Social media releases

August 19, 2008 in cisco, social media | No comments

Cisco recently hosted a round table discussion around PCI/data security with retail and health industry experts.  The key points of discussion were around real-world business challenges, PCI’s position to managing compliance.  Yadda yadda  (credit George Costanza).  The social media seemed to be an rss feed and a series of youtube videos that covered the discussion.   My question is your opinion of an ideal social media release?  Is it a combination of all posibilites or is it just a select few that will target a specific audience?  In my opinion I believe it is better to cover a broader range of mediums to have the possibility of being viral among a larger group of people no matter the interest.  There are many times that I will come across a certain blog post that looks interesting to me only because of the way it is being presented and the purpose of eye candy.  It guess this all goes back to core of marketing techniques…just some food for thought.

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Balsamiq for Mockups

August 18, 2008 in social media | No comments

I found a great tool this morning for creating mockups.  Balsamiq Mockup offers a free flash version and a $79 dollar desktop version.  The program is easy and quick and can be especially useful for those that want to get their group or company on the social media bandwagon and propose or investigate different possibilities.  Check it out.  I’ll definitely be using this product for some of my projects.

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Tweetburner Stats for Business

August 15, 2008 in social media | No comments

I found a great web app called Tweetburner for keeping track of how many clicks your twurls are generating.  We all know that one way conversations are frowned upon in the social media community, but for purposes such as press releases or website updates it helps to see how effective or interesting your twitter titles are to your audience.

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Facebook Groups for IT?

August 14, 2008 in social media | 1 comment

I’ve been doing quite a bit of research on how to effectively utilize a facebook group in a social media plan at Cisco.  Being a group at Cisco that is all about giving best practices, case studies, and experiences in IT I’m still trying to decide it would be worth giving a try.  Another group at Cisco has effectively created a group that targets the Internet uber users.  They created a calendar that scheduled each and every new post of information a few months in advance.  For right now, I’m not sure our team will be as open and willing to dedicate the resources to a project like this…Any thoughts or recommendations on how to successfully launch a facebook group for those interested in IT?

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Groundswell Post Method

August 14, 2008 in social media | No comments

I’ve been looking into the POST method from the book Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernof to get a social media marketing plan going for my Cisco group.

P is People.  Finding your target audience.

O is objectives.  What do you want to get out of the plan?

S is Strategy. How to go about achieving your objectives.

T is Technology. Your medium of choice.

I feel like I’ve gone through the first three steps thoroughly, but where I’m stuck is the technology part.  I’ve been using tools such as LinkedIn answers and Twitter.  So far Twitter seems to be most effective and promising.  I’m not really sure how effective LinkedIn will be for us in the end.  I feel like I’m spending quite a bit of time researching and testing different tools only to feel unsatisfied in the end.  Any recommendations for a group that is information driven?

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Twitter Metrics

August 14, 2008 in social media | 1 comment

After recently taking the dive into twitter for a social media marketing tool in my group at Cisco, there was some discussion on how we can measure our success as well as our deliverables.  Twittercounter.com helps us do exactly this.  It’s all about follower count and growth.  It gives both a nice bar graph along with predictions for the following month.  Those of you who need something to measure your twitter account by, this is the perfect solution.

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Social Mediums

August 14, 2008 in social media | No comments

I’ve been doing research all this morning on ways to go about social media marketing for large groups or businesses.  I’ve come across some good do’s and don’ts of ssm, but not much that explains which certain arenas work for different types of businesses.  Working in a group called “Cisco on Cisco” which is resource for information on Cisco IT’s best practices and experiences, it’s a bit challenging to determine which social mediums we should go after.  I’ve been doing some experimenting with IT Toolbox, LinkedIn, and Twitter.  Of the three it seems LinkedIn and Twitter have the most potential.  IT Toolbox seem a bit old school.   One of the most useful resources was a Forrester report for “Best and Worst Social Network Marketing,2008”.  Any suggestions?

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Social Media Normalizing

August 14, 2008 in social media | No comments

Today I read Jeremiah Owyang’s blog on the future of social media marketing in large companies.  He talks about how the skill set for using social media will soon turn into a basic function such as email.  I talked to a colleague of mine at Cisco today who did the email marketing. He emphasized that it is similar in that anyone can do it, but it is those who take the time and care to listen are successful.  It’s the change from one-way marketing to a two-way conversation that makes something like social media so successful.  Social media not only has a two-way conversation between the customer and the company but it also involves participation of a community.  I see social media continuing to thrive and possibly be fueled by such technology as telepresence.

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