Archive for September, 2009

Posted on September 26, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Mobile podcast #6, the final chapter? Topic: blogging platforms, what would you choose?

Mobile podcast #6, the final chapter? Topic: blogging platforms, what
would you choose?

Posted via email from WayneSutton.net

Posted on September 25, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Friday Fix: 10 random ways to use social media with examples

Photo via: deanmeyersnet

Here’s a list of 10 random ways to use social media.

1. Non-profit:
Raise awareness using a twitter hashtag for social change, example #atlfloods http://www.hopeatl.com

2. Entertainment
Sell music directly to listeners via blog, iTunes, twitter, and social networks – example Radiohead

3. Business to Business ( B2B )
Video blogging web hosting channel to market services to sell cloud server based hosting solutions – example RackSpace / Building43 / Robert Scoble

4. Business to Consumer (B2C)
Starbucks & Dell — need I say more … Customers forum feedback forum (ideastorm)

5. Real-Estate
Using location based social networks like Brightkite and Whrrl to show new house listing to new buyers.

6. Selling T-Shirts inside social networks
Threadless Facebook store http://www.facebook.com/threadless

7. Customer Service:
Using Twitter to respond to complaints about internet & TV service: @comcastcares

8. Recruiting, hiring & looking for jobs
Both @capstrat & @IntegratedAV are accepting resumes and looking for employees via Twitter

9. To sell soft drinks and launch a new brand / flavor
Mountain Dew’s Dew Labs 12 seconds video contesthttp://12seconds.tv/campaign/dewlabs

10. Conference planning:
Social Media Business Forum (plug)
Using Eventbrite, EventBee or Facebook to plan events and RSVP attendees.

There are really endless ways to use social media but you have to remember to start off with a goal and measure the success of your social media efforts. Measuring and establishing content strategy goals are a few services that I provide to my clients.

What are some that you have seen or done?

Posted on September 23, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Teaching Social Media at North Carolina Colleges

Last week I the opportunity to speak to a group of MBA students at NC State University about Social Media. Since the second half of 2008 I have been asked to either lead session or sit on panel covering various topics such as social networks, video blogging and using social media for journalism at Duke University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (UNC). I have actually spoken at UNC 4 times in the last year and when I was asked to speak at NC State I felt as though I was completing the big 3 Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill) university loop. (past speaking events)

I was asked to join a list of other guest speakers as part of MBA Social Media and Management class. A few of the other guest speakers includes Andy Beal, Joseph Jaffe, Katie Morse, Jeff Cohen and Polly Pearson covering various topics such as Blogging and micro-blogging, social networks, creativity, reputation management and B2B marketing using social media (schedule). My topic was social media etiquette, video and community building. The class was 1:15 long and to prepare I made a content outline and a list of questions to ask. One of the first things I told the students was that I wasn’t going to stand in-front of the class and talk for 1:15 and show them a bunch of slides. Not that there is anything wrong with having a presentation ready but if I’m leading a session on social media we’re going to be social.

A few talking points were:

• Why is video important?
• Example of video shows
• Best practices for creating online video
• Why online communities matter
• Comparing various communities
• Creating valuable content
• Conscious content posting

I’m glad I had an outline and was prepared but after an introduction from Professor Claudia Kimbrough, who introduced Chis Moody who then introduced me, I looked into the eyes of the students they all gave me that here comes another boring social media talk look. So then I decided at that moment to switch things up and as they say in the hip-hop world, freestyle it. I wanted to see what was on the students mind, what they have previously covered in social media and what was at the core using social media effectually. Therefore I asked the diverse room of students a series of questions about what happens during a period of time of online conversations between two new individuals using social media. The outcome was a relationship and trust using various tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

Other topics we touched on were the value of location based sites like Brightkite, uses for Linkedin and Facebook fanpages. While discussing Facebook fanpages we talked about brand engagement and why it’s important for companies not to just post / push content but really make an effort to communicate with their fans. Surprisingly we spent very little time focusing on Twitter and more time on social networking etiquette and what role students online content and behavior could affect their future in the job market.

