Advertising via Social Networks

Finally here!

Like I said in my post about Blogging in an Enterprise, social networks are a great place for advertising. I personally, have not advertised in any social networks to prove a point to myself about how well blogging in essence is good for advertising your brand.

After I finish this post, I will start to advertise in social networks and I’ll be able to see the difference.

But anyway, advertising in social networks like Facebook and Twitter are key for any brand nowadays. I know for a fact when someone from Gen Y is searching a product to find out what it is – they search google and then Facebook (if google has not already listed their Facebook page as a search result).

Advertising in social networks is great for one major reason. People talk, and friends listen to advice from friends.

If your friend shares a link of a post-it note brand that just doesn’t lose its stick, then you are much more likely to buy that brand from then on. Its  the same with an event as well! If there is a flyer in the city about a comedy show coming up, you might glance at it and think “oh, another time” and pay no more thought to it after that.

But if you saw that 5 of your friends on Facebook are attending that event – you’re more likely to think again and reconsider attending yourself.

So social networks can be used to advertise pretty much anything!

One more example. The International Geological Congress (IGC) have decided to advertise highly via their social networks – which is all well in good, but it has to reach the people who would be interested in it. They could share links to group on Facebook that are interested in science, and then those people might share that link to all of their friends, who in turn could share the link with their friends. So that will work out for those who associate with other people interested in science.

The other step would be to use a social network site like Twitter to “tweet” the link to the IGC to various popular science symbols/celebrities, and then those may “re tweet” the link out to all that follow them.

Social networks are really an endless source of advertising and the building of brands awareness.

All that said, lets see how I go with advertising my brand – go to the bottom of the page and click the “Like” button to help me advertise my brand via Facebook 😀 and as usual, comment to tell me your opinion of advertising via social networks. Is it really as good as what I think it is?

~Daniel Keirnan

Enterprise Wiki

Ever wanted to share knowledge with a group of people and have them be able to add or edit that information, collaborating, refining the information to its full potential?

Well like I have said in a few posts now, there is a Web 2.0 tool called a Wiki. It allows you to customise a space where people can create a sum of group knowledge – which is very useful in a business!

Information could be shared via email, but I can say from experience that conversations with a group via emails, can get very messy.

Just looking at the image on the right, you can see how confusing emails can get – and that diagram was just meant to represent the original email from Red and how the others would reply. Imagine that on a much larger scale of 100 emails or more! Its insane to think that collaboration is still done this way.

With a wiki, you can keep all of the information in one place and just work on it over time, pooling information! It is really quite brilliant. Take Wikipedia for example – it is the largest online encyclopaedia. In fact, it is probably larger than any physical encyclopaedia as well.

All that shared knowledge would be great in an enterprise. A group of people could be collaborating on a project on one page, and then someone from a different department takes a look and thinks of a great idea. That person could then edit the page and put their idea on a bullet point down the bottom and when the original group comes back, they will find this new idea and be able to build on it – and if its a horrible idea.. well, they could just roll back the page to before the person added their idea to it (another great feature of wikis – history of edits).

So now the diagram is looking a bit more like this.

Still don’t understand where I am coming from with this wiki stuff? Watch this amazing video on wikis. I thought I knew everything about wikis already, and after watching this video, even I had learnt something new.

As the video suggests, wikis are very useful for organising events; so I recommend even the IGC (International Geological Congress) have the ability to do this as well, allowing the delegates to collaborate and share their knowledge with the rest of the people attending the congress. Decisions on venues and topics can be organised by this medium as well (Which will make for good publicity)

There really is so much you can do with wikis. You should try making one and seeing how it works; making sure to let me know about it afterwards, in the comments 😀

~Daniel Keirnan

Blogging in an Enterprise

I’m sure I have already mentioned why blogging is great for many reasons, but in a business, it is just as important.

Its useful for spreading corporate knowledge, be it external or internal. Posts like these help educate many people and it helps advertise the brand as well. Yes, I may have just referred to myself as a brand, but that’s what I am when I post on my blog. Every post is in essence, marketing myself.

It works too!

I’ve gotten a fair amount of views, and that is without me advertising at all. Its because a blog site like wordpress is rated higher in a search engine’s priorities and would put me higher on a list of search results.

After my 8th post, I will start advertising my blog and we’ll see how I go.

But anyway, as I was saying, a blog is great advertising for any business and it also makes the business more personable. If the CEO of the company has a blog they update reguarlarly and from time to time has a post about his most recent cake baking, people are more likely to buy his product because they like him as a person more and associate him with his business.

A blog isn’t just good for advertising and informing the masses – Its good internally as well.

If employees each had a blog they could update with whatever they wanted inside the business, connections would occur between people of similar interests. This is good, because it is ALWAYS good to have your employees communicating!

