4 Key Arguments for Using Social Media - Updated

1.   To get noticed. It’s all right if you want to stay unknown, if you want to stick to the old ways, but if you want to get noticed these days social media is a great way to do it. Getting noticed is important for all types of people. In the past it was ok to hide away and not talk, you were forgiven. These days people expect it of you. Stand up, get noticed, be strong!

2.   It will allow you to connect with customers, partners, employees and all the other groups who you work or play with. Social media is a communications tool. It’s a some to many tool. The telephone was a one to one personal communications tool. TV and radio are about communications by a select few to many. Social media is a low cost communications tool where you can reach out to groups of varying sizes and send them all a message or just one.

3.   It’s a positive step to take. By taking action on social media you are sending a positive message. There are many groups who will appreciate this positive message. People under 29 are mostly on social media already so whether they are customers, employees or other partners they will be encouraged that you are getting engaged with social media.

4.   It’s good for your well being to be more open and communicative. In the old days, and for some sections of society this is still true, secrecy and cover up were the order of the day. I agree that many traditional things are good; family, culture and sport are just three, but we have found out, all over the world, that secrecy and cover up can be used by criminals who steal, corrupt political life or abuse children. Being open is symbolic, for me, of a rejection of all those people who did those evil things. 

My son, Martello Tower, Dublin, Ireland, near where I live

Supercharging social media with storytelling techniques: #1 Conflict

Since time immemorial we have gathered by the camp fire to listen to tales of monsters, fair maidens and battles long ago.

An interest in such stories seems hard wired into our genes.

The challenge for social media strategists is how to use such genetic hard wiring to increase the audience for any given post and build its emotional resonance. I will use post to describe anything from a short Tweet to a longer blog post.

One of the first things to consider is conflict. Conflict doesn't simply mean having a bad guy and a good guy, an antagonist and a protagonist, it's also about taking on the "machine".

If you can frame your brand, your organisation or your output as a struggle between good and evil, then you can build the emotional involvement that will inspire people to retweet, mention or pass on your post.

You will have reframed your post using one of the oldest story-telling techniques.

To support this site - over 100 free posts so far on social media for you to explore - please buy one of my novels, The Istanbul Puzzle or The Jerusalem Puzzle or The Manhattan Puzzle or my guide to social media. And enjoy!

Email will Evolve into Social Email

Recent McKinsey’s research indicates that some office based workers spend 28% of each day (13 hours a week) dealing with e-mails. (McKinsey Quarterly, Nov 12)

The email Inbox has served as a task list for the past two decades. Its folders can be used as a filing system.

In some cases huge amounts of company knowledge are locked up in emails and inaccessible to those who might benefit from that information.

Email is an inadequate repository, difficult to search and slow to cross reference. Online programs such as Evernote provide the option to extract, tag and annotate the contents of email, but it is personal solution with security issues for many businesses, as the snippets you extract are stored in the cloud.

But we do need something better than standard email. And why? Productivity increases due to technology in the workplace have slowed down in the past few years.

McKinsey estimates that 25 to 30 percent of time spent on email could be saved if the main channel for communication was moved to a social platform. Employees could locate knowledge faster and reduce unneeded email distribution and CCing.

Attachments could also be better managed and more accessible.

With a social network key questions can be easily accessed and commented on by all employees. 

Collaboration is easier when you are using a social media tool. Poor collaboration is responsible for poor project delivery and project failure.

One study published in the Academy of Management Journal (Subramanium and Youndt) indicated that companies with better collaborative management achieve superior financial performance.

Academic research also shows that innovation is generated more rapidly when collaboration is a central feature of the teams studied.

Email on its own isn’t good enough any more, particularly if an organisation is looking for competitive advantage. The Facebook generation is part of the workforce and a new style of collaborative working is on its way.

And for all those blue collar workers and frontline staff without an email account, a social network will provide access to company information and a way to contribute.

Gartner, stated in 2012 that; “Social networking services will replace email as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20% of businesses by 2014". 

What do you think? 

Social Media in practice #2: An update: SM 4 a London premium property site

This post is the second in a series about putting social media theory into practice.

A small premium property agency in London has been looking to update their web site. Over a two day period I created the following blog:

http://allyttaproperty.wordpress.com/

It features a listing of properties prominently and is almost a crossover between a property listing site and a blog.

I then created two Twitter accounts - this is one:

https://twitter.com/AllyttaProperty

This post is an update on the results in the past two weeks. 

The blog/web site has had 263 views in two weeks. The best day was last Thursday, when 40 views were recorded. Here is a listing of where people have come from who viewed the site over the last few weeks:

Two Twitter accounts will slowly follow people interested in property in London. Already, within two weeks, they have 627 followers. A few of these will be likely clients. I don't expect much of a return for the time involved in setting all this up, Tweeting daily, and reporting on it all, until about three months has passed 

The Twitter account tweets a 50% mix of links to the Allytta blog and 50% London/property industry news.

The main benefits so far are probably more about good client relationships, but I do expect real business to be generated from the site and Twitter feeds soon. What do you think?


Come back here each month and I will update you on progress on this real life example of the use of social media for an SME business in the UK.