Don't tweet us...we'll tweet you

     Ok, folks.  If today's Ziggy strip is involved in social media....where are you?  More and more employers are looking for their new (and existing) employees to have a knowledge of how all of this stuff works.  Go look at the job listings under the header "Social Media" to see what I mean.  If you don't know what it's about, start doing your research now.  There are any number of sites you can go to to get started.  If you want the basic information, look it up on Wikipedia.
     Now, let's talk a moment about how this is all used.  Social media is not all tweets and FaceBook.  It's also YouTube and any other number of media outlets.  How many of us went to YouTube to see the Superbowl commercials again?  The VW spot with the kid in the Darth Vader costume went viral.  Employers, you are NO LONGER LIMITED to a couple of shots of advertising with the big networks - and for all the small operations out there, you now have the reach that used to be available only to the big boys - but only if you are ACTIVELY pursuing your product brand and placement through social media.  Do you have the people on your staff who can create a funny or driving video?  Do you have the people on your staff who can ensure that said video gets out the door into the digital world?  Do you have the people on your staff to keep it rolling once it's out there, and to keep tabs on all the feedback?
     If you don't -- hey, don't tweet us.  We'll tweet you.

Defining Social Media

    The social media revolution continues in the middle east - young versus old.  My money says that Libya's faltering strongman  has never sent an email in his life...and is terrified.  We'll keep watching...
     Meanwhile - how are you using this medium?  If you think it's just for shooting messages back and forth and toppling the occasional dictator - well, yeah.  But there are so many other ways to use the medium.  Here's a quick laundry list:

  internal communications
  external communications
  online reputation management
  online product evaluation
  blogging/microblogging
  influencing relations with customers, vendors, employees
  sales
  peer to peer collaboration and creativity enhancement
  emergency management

     In short, you can, and should, be using this medium for pretty much everything you used to rely on paper and word of mouth to accomplish.  Remember what it's called:  Social Media.  A quick look into dictionary.com for the word social brings back 12 definitions of the word as an adjective, one as a noun.

     Here's the adjective definition we are concerned with: "living or disposed to live in companionship with others or in a community, rather than in isolation  People are social beings."


   There is no definition for the phrase "social media" in dictionary.com.
     It's being defined as we speak.
     What's your definition going to be?

The hits just keep on comin'....

   And the hits, as they used to say, just keep on comin'.   Twitter and Facebook posts are galvanizing the Middle East.  The only reason nothing is happening in North Korea is because the Fearless Leader doesn't allow his poor subjects any access to anything other than the air they breathe.
    The current use of social media in the Middle East is probably the most powerful use of media since the early days of radio or the golden age of the Hearst newspapers.  Like any tool, it is most definitely a force for change if used in that context.
     Still, there are many businesses and managers out there who probably view social media as a frivolous time waster - and undeniably, it can be that, too.  It all depends on how you are using the tool.  Have you, as a manager, gotten your hands around this medium of communication?  If not now, when?  We'll talk more about the uses of social media in the next post.