If Bob from merchandise design and Troy from accounting realised they both enjoy cycling and get together socially – chances are they will talk about work at some point. Troy might suggest a great new merchandise idea to Bob and from there they could collaborate on the idea and bring it forward using a Wiki. But I’ll get back to that wiki thing in my next post.

So blogs help people of similar interests get together and share knowledge. Cool? Yeah, they totally are!

Another example:
International Geological Congress (IGC) is a meeting that has been happening every 4 years since 1876. The 34th one is being held in Brisbane in 2012, by the Australian Geoscience Council. Right now they have been advertising on social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter, but I do not believe they have yet to use a blogging setup.

• They could use internal blogs within the planning committee to organise the event
• Implement an external blog to further advertise the event as well as inform people of what will be happening on the different days, at the different venues
• From that external blog, comment on other people’s blogs that relate to science, to get those people involve in the IGC

A blog is just another tool that should be used to bring any brand to its full potential.

~Daniel Keirnan

Adoption of Enterprise 2.0

In this day and age, for a business to not be using Web 2.0 tools is unproductive.

I’m going to start off with that point – because this is the era of connectivity, and for a business to not be using some kind of social media doesn’t make sense, as all of its competitors probably are. In a previous post I have talked about how social media can drastically improve a business – so why would you want to be putting your business at a disadvantage?

I mean, it is understandable why any business would be hesitant – there is a lot to take into account when you are adopting social media in a business. However, the important thing to consider is how the social media platform will be used. Once that is known – the type of platform can be implemented.

Different types of social media platforms? Well, yeah!

There are many out there in the market, all with the aim of improving enterprise connectivity, but all in various and slightly different ways. To name a few platforms:

• Intuit Brainstorm
• Spiceworks (a social media platform for IT staff in an enterprise)
• Yammer
• Skype (business version)
• Digsby
• Microsoft SharePoint
• MindTouch

Some businesses even make/employ someone to create their own social media platforms; Queensland’s Department of Education and Training uses OnePortal.

So with all those platforms out there, which one is best for your business? It all depends on several things, but I feel like I have gotten off topic from how to adopt Enterprise 2.0, so instead I will link you to some blogs that will maybe help you understand how to choose.

• Amber Nusland has a good article on understanding internal social media
• Kurt Kaufer has a good article on why to adopt Enterprise 2.0, as well as which Web 2.0 tools are useful

Now then! When it comes to the adoption of Enterprise 2.0, there are a few things to make note of:

• Initial implementation

The IT staff should understand the platform before it is made available to the rest of the business. This way, when the staff have problems or confusion about the new service, the IT staff can help them out with ease. If the IT staff can not fix the problem quickly and easily, the staff member with the issue, will have a bad impression of the service and not want to use it again.

• Training

Training is key. But not just for the IT staff, but for the other staff. My colleague Nick says its important to train the staff how to use the service, so when they use it for the first time, it is not perceived as difficult to overcome. Which is very true – and also means it is not up to the IT staff to fix a problem as it arises – that would just slow down the process of collaboration in a organisation.

• Avoid abuse of freedom

Even though the whole point of most social media tools is to have full access to sum of knowledge in an organisation, there of course has to be rules set in place so that certain staff can’t access information they should not know. If an employee was able to access the sales figures of a branch and change them so they had the highest sales to win an internal competition of who can sell the most of a certain product, this would be unethical and cause many issues. The rules for the internal social media would have to be tailored to the business.

• Senior participation

This is vital to the adoption of Enterprise 2.0! If the CEO of the business does not use the new social media service – Why should the staff? The higher ups of the company should be the ones using this tool the most. If anything, it makes the people in power look more accessible and human – people like working for people they can relate to.

Hopefully those tips will help your adoption of Enterprise 2.0 be a bit smoother. If you wish to understand more, try out the links in this post – and make sure to check out my colleague Nick’s blog!

~Daniel Keirnan

Legal Risks of 2.0

“With great power comes great responsibility“

With all of these Web 2.0 tools and social media sites popping up, what rules are being put in place to accommodate them?

One example I know well about is how they handle social media policies in Education Queensland, because I work in two state schools as a Technician.

There is two sets of policies. One is about how Teachers are to not communicate with students via social media, and the other is for managing a facebook page for the school.

When it comes to Teacher/Student relations, it is to be strictly professional and for one to add another on facebook as a ‘friend’ is blurring the lines. “If you use internet social networks in your personal time you must ensure that the content is appropriate and private, and that you restrict access to specific people who are not students.” (link)

When it comes to managing a facebook page for the school, the social media policy states many rules. It also states that it is a 24 hour/7 day week job of monitoring this page and that it also requires monitoring on the holidays, and how the administrator has to get permission from the principal before making any posts or deletion of posts and comments. The page is to not be linked to the administrators personal facebook page in any way.

Its actually an interesting read – I suggest you take a look at it in the social media policy link above.

