There seems to be a general consensus that companies need to have social media guidelines. The various guidelines share some common features, but also differ in many ways. In this post, I will examine the purpose of creating social media guidelines and try to identify key features that make social media guidelines engaging instead of just constraining. Continue reading “Creating engaging social media guidelines”
Category: Social media
From brevity to skimmability
The prevailing paradigm for writing online content is to be brief and concise.
There are multiple interpretations as to what this means, and some of them lead to undesirable results.
Furthermore, it is not even obvious whether this paradigm is useful in many of the cases. Continue reading “From brevity to skimmability”
A Millian framework for deciding what to share online
As the online world becomes even more deeply integrated into our everyday lives, everyone needs to think through what exactly they should be sharing online and where to draw the line.
I have been thinking about this issue by taking John Stuart Mill’s views on the freedom of speech and action as a basis. His famous harm principle, formulated in On Liberty (1859), argues that “the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection” (On Liberty, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill (CW), volume XVIII, p. 223). Continue reading “A Millian framework for deciding what to share online”
Klout, Triberr, paper.li, and the future of content curation
We are all facing huge information overload these days. There is so much available content on just about any subject that separating the wheat from the chaff is becoming increasingly difficult. Therefore, content curation is now more important than ever.
A number of new services have surfaced to meet these challenges. In this post, I will examine the solutions they provide and the implications of these solutions. Continue reading “Klout, Triberr, paper.li, and the future of content curation”
The viral rampage of poor studies and dubious statistics
Statistics and survey results are a great way to support your argument. Unfortunately, they are often misinterpreted, of low quality, or even completely made up. What’s worse, catchy headlines have a tendency to go viral with hardly any criticism, and as a result any claims spreading in the social space should be taken with a grain of salt.
In this post, I will examine some studies that I have seen retweeted or shared a fair bit recently in order to show the types of common errors. Continue reading “The viral rampage of poor studies and dubious statistics”
On Google+, no one can hear you scream
I have a hard time finding a place for Google+ among my social networking activities. I love the idea of circles and easily being able to share more targeted content and adjust who can see what, it can really make a difference in integrating personal and professional networks into a single service. However, there are several things that cause it to fall short of replacing any of my existing social networking sites. Continue reading “On Google+, no one can hear you scream”
Social media is an essential tool for service-dominant logic
In their influential paper, Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing, Stephen Vargo and Robert Lusch (2004) argued for a shift from goods-dominant logic to a new, service-dominant logic, according to which service provision is the basis of all economic exchange.
In their subsequent papers, Vargo and Lusch have repeatedly written about the importance of information technology. Although Vargo and Lusch do not spell it out directly, it seems that social media in particular is required both as a technology and as a methodology in order to effectively utilize service-dominant logic. In this post, I will elaborate on why social media is so important for any enterprise that strives to become service-dominant. Continue reading “Social media is an essential tool for service-dominant logic”
Why should B2B investment goods companies use social media?
Social media has been used successfully to sell computers, create buzz on cars, and sell blenders. There are even B2B success stories on recruiting accountants and selling software programs. But does social media have anything to offer to the B2B investment goods market?
Sales cycles can last months, product prices start at 6 figures, and the decision makers are around 40–60 years old and predominantly male. OK, at first sight this may not look like an ideal match. However, things might turn out to be quite interesting.
Continue reading “Why should B2B investment goods companies use social media?”
Boost your trade show presence via online and social media
Trade shows are an important part of business in many industries. However, spending up to millions of dollars on trade show presence without promoting it also to people who are not attending is a waste. With modern online and social media, you can make your trade show presence visible all over the world and for an extended period of time, thus making sure the investment is as profitable as it can be.
In this post, I will examine the goals that online integration can help you achieve as well as the ways to reach these goals.
Continue reading “Boost your trade show presence via online and social media”
Setting up Twitter accounts for business
In this post, I examine various methods that companies use to set up their Twitter accounts, and how to set things up and choose user names.
The basic premise is a view of Twitter as a conversation and interaction platform that enables direct and immediate contact with more people than has ever before been possible, and what setup best utilizes this characteristic of Twitter. Continue reading “Setting up Twitter accounts for business”