Why It’s Important to Share Non-Industry Related Content – Happy International Women’s Day!
Today, March 8, 2012 is International Women’s Day, and we wanted to take the time to share why we feel it’s important for companies to take a minute out of their usual business affairs online to show appreciation and care for events, and issues that are celebrated around the world that they believe in. International Women’s Day has been observed annually since the early 1900′s as a form of celebration of respect, appreciation, and love towards women and their political, economic, and social achievements. Women have come a long way since the inception of this day. On the digital front, women are represented across all disciplines on advisory boards, executive management roles, and consulting teams, in addition to being investors, and entrepreneurs for some of the largest online companies, including Facebook. As a digital media company, founded by a woman, with mainly a female executive and management team, we at Magnify Digital wanted to take a moment out of our day to celebrate our achievements and say Happy International Women’s Day to all the amazing females who have helped shape the digital landscape.
As businesses, we often get caught up tweeting, liking, commenting, and sharing only industry specific content, however, sometimes it’s important to show your audience that your company, made up of individuals, also care about issues and events that are celebrated if it makes sense for your organization. It can also be a nice release from all the serious digital content out there! We wish you all a fabulous day.
Maryam Mehrtash
@socialmaryam
Tags: digital campaigns, facebook, female, International Women's Day, March 8 2012, Social Media, strategy, Twitter, woman
5 Tips on How to Effectively Create a Social Good Digital Strategy
Many corporations are jumping on the social good band wagon in attempts to attract a more altruistic audience base. From the Pepsi Refresh Project to Kohl’s Cares Scholarship Program, companies are spending millions of dollars towards social good digital strategies in an effort to show that they care about humanity and it’s not just about the bottom line. With anything, there are strategies and initiatives that get implemented very well and some that can become complete public relations disasters!
Here are 5 tips to effectively create a social good campaign, with all good intentions:
- Be transparent. There is nothing worse than cooking the social good numbers, not even lying to the tax man. Let people know exactly where the money is going, and how it’s effectively making a difference. Show the numbers.
- Be consistent. Do good that makes sense for the company. Whether it’s consistent with the messaging, the mission statement, the branding, or the actual products and services you create make sure the good you are creating is consistent and not just random.
- Think long term. Think how you can implement social good in your overall strategy, and not have it as just a one-off. Your consumer base will respect you more if you follow through on a long-term plan versus trying to create media buzz off of a one time campaign. People will take you more seriously.
- Be open to criticism. Have an open heart to criticism and embrace it with grace. Whenever corporations create a social good campaign, there is almost always at least one person who doesn’t like what you are doing. Have a plan that is constructive and not defensive. Really dig deep into why you are doing this, and what potential criticism you can get in order to be open to engage in effective dialogue surrounding the cause.
- Use multiple platforms. A social good campaign isn’t just a Twitter campaign or a Facebook campaign, it’s about spreading a positive social impact. Create a website, start a following on multiple channels, start a dialogue, and take action off-line. To create social good you must do more than just click a button, to be effective you must take action and empower others to do the same.
Next time you think about creating a social good strategy hopefully you’ll keep this 5 tips in mind!
Maryam Mehrtash
@socialmaryam
Tags: charities, digital strategy, facebook, kohl's, pepsi, social good, Social Media, Twitter
How Many Twitter Profiles Are Too Many?
How many Twitter profiles are too many? The same question may be applied to Facebook, Foursquare, Flickr, etc.
The decision about whether to have one main Twitter profile or to create several profiles, each speaking to a specific audience, is a tough one. This question is particularly relevant for organizations or businesses that serve multiple audiences.
On the one hand, there is so much noise on Twitter and clutter across all social media, multiple accounts run the risk of diluting, confusing and possibly even losing, an audience. On the other hand, trying to be ‘all things to all people’ on a single profile risks hitting the mark and creating deep engagement with any audience.
I once heard this referred to as centralization versus decentralization. Centralizing is focusing all efforts into one profile. Decentralizing involves creating different profiles on each platform (e.g. Twitter) and targeting content to specific audiences. Done well, decentralizing can be highly effective and provide deeply engaging content for each audience. However, if the accounts do not connect to each another, if the visual branding is inconsistent, and/or if one or more account become dormant, decentralization will be less effective.
Think of a news outlet serving many different audiences: business/finance, arts, local news, real estate, fashion, and tech. It would be difficult to effectively group this range of content under one social media profile.
