How to get people to actually read your social media policy

It’s one thing to sit down and write a well through out, comprehensive and informative social media policy for staff at your organisation. It’s another thing to get your staff to read it and take it on board.

Considering how to communicate the policy is just as (if not more) important than developing the policy, and the old rules of enforcement and compliance don’t apply.

Using a fun, engaging and innovative approach is crucial. Social media is, in and of itself, exciting, approachable and fun. Make sure your social media policy is communicated in the same way. And if you can, use social media to communicate it!

Here is a great example by the Department of Justice in Victoria:

Tags: social media policy, video

Broadcasting using Google + Hangouts on Air

I’m excited to learn more about the new Google + Hangouts on Air feature. If you haven’t heard, it’s a new feature that will allow hangouts of up to 10 people to be broadcast – anyone can tune in and watch live. You can read more about the feature below, from the Google blog:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/google-92-93-94-95-96-97-98-99-100.html#

I’m currently planning my wedding and trying to bring together Americans and Australians – no easy feat! But if Google + launches Hangouts on Air for all users, I will be able to live broadcast my wedding ceremony to anyone around the world who might want to tune in. For those who can’t or would rather not hop on a 12 hour plane flight, it’ll be almost like being there.

Tags: Google +, Hangouts on Air, wedding

How to find influencers using Twitter lists

One of the first things you should do when you join Twitter, as a person or as a business, is identify, follow and engage with influencers in the topic areas you are knowledgeable and passionate about. Let’s say you own a small cafe, and boy do you know your stuff when it comes to coffee. You need to find and engage with the coffee influencers to get the word out about your fantastic coffee.

Finding influencers is a bit like falling down a rabbit hole. Finding one leads to finding ten which leads to finding 100…

1. Use Advanced Twitter Search to limit your search by geographic area, and find people talking about coffee in your city or country

2. The trick at this stage is to find just one influencer, and use this person as a trail map to find other influencers. Look at their profiles to see who mentions a passion for coffee in their bio, and has particular expertise. You’re looking for people who live and breathe coffee. The influencer might even be your competitor, but that’s ok. Think you’ve found one? Check their influence and the topics they are influential about using Klout.

3. Use Twitter’s lists function to see if they have their own coffee lovers list, and look through these twitter profiles. You’ll be able to tell you’ve found an influencer when you’ve come across someone that consistently tweets about coffee and has a significant number of followers that they engage with. If you want to be sure, look them up on Klout.

4. Check to see the lists other tweeps have created and tagged your influencer in.  It’s likely that they’ve been tagged in a number of lists around your topic area, which contain any number of passionate coffee lovers. As above, get following!

5. Finding them and following them is only the first step. Now that you’re seeing their tweets in your feed, engage with them in a genuine way by responding to their tweets, or RTing them where appropriate. Hopefully they’ll follow you back and give you a mention every now and again. Maybe even drop into your cafe and try your coffee for themselves, and tell their followers all about it.

Remembering to make media coverage work harder

In the PR world we work extremely hard to get amazing coverage for our clients. Hours go into getting that perfect piece of coverage. Shouldn’t we be making sure it lives on beyond a quick run in a newspaper or magazine?

Here’s a summary of a some great reminders of how to make coverage work harder from the Ogilvy 360 blog:

Image via E Releases http://www.ereleases.com

• Social Media Newsroom: Many companies are starting to develop social media newsrooms as part of their content marketing strategies. But aside from posting links and PDFs of your media coverage and press releases, the social media newsroom should have images, video and other social links to really drive value. Some of the most successful social newsrooms link back to the company’s social media channels (Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter) as well as RSS feeds, links to subscribe by e-mail, eNewsletters, and event calendars.
• Share it!: We should be sharing this coverage with our networks, both offline and online. Brands should be sharing the coverage in monthly/quarterly corporate newsletters, tweeting out links to the coverage, including marketing collateral for your salesforce, posting content in the discussion section of your LinkedIn group, and sharing a link to the article with your Facebook fans. 
• Write About it: An hour-long interview with a reporter MIGHT turn into a one sentence quote in an article.  For companies or individuals that have blogs, an excellent way to extend the life of the coverage would be to write about the article expanding on the main points of the piece, providing additional insights that the reporter may have missed and inviting readers to provide their thoughts and extend the conversation.

These suggestions might seem obvious, but they’re easy to forget in the excitement of opening the paper and seeing that great full page story!

You can read the full blog post here.

Why I gave up my iPhone for an Android phone – and never looked back

In the tech world, there has been lots of talk of Google’s Android platform unseating Apple’s iPhone as the king of the smartphones. Just a couple of weeks ago reports said Android will take over Australia within the next five years. But just looking around makes that theory seem pretty farfetched.

On my morning tram ride, it seems every second person is fiddling with their iPhone. In my office of 15 people, one has a Blackberry, one has an HTC (me – we’ll get to this shortly), and 13 have iPhones. A day in the office is a chorus of iPhone pings and tinkling ringtones.

But I gave up my iPhone for my HTC Desire HD in January and have never looked back. Why?

1. My iPhone 3, at 18 months old, slowed to a virtual halt. The update that coincided with the iPhone 4 launch seems to have played a big part in turning my iPhone into a useless brick.
2. I had just come back from a trip to the US, where it seems everyone has an Android. The little green robot is everywhere. This is partly because the iPhone is tied to the AT&T network. And I could not wait to get my hands on one to play with it. When I did, I loved it.

So should you ditch your iPhone?

If you are willing to learn a new system, Android can do so much more! It’s so customisable, expandable and flexible. Once you learn how to make it work for you, it will do far more than your iPhone was ever capable of.

If you aren’t fussed about hunting down and finding the best features and apps, and just want an intuitive phone that will connect you to the internet and take photos, stick with iPhone. You’ll feel much more comfortable with the familiarity of the iPhone system.

The rules

I’m starting a blog. It’s not my first blog, and it probably won’t be my last, but this one is going to be the place where I can tell people about all the things that get me excited.

When you start researching the best way to start a blog (those who know me know I don’t do anything without researching it first) a lot of sources say choose a specific topic and don’t ever lose your focus.

For example, if you blog about financial tips for businesses, don’t one day write a post about your trip to New Zealand. Your readers will get confused and, possibly, up and leave.

But I’m going to ignore this advice. This blog will focus on whatever sparks my interest. If I spy an industry-changing social media campaign, Ill blog about it. If I bake the best damn chocolate cake ever, I’ll blog about it. I also really like exploring the city I live in, so I’ll probably blog a lot about that, too.

This way, I’ll always be excited about what I’m writing about. Here we go!

Tags: blogging, social media, top tips