The first I discovered courtesy of a tweet from Ogilvy who had a social media masterclass last week, hosted by Melissa Attree.  After the event they sent out a “TweetDoc”.  This is a very cool service, which I discovered has been around for 3 years already! Essentially it’s a way to document all the tweets for an event.

https://twitter.com/#!/OgilvyJoburg/status/163886111209435136

Go to TweetDoc.com, enter a hashtag and it will produce a PDF document of all the tweets during the event.  A very cool addition for an event, giving an overview of the trending words during the event and all those who participated in the tweetfest.

Here’s the first TweetDoc I made for the Unique Speaker Bureau speaker showcase events I presented at on Monday and Tuesday.

The second bit of coolness I read about in a Mashable article.  Called Timeline Movie maker you can make a one minute movie of your life as gleaned from your Facebook timeline.  You can choose from a few pre-selected music clips and you can take out any images you don’t want shown and then, of course, you can share it to Facebook.

So have a little fun and unleash the short movie maker in you. Make your movie here

If you’ve discovered any cool social media tools/gadgets/apps please be sure to let me know!

While Twitter is incompatible with countries that outlaw any kind of speech freedom and therefore it cannot exist (at least at this time and in this form) one example listed was Germany where freedom of expression is encouraged but certain views are outlawed such as anything pro-nazi.

The only way that Twitter could previously comply to content restrictions was to remove content. However such removal had to be done globally, that is content removed in Germany would not be available anywhere in world.

Twitter announced that they have developed the capability to selectively remove content. So, while certain content may be removed in one country it would still be accessible everywhere else that such content is not restricted.

This highlights the complexity and evolving nature of commmunication in a world that gets smaller and closer together yet still has to deal with cultural eccentricities.

The cle goes on to say that they have not used this capability as yet and when there is occassion to use it they will be transparent as to what content was removed and wny. A link is provided to a page where such notices will be kept.

While an initial reaction to such a move may cause a sense of disquiet and “how free is this?”. The truth, as I see it, is that it is better for such platforms to gain footholds in as many countries as possible and where oppressive restrictions exist that can (and will be) eroded from the inside. It’s one thing keeping something out but entirely another kicking it out once established!

Also by not limiting content globally Twitter is open the doors wider.

The full article can be found here

Do you think this is a positive move by Twitter?

Return on Investment – ROI – is the constant question of social media. Nothing gets social media people hemming and hawing and mumbling into their shoes like the ROI question.

And given the newness of social media it is no wonder there has been no definitive answer. For many though it seems quite straightforward: Followers, fans and Klout score. However, to an ever growing number there is the realisation that building a loyal, communicating community is a much greater prize.

This realisation comes with a changing mindset.  Business has owned the media for so long and consequently been in charge of the cycle of communication that accepting the reversal of this cycle is difficult to comprehend. But as social media users continue to shape social platforms to their own likes, tastes and lifestyles so acceptance of this change is coming.

Large numbers are important, but large quality numbers are even more important.  Sure, traditional media can reach vast numbers, a majority of whom may not be interested in your communication.  Imagine talking to a much smaller crowd who are intensely interested in what you have to say.  It takes less investment, but more creativity, to do that.

Coming back to the numbers.   These are excellent metrics to measure how your programmes are doing but are not success in themselves.  If you provide excellent content and conversation and your numbers grow steadily, it tells you that your are being successful in your efforts.  To artificially grow your numbers by purchasing fans (I heard of one case of this being done.  How I don’t know) or following 10,000 people on Twitter to get follow backs, tells you nothing.

By being real, genuine and properly engaged you will build influence.  And that is the key, certainly in 2012.  The return on your investment will be influence.  Built through open and honest engagement, and of course the ‘old school’ virtue of excellent service.

The combination is irresistible.