This question comes up a lot with our client base at Magnify Digital. A solid argument can be made for each approach. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that most often, targeted social media conversations are best, PROVIDING decentralization is done well with clear target audiences, editorial content and interconnectedness between channels.
I see the take-away as such:
- There must be one “main” channel established, that points to, aside from the main website URL, a URL that lists all the sub-brand social media accounts. Likewise, each sub-brand account must clearly link to the “main” channel… as this drawing is attempting to illustrate (don’t judge me – I’m not an artist). This way, if someone starts to follow a sub-brand mistaking it for the main brand, and begins to grow disenchanted with the niche messaging that doesn’t interest them, they can migrate to the main profile, which of course, lists other sub-brand accounts that may be of more interest to the individual.
- The organization must have the resources, the willingness (by all parties) and the depth of content to sustain multiple accounts. Nothing hurts a brand more than public profiles that were once started with grand intentions, only to be abandoned within a few short months.
- All accounts must be consistently branded and clearly marked as all from the same family.
Do you work at, or are you affiliated with a bigger organization with a widespread online presence? How are you handling your approach to social media? Are you using a centralized or decentralized approach?
Erin
Tags: centralization, decentralization, Erin, Social Media, Twitter
5 Social Platforms to Put on Your “Fadar”!
Over the last several years lots of social platforms have come and gone. Some are slowly fading away. It’s really hard to keep track of where to spend your time and energy! 2012 will remain a big year for big players such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn and similarly, we should also expect to see exponential growth for newcomers like Pinterest. However, as newcomers gain momentum, we will start to see other social networks fizzle off. Here are 5 social platforms we think you should put on your “fadar” (aka fading radar):
- Quora: The question and answer platform was predicted to be the next big thing in 2010. However, half way through 2011 the big buzz surrounding the site slowly started to fade off. The site still receives decent traffic, with an estimate of 500,000 users, however, as new social sites emerge Quora might not be at the top of social minds.
- Digg: The once beloved site-sharing website has been dying a slow death for several years. It hasn’t been able to compete with sites like Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter. It is my opinion that it is just a matter of time before it completely fizzles off. A few months ago it did launch a new version of the site, however, it doesn’t seem like users found it very appealing. A couple of years ago a great article would have received on average 3000 Diggs, now you’re lucky if you even get 100.
- Delicious: This social bookmarking site had everything going for it back in 2005. It was new to the scene and had no real competitors. What happened? As new bookmarking sites started to saturate the market Delicious didn’t reinvent quickly enough. Rumors are it might shut-down or sell its technology.
- Gowalla: This location-based site was once a fierce competitor for foursquare, both entering the market at about the same time 2 years ago. However, foursquare quickly gained momentum with over 1 billion check-ins to date, leaving Gowalla in the dust. Gowalla’s leadership has now joined forces with Facebook. According to industry insiders, Facebook has not purchased the technology, only the talent. Gowalla will slowly fade out.
- QR Codes: There’s a huge online debate about whether QR (Quick Response) Codes are slowly starting to die off before they’ve even had the chance to really take off. Some people may think, why would QR Codes be on the “fadar”? I see them everywhere? Well, that’s exactly my point. The ubiquitous use of QR Codes in often ill-conceived marketing efforts, is what might lead to its demise.
What do you think? Do you take issue with any of the above observations? Are there networks or tools you feel should be on the fadar?
Maryam Mehrtash
@socialmaryam
Tags: cool, Delicious, digg, facebook, foursquare, google, gowalla, LinkedIn, pinterest, QR codes, reddit, Social Media, technology, Twitter, youtube
What If…Your Twitter and Facebook Posts Were Deleted After 24 Hours?
What if … a new feature was introduced where Facebook Wall posts and Twitter tweets were automatically removed after 24 hours?
If you did not post anything new in a 24-hour period, your Facebook Wall and Twitter profile would be empty, showing just a blank page. If you’re managing a Facebook Page or a Twitter account for your company or client this would be a big deal. It’s equivalent to having a company website with no content.
Would this give you more incentive to publish content more frequently?
This hypothetical scenario isn’t very far from reality, considering the effective lifespan of the average Facebook post is 22 hours and the lifespan of the average Twitter tweet is 1 hour.
It’s a balancing act. Publish too infrequently and you’ll gain minimal benefit from your social media profile. Publish too frequently and you risk annoying your followers.
Keep this in mind the next time you are developing a digital strategy. Is your publishing frequency maximizing your impact online?
Victor
Digital Strategist
Photo Credit: JanetR3
Tags: facebook, lifespan, strategy, Twitter
