and LinkedIn. We also provided actionable advise for companies to put the tips into practice immediately.

Final thoughts on the challenges:

NOTE: Remember, networking in not about SELLING. You don’t want to be the guy on the second slide

When you walk into a networking room, you wonder: Who are these people?
By being active on Twitter and by checking every person’s profile on Linkedin before an event, not only you’ll be optimising your efforts but you will know who is in the room, their contacts and you will be making a connection with many people before you arrive!

How do I position myself as an expert?
Engaging in conversation via Twitter and providing value in your posts is one of the best ways to show immediately your expertise. Also, by having a strong profile on Linkedin, participating in Groups and in Linkedin Answers your chances are even better

How much do I remember from people I met?
Again, share good value in your interactions while using Twitter and naturally, that name, company and expertise will be in front of you every time. The same occurs when you follow other people’s Linkedin updates. Because you see “what’s happening every day”, it’s much easier to remember everything. With the exact same mechanism, also people will get to know you faster.

Check out below the full presentation in Slideshare and a quick testimonial from Kevin O’Brien at Accounting Partners.

Thanks very much everybody for all your kind comments and support.

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We are very glad that you found our presentation helpful.
If you haven’t made a comment yet, don’t be shy and sare your feedback with us below!

Best,

Fred

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Regarding this second point, I found it great to see how people react by immediately tweeting about the problem or even compiling lists of disturbers with collaboration tools.
We can now definitely see the buzz migrating to the online world and unfortunately some hoaxes associated to it.

This, together with some views questionable views about Low trust in corporate blogging tell us that 2009 (and the foreseable future) is going to be about VALUE.

As users and customers get savvy and fond of online DIY , they want to be given tools to create their own online experiences: it is all now about transparency, meeting expectations and commitment. People are eager to connect and share, but also want to be in control. The way I see it, this will only grow and (going forward), succesful companies will only be those building real value with its customers by continuously meeting their online needs.

All the best for 2009!