Near the end of the class I suggested they look at creating a social media policy and I did touch briefly on how much it doesn’t cost to launch an online video show. Then I showed the students Jeff Cohen’s daughter new video blog called Grace Talks about Food to where she’s talking about a Hannan Montana Cereal in a video on YouTube. The reason I showed the class the video is because it’s a classic example of how simple it is to create videos about any topic you’re passionate about and how brands should reach out to their customers who are online posting content about their products. In other words, I’m expecting Grace to get an email or comment from Disney soon.

After the class I thanked Professor Kimbrough for having me and Chis Moody for the invite. While I was leaving I was wondering what the students thought of the session and by the way of tweets, I think they enjoyed it. Take a look.

LindsayCrawford: Thanks @waynesutton for an engaging presentation! He knows his stuff!

MacMan34: sitting in class listening to @waynesutton talk about video, social media, & communities.

lshawtter4: @waynesutton Thanks for dropping by NCSU. Informative and energetic presentation!!

Before the class started I did recved a few tweets from Paul Jones @smalljones a professor at UNC about more Social Media classes being taught by him and Fred Stutzman @fstutzman which can be found here and http://ibiblio.org/pjones/jomc449/wordpress/ and that Richward Waters @rdwaters teaches another class on social media at NC State too on Social Media and Public Relations http://ncsupublicrelations.wordpress.com

For more information on the NC State Social Media MBA class, see the links below.
Class syllabus: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~cbk/schedule.html
Class blog: http://ncstatesocialmedia.wordpress.com/
Professor: Claudia Kimbrough @calliekuhn

Again I would to thanks to Professor Kimbrough and Chis Moody for the invitation. Chris also has a blog post with a few notes from my session that can be found here: How to ACE Social Media: Alignment, Control, and Engagement

If you had the opportunity to tell college students one thing about social media what would it be?

Posted on September 22, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Everything Real-Time …Yes, EVERYTHING

After a late night podcast with The Social Geeks, we came out with a spanking new idea that surprised us all: Everything Real-Time. Think of it as EverythingTwitter, except with real-time apps and services.

Essentially, what we aim to do is provide you with reviews and directions to the latest apps and services that are implementing real-time web features. They won’t always be complete real-time web services, but we want to catalog them all as the future of real-time information takes off. Be sure to check out the first posting on Lazyfeed.

Also don’t forget to check out these discounts from SocialGeeks podcast sponsor Godaddy:

• GoDaddy coupon codes $7.49 .com domains
• GoDaddy codes 10% off any order
• GoDaddy coupon codes $5 off $30 or more

Posted on September 22, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

3 plugins to backup your WordPress blog. Love your database!

WordPress, the blogging platform we all know and love is used by almost everyone from main stream media such as CNN, MTV to universities such as Arkansas at Little Rock to celebrities such as Perez Hilton. WordPress is also used by leading tech blogs such as Mashable, TechCrunch and Gigaom . Installing a self-hosted version of WordPress.org is very simple and a lot of web hosting providers offer one click installs, but what about a backup? Most web hosting services offers daily backups of your files and I hope for your sake a daily back up of your sql / mysql WordPress database. But just in case they don’t here are three WordPress plugins to back up your WordPress database.

1. WP-DBManager
Pitch: Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of database.

2. WordPress Automatic Online Backup
Pitch: You can prevent loss of data using an automated backup of your blog database. You create a free account on www.wordpressbackup.com (wpb), connect your blog with the wbp via a key.

3. WordPress Database Backup
Pitch: WordPress database backup creates backups of your core WordPress tables as well as other tables of your choice in the same database.

Bonus: Two of the plugins offer the ability to have your database emailed to you on a scheduled time. I recommend creating an alternative gmail or ymail email address and use one of the plugins to email you a backup of your database daily.

How are you backing up your self hosted WordPress blog?