Enterprise Social Media

LinkedIn started in May 2003 and I joined shortly thereafter (member number 8893). I made the mistake of clicking the wrong link and sent a LinkedIn invite to the 3,000 people in my address book. I ended up apologizing a bunch, but not only got back into touch with many of them, a decent amount also joined.

Congrats to LinkedIn for now having 225 million members worldwide!

A great article by Jeff Bullas that feeds right into our Infinite Pipeline strategy (free chapter: http://bit.ly/InfPipeCh1)

Via @MaxOz

This is good, basic advice about optimizing your social media profiles. For more on this subject, see our book: The Infinite Pipeline: How to Master Social Media for B2B Sales Success - Sales Person Edition   http://bit.ly/InfPipeCh1 Click the link for a free chapter.

Via @martinjonesaz

Local Twin Cities brewer activates its brand advocates (and some competitors) to opposed a proposed tax increase on beer. Well done!

The research shows some correlation between negative tweets and higher of negative tweets. But a high volume of positive tweets on a controversial subject also attracted negative tweets. So what's the deal?

"The right influencer retweeting content can have an extremely profound effect on total shares.

'Once the sharing begins, the network effect takes over,'  says Kelly Lux, a social media strategist at Syracuse University's iSchool. 'In other words, the more times something is shared, the more times it is likely to be shared again.'"

Via @solution416

It's true that "Death of all other media" articles are mostly wishful thinking. This article makes the point that content is the key, no matter what medium. But most people haven't figured out what kind of content to use effectively on social media.

Well, we've got a clue in our post Social Media is Not Advertising. Duh! http://bit.ly/URVIVQ

Via @MrCollaborative

LinkedIn's new algorithm-based feature, “People You May Want to Hire,” sounds like the kind of magic recruiters will love. Of course, it costs . . . .

If you're like me, you're bewildered by the tremendous number of tools out there to help you manage social media. Social Media Examiner rounds up five good ones:

#1: Sprout Social Helps You Engage Followers and Respond in Real Time

#2: MarketMeSuite Provides an Easy-to-Use Dashboard That Works Like Email

#3: Sendible Provides Brand Monitoring and Sentiment Analysis for Businesses

#4: Socialbakers Provides Large Amounts of Data in a User-Friendly Interface

#5: Crowdbooster Does Much of the Thinking for You

I used Crowdbooster while it was still free, but did not feel it provided enough value to actually pay for it. I do pay for Buffer, which I like because it plugs right in to the Twitter Website, making it easy to schedule Twiter, LinkedIn and Facebook posts.

Via @MrCollaborative

Six degrees of separation no longer brings home the Bacon quickly enough. We're all just 12 hours from being found by network searches by random people, according to a recent competition. 

Alex Rutherford at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi and a few pals have measured how quickly it is possible to track down random individuals around the world using a competition called the Tag Challenge, in which the goal was to find five individuals in five different cities in North America and Europe. The only clue was a mug shot of the individual, the name of the city he or she was in, and the fact that he or she would be wearing a T-shirt with the logo of the event.

Three of the five were found in 12 hours. Wow. 

Via @thedatabank

These seem like basic points, but make sure your content creators are familiar with them:

Writing For The Wrong Audience

Poorly Crafted Headlines

Focusing On Quantity Over Quality

Not Optimising Your Content  for Search Engines

Syndicating The Same Content Everywhere

I love this article. It has good recommendations for adding social to your support function. We wrote about this in our 2011 post, CIOs: The Social Call Center  http://bit.ly/W1BHPP

I've been waiting for this shoe to drop . . ..

Via @TheSocialLights

We agree with the approach in this article - don't be salesy; address the pain. However, the example the author uses is way too long. We talk a lot about effective sales messaging in our book: The Infinite Pipeline: How to Master Social Media for B2B Sales Success - Sales Person Edition   http://bit.ly/InfPipeCh1 Click the link for a free chapter.

Via @michaelgass

Much of the advice in this excellent article boils down to our mantra: Be a Person http://bit.ly/OrderBeAPerson

Via @MrCollaborative

This is the last post of a really good series on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It examines the Panda and Penguin updates to Google and Google Authorship.

Via @socialnotz

HubSpot found that inbound marketing is increasingly popular. Their findings include:

1) Inbound marketing is being taken seriously by the industry, and it’s gaining traction.

2) Inbound delivers on ROI promises, providing more and cheaper leads.

3) While inbound is on the rise, traditional marketing is fading.

4) There’s opportunity to better define, measure, and track marketing activities.

5) Establishing an agreement with Sales is as important -- possibly more so -- as simply measuring the effectiveness of inbound.

6) Content is a critical, but not considered a standalone, inbound marketing component.

7) Inbound has shifted where marketers spend resources, and enables them to work smarter.

8) It’s a great time to be a customer.

9) It’s also a great time to be an inbound marketer -- if you are up for the challenge.

10) Overall, inbound marketing works when it is integrated with your strategy, not as a side project.

Via @davidweinhaus