Posts Tagged ‘social networking’

Posted on January 25, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

The History of Social Networking – infographic

Via: Online Schools

Posted on October 4, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

The New Golden Rules of Twitter

Over the last few weekends I have attended and participated in two new / social media conferences. Both were educational, fun, included great speakers but also had a few “distraction” moments in some form of social engagements via Twitter or another similar tool. Regardless of the situation it seems that some people have forgotten that we are all human and have feelings too. In this era of using social media to have a “voice”, be heard or social change, sometimes we don’t need to be heard at the expense of individual feelings or in some cases people’s careers.

When Twitter was first launched at SXSW in 2006, the early adopter community primarily used it to share information around events, new desktop / web applications and communicate with other geeks who “got it” at the time. Now fast forward three years, Twitter is still being used the same way but now that it’s the darling of spammers, gossip sites, news media and celebrities it seems people have forgotten that Twitter is still a communication tool that represents you as an person or brand. In other words how you behave or Tweet on Twitter can be seen as online version of you the person offline. To some this means if you’re a controversial person on Twitter we’re assuming you’re a controversial person offline or nice, or mean or crazy or sweet … you get the picture.

But regardless of how you are online or offline there have always been a few general people / courtesy life “rules” that you follow when interacting with others. These rules are priceless, they have not changed with time and they apply for Twitter, Facebook, blogs and anything else you want to throw in the social media space. The rules are for brands and people even if they’re using Twitter for personal reasons.The rules apply even if you have a disagreement with others or even if you don’t like someone or if you don’t agree with how someone is making a living. The rules are not just Twitter rules but life rules. All of us are guilty at some point of breaking these rules, my self included at some point. Also I believe if major corporations / brands tweeted like some of us have, we’ll have a lawyer on phone faster than someone could tweet “you lie” .

Nevertheless, the “new” Golden Rules of Twitter are:

• Tweet to people online like you want to be tweeted.
• Don’t Tweet anything online about a person that you wouldn’t want Tweeted about you or to you.
• Don’t Tweet and drink or Tweet while you’re drunk. (I’m a non-drinker) so I may be bias/
• Don’t Tweet when you’re mad or mad at someone. Take a break and count to 140 before you respond.
• If you can’t Tweet anything good about a person, don’t Tweet it at all.

Sounds familiar? It seems like between, town hall events or Twitter conversations we’re losing our respect for one another. I’m not sure when we as a society started to go down hill but personally I would like to see us it come back up. Does this mean you shouldn’t use your social media “voice” to express how you fill online? No, but there’s a proper way to handle every situation and handling it with a little dignity and respect for others is always better in the long hall.

In closing, are these rules new? Not really but it seems like a lot of people don’t remember them. What would you add to list?

Disclaimer: These rules have not been approved or endorsed by @Ev or @Biz and according to Twitter’s official terms of service, you own your Tweets.

PS: If you go there, I’ll close or delete the comments… it is my blog.

BTW: The best thing about blogs, they just keep going

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 9, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

All the Cool Kids Have 'Em: Social Web Profile Aggregation Sites

I’m not sure if it started with Tim Van Damme but he sure did kick off a trend of new “Social Web Profile Aggregation” sites or social networking profile identity aggregation sites. Can you feel the “buzzwords” through your computer screen, lol. Either way since Tim’s site was created one “Social Web Profile Aggregation” service has launched called Card.ly and now there’s a WordPress theme from John Saddington. Take a look at the WordPress theme below.

Hat tip to @Corvida who posted John’s WordPress theme on her Posterous site. It’s interesting that John calls his WordPress theme the “The Digital Business Card” vs  a “Social Web Profile Aggregation theme” but since the idea comes from Tim site which looks like a business card, I totally understand.

Back to Card.ly, I’ve blogged about it before here: 3 ways to showcase your social media profiles: Card.ly, DandyiD & Google profiles and since then a few other “Social Web Profile Aggregation” sites have launched such as hi.im. You can see my hi.im profile below.

There’s also chi.mp and Reallywho which that has a goal to be your “Identity Verification for the Social Web” service.

It seems with the explosion of social networks, social media and the social web, the next big thing may be social identity verification and aggregation. Something I’m sure Google is thinking about with Google Profiles and other services such as DandyID, Chi.mp and Reallywho. While these services are great for social web identity verification, they may be a little much for the average user who wants to just setup a cool WordPress site and promote their own social web profiles. If that’s the case then you  may want to give John’s digital business card WordPress theme a try.

Here’s my digital business card theme or Social Web Profile Aggregation Site as I like to call it at FriendWayne.com

Corvida has one at: OprahOfTheWeb.com

Jeff Cohen has one at: JeffreyLCohen.com

I want to say thanks to Tim for inspiring the idea and to John for creating the WordPress theme.

Do you have a similar website and what are you thoughts on the future social web identity verification?

Posted on July 17, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Friday Fix: 5 social media post that cover brands, campaigns & policies for weekend reading

Yes another Social Media post, so I’ll keep this one short. If you’re a beginner or a proven veteran it doesn’t hurt to review some winning and failed social media marketing stories from others. It also helps to review some old lessons and evaluate how you or your company is using social media now. Below are five social media post that should provide you with some useful tips on social media.

1. 10 things you should cover in your social networking policy

2. 7 Reasons Your Social Media Marketing Failed (and how to fix it!)

3. 10 Social Media Campaigns that Failed! Avoid their mistakes!

4. 10 Reasons to Use Social Media

5. 7 Ways to Use Social Media to Build Stunning Brands

Have a great weekend