Surviving Social Chaos

The word may sound stodgy. But courtesy and manners are still essential--particularly in business.

The word "etiquette" gets a bad rap. For one thing, it sounds stodgy and pretentious. And rules that are socially or morally prescribed seem intrusive to our sense of individuality and freedom.

But the concept of etiquette is still essential, especially now—and particularly in business. New communication platforms, like Facebook and Linked In, have blurred the lines of appropriateness and we're all left wondering how to navigate unchartered social territory.

Boil it down and etiquette is really all about making people feel good. It's not about rules or telling people what to do, or not to do, it's about ensuring some basic social comforts.

So here are a few business etiquette rules that matter now—whatever you want to call them.

Imagine this: you have just persuaded your company’s top 500 prospects to join a real-life networking group that your company owns. This group meets weekly, and discusses business topics in a very engaged way.

With millions of members, and highly scalable platforms, social networks allow companies to create digital versions of real-life groups like the one described above.
The best example of this is a LinkedIn group.

LinkedIn groups allow companies to pool their prospects in one defined forum, and engage them with content and conversation. As a group manager, this gives you an opportunity to interact with your members and exploit the powerful engagement models of LinkedIn groups.

What are these engagement models?

From the article intro: "Over the past couple of years, I’ve been trying to collect every good piece of writing and advice about verifying social media content and other types of information that flow across networks.

This form of verification involves some new tools and techniques, and requires a basic understanding of the way networks operate and how people use them.

It also requires many of the so-called old school values and techniques that have been around for a while: being skeptical, asking questions, tracking down high quality sources, exercising restraint, collaborating and communicating with team members.

For example, lots of people talk about how Andy Carvin does crowdsourced verification and turns his Twitter feed into a real time newswire."

Mindy McAdams writes: "Verifying social media content “involves some new tools and techniques, and requires a basic understanding of the way networks operate and how people use them. It also requires many of the so-called old school values and techniques that have been around for a while: being skeptical, asking questions, tracking down high quality sources, exercising restraint, collaborating and communicating with team members.”

"Craig Silverman provides an introduction to the topic and then an annoatated list of eight articles/blog posts that add clarity and examples."

Full article:  http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/regret-the-error/171713/8-must-reads-that-detail-how-to-verify-content-from-twitter-other-social-media/ ;

(Thanks to Mindy McAdams and Steve Buttry - Image credit: newgenerationsales.com) 

Social media marketing is a combination of many elements and it is not just about set and forget. It isn't just having a Facebook page, posting an occasional tweet on Twitter or writing one blog post once in a while.

Social media has become an essential asset for marketing. So how can you utilize this resource? Read on for tips on how to use social media to your advantage and how to access business services on the web.

Social search is the most underutilized marketing tool available today. The combination of the search engine power with social network opinions works together to influence people’s buying decisions.

There are three components to a successful social search strategy:

1) Solid Content: People need a reason to act. It doesn’t matter what you want them to do, if the content doesn’t provide enough information to give your business credibility and motivate the reader to seek more, nothing will happen.

2) Good Keywords: Social search works the same as regular search. Bots are doing the work and following the algorithm provided by the engine. 

3) Navigational Ease: Always include links to the next step in the process. 

Full Article Here: http://socialmediatoday.com/debraellis/497474/seo-third-pillar-social-media

Land a job and show up higher in Google results. (13 Things You Never Knew You Could Do On LinkedIn http://t.co/2OyZ9Aa0 Leverage your social media opportunity to the max!

A lot of LinkedIn's ~150 million users don't know how to unlock its true potential.
The company's co-founder, Reid Hoffman, said as much in a recent profile by WIRED:

"They think it’s a place they keep their CV online and maybe have some connections with people they know professionally. They don’t think of it as a place to get business intelligence, to research problems, to establish an online presence where other people in the network can find them. It’s as if we’re a screwdriver in a world where people don’t quite understand screws."

You know if the company's co-founder says users aren't using LinkedIn's power, it must be true