These are my links for March 8th through March 11th:

  • PolicyTool for Social Media – A very useful tool that automatically allows you to generate a policy for social media usage at work. This is a great idea, indeed PolicyTool.net seems to be filling a particularly useful service for small business to get up to speed on policy issues. It's fairly basic and you'll undoubtedly want to change the wording for the final document, but very useful if your company doesn't currently have a social media policy.
  • MySpace Co-Presidents Reveal Company’s Plan for the Future – Important new for musicians: MySpace is finally getting with the programme and revamping, with the dual aim of being both a social networking site and space for content producers. Some exciting new functionality will be rolled out incrementally – but will it be enough to wean back those who've already aborted the MySpace mission and swapped to Facebook as their fan building network of choice? As a musician with a languishing MySpace profile (last time I checked I had NO friends requests. Not even from spammers) I'm exciting about the prospect of a more dynamic, responsive platform for content promotion – but it does feel like too little, too late…
  • Did You Know 4.0 – A video with some powerful stats on how the internet is changing the advertising and traditional industries.
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These are my links for January 29th through January 30th:

  • Social Media Marketing: How Pepsi Got It Right – Pepsi are another major brand who are dropping their Superbowl ad this year and diverting the $20M (!) into social media engagement campaign. Staggeringly their crowd-sourced new brand development Mountain Dew gained traction from half a million Pepsi fans. This show, where brand loyalty exists, social media is a superb way of using fans to test the market and create word-of-mouth engagement. Big bucks thrown at social media will shift the landscape again, perhaps not all in a postiive way for smaller businesses.
  • CIPD – Social networking for HR – I'm speaking at this CIPD event on 4 Feb in Kettering with Alec McPhedran from Skills Channel TV. We're talking about social media for HR professional and developing social media strategies.
  • The state of social learning and some thoughts for the future of L&D in 2010 – Detailed article with links to top 100 social learning resources and how learning professional are using digital/online tools within learning contexts.
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These are my links for January 14th from 14:03 to 17:45:

  • Finland makes broadband access a legal right – The Finns are leaps and bounds beyond the Brits in making access to the internet a human right – 1Mb connection for all, going up to 100Mb by 2015. Meanwhile, Britain's Digital Economy Bill seems us reach for the hills with 2Mb connections by 2012, and a proposed 'three strikes' internet policy (emulating France) to kick people offline for file-sharing accusations, without a proper legal process.
  • 5 Ways Small Businesses Can Avoid Social Media Panic – More straight-down-the-line advice for small businesses as to how to lightly plan their social media engagement strategy, and ways to monitor it. It's tricky as social media is a slow build tactic, but may not suit a fast moving start-up. It's also worth testing it out, and if it's taking up more time than it's hitting the goals, look at other tactics. I'd argue SM is an integrated tool within a larger marketing/engagemnt strategy – not a standalone thing.
  • Employers reject jobseekers over social networking – Further to my recent post, it seems recruiters are getting heavy-handed at screening applicants using social media. Interesting stats but to me it doesn't stack up: how are companies they accessing personal updates on private network sites e.g. Facebook? This shows also that emloyees should update their privacy settings (and favour closed networks like Facebook over open ones like Twitter or MySpace) or only let real 'friends' see their updates if they're likely to get personal in what they are posting. This sort of suggests it's better to NOT be doing anything real on social media, which is sending out the wrong messages to particularly younger job seekers. It's also furthering a divide between the heavy-hand of corporate employeeism, and the open and transparent expectations of enterprising and freelance employment.
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These are my links for January 13th from 09:54 to 13:34:

  • Digital Strategy: It’s Not About The Tools – Hear hear! Ace article by Digalicious that speaks to me: marketing teams are under pressure to dive into social media, but they need to think about the strategy, not the tools. Resist the allure to dive in and plan, the results can be unforgiving: "The difference is that if you try a test in the cable TV channel and it doesn't work, nobody notices. (If a TV ad runs on cable, and no one sees it, is it still an ad?) Social media and the Web are not so forgiving. If you jump into social media, and don't give it the proper attention, people may notice for a long time."
  • Can businesses monetise social networks in 2010? – The question everyone is asking me lately: it's still looking tough, but Dell and Debenhams have monetized social media presences, but on the flip side Facebook is dropping banner ads as they don't work for 'user experience'. So social network involvement is proving 'exciting' for cash-strapped brands, but with limited effectiveness.
  • Coca Cola: Online Social Media Principles – I was talking at a CMI event yesterday and asked the group what their business's social media policy was: 'we can't use it at all, or will be disciplined' several said (including Barclay employees). How very sad. However, this document on guiding employees as to how to use social media when representing the company or refering to it by Coca Cola is a little more enlightened: it acknowledges people will be talking in these spaces, and advises what they expect of their relationship with employees. I like the idea of people being 'scouts' to pass up both good and bad conversations to experts internally.
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