Unified Studies - Portland Social Media, Web Design, and Web development

Umpqua Presentation on Social Media for Small Business

At long last I gave my presentation on social media for small business at the Umpqua Bank on South Waterfront. My deep and sincere thanks to Tom Bennett for his awesome and huge contribution. Turn-out was disappointing in terms of numbers, but not in terms of the enthusiasm of those who did show up. One question that came up that I didn't have a ready answer for was Multiple people using one twitter account.

One of the businesses in attendance wanted to enable multiple members of their team to post to a single twitter account, by texting from their different phones.

When the question of "can this be done"...I said I was sure there was a work-around...(isn't there always?)

Despite having asked the question, the questioner met my response above with "Twitter says very clearly that you can't. So."

But if I say you can and twitter says you can't who you gonna believe? Well...twitter I imagine. Here's what they have to say:

Can I use the same phone number on multiple accounts, or have multiple phone numbers for the same account?

No.  You can only use one phone number for one account.

***

OK....done and done, right?

Not so fast!

What about this?

Set up a TwitterMail account. Then, everyone you want to give access to post to your Twitter account simply adds the email address in their cell phone address book and sends an MMS message to it. It posts to Twitter...I think that different providers have different protocols for sending text to an email address, but it can certainly be done.

that would work wouldn't it?

The above common sense solution, or most of it anyway, was from a discussion happening here:

http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=614455

 

Tom also mentioned using Hootsuite. Sensible solution too, adding multiple editors to your hootsuite account.

 

Also gave a "case study" of gDiaper's use of social media and community building. They do it right.

http://www.gdiapers.com/fair-dinkum/gdiapers-community

 

A big shout-out and thank you to the people from Little Red Press, who made the presentation worthwhile with their enthusiasm and attention, and the fact that they said it was "inspiring".

Thank you!

New survey from Razorfish - 40% of People "Friend" Brands on Facebook

40% of People "Friend" Brands on Facebook...that is one of the findings from a new survey from Razorfish who questioned 1000 "connected consumers". ReadWriteWeb does their usual excellent breakdown and analysis here.

Another crazy stat from the survey....33% of respondents report they get their news from Facebook. That is both amazing and....hard to believe...but there it is!

Simple takeaway...brands/businesses ignore the social web at their own peril...true this survey is "connected consumers" but...it won't be long before that category includes just about everyone.

Hospitals, Health Care and Social Media

The Health Care system is something that virtually every citizen interacts with over and over. As such it seems like a natural for those within the system to try exploring how social media might be of benefit to their customers/clients, as well as how it might impact internal communications and processes.

Ed Bennett, who is, according to his blog, a hospital web manager in the University of Maryland medical system, gave a presentation on Hospitals and Social Media at the  J. Boye conference e-Health track. He cites some interesting examples of social media usage...for instance, the MD Anderson Cancer Center used Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to promote use of referring physician portals...and tracked a 9.5% increase in registrations.

Henry Ford Health used Twitter in it's education program, to do a series of live Twitter-casts of surgeries....with real time Q and A with the surgeons, and garnered national press attention...and had over 500 following in real-time.

Innovis Health used a blog and Twitter during the floods in Fargo, North Dakota...they created the blog and had an update up in the first hour of the emergency...which lead to decreased media demands, and freed up phone lines for emergencies.

I can definitely see how, in the very competitive field of health care, using social media properly can become a real differentiator between service providers, and a potential real competitive advantage.

Social Media - ROI

From Dag Homboe's blog, a spreadsheet to help you in calculating your ROI in regards to your Social Media plan.

Dag says" For this research, we identified 13 parameters that play a role in determining the ROI of Social Media.  It is not necessary to include all parameters in a ROI calculation – pick the parameters that make sense."

Dag also goes to the trouble of explaining thoroughly his reasoning in the build-out of the spreadsheet, and also how to best use it.

Social Media ROI spreadsheet

Non-profits, social media, and cause marketing.

Wow...here is a pretty comprehensive breakdown of a social media campaign, run by Scott Henderson of MediaSauce for Share Our Strength. The best part is the post-op he does, identifying where mistakes might have been made...no campaign is perfect.

Cause Marketing or Cause Me to Puke Marketing

Any non-profit looking to jump into the cause marketing pool, should read and learn. From Beth Kanter's excellent blog.

Enterprise Micro Sharing Tools Comparison

Enterprise Micro Sharing Tools Comparison 11032008

Publish at Scribd or explore others: School Work Research twitter status

Government 2.0 video from change.gov

A slick video from change.gov, extolling the virtues of social media in governing...not just campaigning.
New Media: Government 2.0 from America.Gov on Vimeo.

25 Small Business Twitter Tips - Small Business and Social Media

Great list/post on Kyle Lacy's blog, entitled "25 Small Business Twitter Tips"
http://tinyurl.com/cbb4cx

It's pretty simple stuff...all stuff that any small business should be considering these days as social media awareness becomes as "must-have" as a business card. At a minimum, small business should be AWARE of potential uses for social media to improve their bottom line and efficiency, so they can make a conscious decision as to how (or if) to engage in the evolving world of social media.

Hiring a Community Manager - time for a time-share?

The "Left The Box" blog has a post today on hiring a Community Manager...outlining the great reasons why a social media campaign needs a community manager at the helm.

Really, every organization that depends on community needs one...and what organization doesn't depend on community in some way? A few years back, the utility of the web had evolved to the point that the notion that you could get away with not having a website for your organization was considered foolish and short-sighted. The role of a community manager who can monitor your organization's on-line presence, respond appropriately to problems or challenges, and develop and execute a strategy around engaging that community (whether it's brand marketing, fundraising, sales, reputation management) is one that soon will be considered absolutely essential.

I think many organizations (thinking non-profits here) figure that with budget constraints and this economy, how could you possibly add staff at this time?

There are of course many studies done on the ROI of social media, that make a convincing argument for taking the plunge...but I also wonder if there might not be a "time-share" approach that could be used for budget sensitive organizations? Much like most orgs do not have accountants on staff, but hire one as needed, or for quarterly review, etc., perhaps a 3 or 4 organizations, maybe with similar local constituencies, could form a collective in a way to get some Community Management help. What if the local history museums of Astoria, Bend, Tillamook and Yakima, Wa.,  all "went in" on a Community Management strategy...crafted for each of course, but, as they are of similar structure, scope and audience, could share tools, strategies and implementation costs, with each supporting a quarter of the budget?

Of course, the next step is...who puts that collective together...more on that next!

Here's the whole article on Left The Box, well worth a read:

Hiring a Community Manager

http://tinyurl.com/b4j97x

Twitter uses for Small Business

Problogger has a great article today about ways that a small  business could take advantage of the simplicity, ubiquity, and ease of use of Twitter.

A few examples that he wraps up with:

• Personal Trainers - monitoring diet and exercise
• Dietitians - monitoring meals
• Doctors - monitoring symptoms, medication, diet etc
• Accountants - monitoring expenditure (actually I should set my wife up with this….)
• Interior Designers - take a picture and Twitpic it every time you see a color, picture, style you like

His post recounts a meeting he (Problogger Darren Rowse) had with his acupuncturist...the end result being that his acupuncturist remembered some symptoms Darren had experienced because he'd seen it on Twitter!

We'll see more and more examples like these as the obvious benefits of Social Media for small business become even more apparent...even those twitter posts that are seemingly about "nothing"....are still data from which meaning can be gleaned.

The whole article is here:
How I’d Use Twitter if I Were an Acupuncturist

http://tinyurl.com/ag5opz