Another issue with 2.0 in schools is when there is harassment of students or teachers. On this site, they talk about how students are using social media sites inappropriately. Students would be talking about other students or teachers in a derogatory way which would make teachers and students feel unsafe to go to school.

There was talk of how the students should not be allowed their on accounts on these social media sites, but in the end they implemented a social media policy at the school that students are to not mention the school at all.

If your place of business does not have any social media policies yet – why not bring this idea to your employer and see what they have to say.

If you need some more information on types of social media policies, try some of these blogs; Karla, Josh, Nick.

~Daniel  Keirnan

2.0 – Yes or No

Recap – Enterprise 2.0 is when a business has implemented social media tools into how the business runs.

So here is the real question:

Enterprise 2.0 – Yes or No?

In this post I will go over the pros and cons for why a business should implement social media into there core structure.

First the disadvantages:

• Reliability and Loss of control – Since social media is not hosted by the business (except in some cases – a wiki), they have less control over users and how the service is run.
• Reputation – “What goes online, stays online” is very true in the sense that if a customer posts that the business has wronged them with a faulty product or poor service, it can be hard to remove due to the policies put in place by the social media service. Even an employee could post something online about the company that is bad
• Productivity – Implementing a new service can initially slow down productivity and because of this, not be fully embraced by all of the employees, decreasing productivity even more.

Advantages:

• Efficiency and Productivity – Once the users have gotten used to the new social media tools, their productivity will improve dramatically as they have a more efficient ways of communicating and collaborating with each other.
• Knowledge – A wiki is a great way to allow a database of knowledge to be known to every member of the organisation. Even certain knowledge to the customers to help increase customer faith in your product/service and the company itself.
• Reputation – Social media tools are excellent for increasing the reputation of a business by allowing them to be seen doing something of worth – like improving a product/service or partnering up with a charity organisation. Social media is basically free advertisement.
• Staff engagement – The use of wikis or other social media tools like Google Docs. Allowing the staff to engage each other can further innovations to happen that not have normally occurred.

Adopting Web 2.0 tools and joining the Enterprise 2.0 community has helped many businesses like Colgate,  McDonalds, IBM and even NASA. An associate of mine, Nicholas Burge, has more information about how Enterprise 2.0 has helped the IBM and NASA. For a list of some Enterprise 2.0 Success stories, check out this link to a blog post by Pete Wildermuth.

~Daniel Keirnan

RSS Feeds

Hi again!

Okay, so we have all seen it around, but this doesn’t mean we know what it is.

You may have seen it on one of your favourite blogs or web comics – maybe even on an online shop. For example, you will find the RSS feed to my blog, on the top or bottom of the page. Like how you will find it on the bottom of Joshua Whysall’s blog.

Now you know that those “RSS thingies” have some purpose 🙂

What is that purpose?
Good question!

Before I looked into it, I had an idea that an RSS feed was a way to subscribe to a site or service and it would send you the updates. The updates then organise into a digital list with the newest things on top, so you would not have to go to the site every day to see if there was an update.

Good theory right? I checked the oh so reliable source of Wikipedia and it turns out I was pretty right on the money 🙂

So RSS feeds are good for saving time and not having to check the same site every day hoping that it has actually updated like they say they will (Referring to how VG Cats is meant to update every Wednesday and now usually update about once a month :()

What is RSS and how does it work?
According to the Wikipedia page, RSS is “Originally RDF Site Summary, often dubbed Really Simple Syndication)” – which means it is basically a file on the site’s server that they update with links and information so that you can see it in your RSS Reader because the Reader is linked to the file.

I know what you are thinking now – “What’s an RSS Reader???”. Its a program or service on the internet that you can make an account with (very easily) and then start to fill with your subscriptions.

Click for full view

Examples of RSS Readers are:

• Google Reader
• Bloglines
• Newsgator
• My Yahoo!

I personally use Google Reader because it was the simplest to make an account because I already had a Google account set up.

Still don’t understand how it works? This video on youtube explains it very well!

His warning in the video is very valid. I think I’m now addicted to RSS feeds!!

In the comments, why not tell me your experiences with RSS feeds or readers – maybe even tell me what type of sites you subscribe to with your RSS Readers 🙂

~Daniel Keirnan

What is a Blog?

Hi all!

So I’ve decided to start a blog. But what is a blog?

I looked around, read a few blogs, even watched some videos on what makes a blog successful or effective.. So what is a blog and how do I make it a good one?

I think a blog is a:

• place to express your thoughts and opinions
• professional journal of your interests
• way of networking and making contacts
• motivator of completing goals you have set

Knowing this, what makes the blog good? It all depends on who you are trying to sell your brand to. As I am a budding System Administrator and Enterprise 2.0 Consultant, my goal is to make my blog appealing to others in the IT industry or anyone who just enjoys learning about this kind of stuff.

Well.. since I now know what a blog is and what I want to achieve with it, I better get a blogging 🙂

~Daniel Keirnan