Building Your Social Plan

Building Your Social Plan

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Social Media Resources

This week I will be presenting at SoMeBizLife, a social media conference in Doylestown, PA packed with an amazing agenda of speakers (I am both honored and humbled to be among them). One of the assets I promised in my session description is a list of resources that would help those new to the field to weed through the myriad sites offering advice and guidance. This list represents the best of what I have read but is by no means meant to suggest that there are not others that would be valuable to you (or me) out there. I am posting a link to my list (created as a Google Reader bundle) here for easy access and I encourage you to add to this list any that you find helpful.

A Cautionary Tale: New York & Co. Oops on Facebook

I noticed this post from New York & Co.  in my News Feed on Facebook today. I did not catch the original post which has now been removed, but this is a decent recovery. It doesn’t quite approach the Red Cross #gttngslzzerd faux pas, but it’s a good reminder of how careful we need to be when administering pages on Social Media platforms. It appears their fans were fairly understanding and I applaud the honesty with which they approached their response.

What other Social Media “oops” have you seen and how did the companies involve recover from them? I’d love to see your thoughts.

Location, location…update

I just came across this great article on FourSquare v. Facebook Places from Social Media Examiner. It’s worth a read if you’re interested in location-based services and the marketing opportunities they offer.

Location, location, location…My SCVNGR Experiment

A few weeks ago, I asserted that I was testing out SCVNGR (and Quora, which I will get back to at some point) and would write about it. To that end, I thought I’d put out a few words on the subject.

After installing SCVNGR app on my Droid X, I must admit I found the interface to be fun and engaging. I liked the concept of being able to “bump” phones to check in with a friend and suckered a few friends into trying the app with me. The app was easy to use and if I was not already completely entrenched in Foursquare, I might have stuck with it. The concept of allowing users to create their own challenges is a nice spin and they do a much better job than Foursquare of enticing users to submit photographs. From a brand marketing standpoint, there is wonderful potential there to leverage the dynamics of the “game” to support business objectives and cultivate return visits.

Note, in the meantime I’ve also been testing Whrrl and I must say that my realization that Foursquare’s early mover advantage has me hooked, I was unimpressed with the interface and game dynamics. If I had to choose a location-based app to play with in a world without Foursquare, SCVNGR would have my heart. Maybe I just don’t understand the “societies” thing… and yes, I am aware of the link with USA Weekend. I still don’t get it.

What other location-based apps have you used / liked? I know there are plenty more than I haven’t even bothered to mention. Could you change my mind on SCVNGR or Whrrl? I’d love to hear from you!

Delivering Happiness

Why I love Google Reader and RSS

I’m doing some research on the benefits of social sign-on (more commonly known as Facebook Connect, though there are many other social media outlets that support this functionality). But that’s not what this post is about. This post is about where I’m finding gold (a.k.a. information) most reliably as I research ways to expand and make more efficient the social media activities for my employer. Time and time again I find that having set up every blog I find meaningful into an RSS feed in my Google Reader was, and continues to be, worth the tiny bit of effort it takes to add each feed. I don’t read them all the time, though I do read more now that I have my handy dandy Android App, but lately I have been using my search feature within Google Reader and inevitably find articles, blog posts and other snippets of information that support my research efforts far better than other sources.

By way of example, here are my efforts on social sign-on. I tried asking for help on Twitter and other than two generous re-tweets courtesy of Gloria Bell who has a far greater audience than I on her own handle and on SMCPhilly (thank you very much for your help, Gloria!) I got no answers:

I’ve used Quora thinking that by categorizing the question well I would at least get some traction, or by following others’ questions I could get some leverage there. I’ve followed every topic I can think of where answers to this type of question might appear all to no avail.

Question asked

Questions followed:

Topics Followed

Community Management, Social Networks, Social Sign In, Facebook, Facebook Connect, Social Networks, Online Community, Viral Growth & Analytics, Digital Strategy, Social Media Marketing and many more.

So, having failed at these two channels I turned to my tried and true Google Reader list and ran a search. Check out my results – and several of these have been absolutely useful.

 

If you’re interested, here is my Social Media bundle on Google Reader – I have spent a couple of years curating this list so I hope you find it useful. If you have other feeds to recommend, please comment and let me know.

And while we’re at it, if you have any case studies on social sign-on, Facebook connect or anything that seems relevant, please do let me know!