2011 was a breakthrough year for social media.  There was so much hype and hyperbole that many businesses rushed to put up Facebook pages and open Twitter accounts only to be faced with the very real question of “Now what?”.  Others still immediately blasted out their advertising messages only to be met with derision and ghost town followings.

2012 will be the year of social intelligence as I outlined in this blog article.

This article referred to being savvy to the multitude of conversations taking place moment to moment about your brand, industry and competitors.  But this will also extend to executives at senior level being intelligent about social.

Know what it is, know how it works, know what it is doing to your business. Even if an exec is not personally active (but seriously, the time is now) he or she cannot be ignorant about how it is evolving and how this evolution with affect their business.

And the greater the smarts at the top, the greater chance there is of those smarts translating to every level of the organisation.

It all comes back to the mantra of social business:  Be Smart, Be Engaged.  Be Human.

As our use of Facebook evolves we are building up “friends”  in very different areas of our lives.  We have our close family, our not so close family, close friends, business associates, work colleagues and on and on.  Each plays a specific role in our lives and what we do.

And as these friends grow it becomes important to deliver the right messages to the right people. By not paying attention to this you may be offending or upsetting groups of friends or you might be getting blocked by people that you may later want to engage.

Say you’ve had a particularly bad day and want to vent a little.  No problem, but let those closest to you know about it and not your business colleagues.

If you want to talk business make those updates available to your business network (and it is quite possible you have friends for different areas of business).

In this way you are talking to the right people about what is most real to them. Our personal and work lives have become blurred, as I wrote about here but the fact is that your poker friends may not want to know about the goings on at work and your important business contacts may not need to know about your family get together.  When you are talking to all your friends about what they care about, your network will increase in value.

Ok, great so how do you do it?

First you need to assign all your FB friends to lists. This is the hard part and may take some time if you’ve never done it.  But once done, maintaining it is pretty simple.  Every time you send a friend request you are able to add the person to a list right away.  The same thing when you accept a request. How do you edit your lists?

On your profile on the left hand side you’ll see a heading “LISTS”.  Click on this and you’ll be able to create lists and add friends to lists.

Now, every time you write a status update you have the option to select who sees it:

Click the button next to “post” and click the list you want to include in your update.  Now only those friends will be able to see that post.

IMPORTANT:  Facebook will save your last selection and assume it for your next update, so remember to change it as needed.

Using lists will take a long way in building an even better network.

I, like most people that are actively connected, get 3-5 invitations every month for some new social interest.  If it looks interesting enough I may register in order to reserve my username in case it makes it big one day but most are ignored.  So it was when I heard about Pinterest.  But then I saw an article about them, then another.  By the third I thought it was time to check it out.

I signed up for an account and experimented a little and spoke with some people that have used it.  Following is my description of the service and some ideas on how it could be used.

The platform was launched early in 2010.  It’s an invitation service at this point and once you are signed up you are given a few invitations. To get an invitation visit their site (www.pinterest.com) and fill in the form.  It took about 5 days to get my invite.

So what is it all about?

Think of a pin board on which you collect information about a subject.  In the 70s if you were following a celebrity you might have a pinboard on which you pinned every article you found about the guy.  That’s Pinterest, but in the 21st century.  Once you have an account you can set up multiple pinboards for your interests and as you troll the internet you can pin items to these boards.

Pinterest in a organising tool. It could also be used collaboratively. We all come across things that interest us or that we like.  Now there is a way to catagorise and save these things.

You might looking at something work related and see a picture of a great holiday resort you’d like to visit one day.  You don’t have the time to explore the venue in detail right now.  Just “pin” it and you can look at it again when you have more time.

What about shopping around?  Looking for a car?  As you search the net pin all the possibles to a board.  Now all your options are in one place and not scattered over 20 browser tabs.

So that’s the overview.  Here are some way to get creative:

• Use existing pinboards to get inspiration.  Search Pinterest for what you are interested in. Guaranteed someone has collected images that will be of interest to you.  Simply “repin” them to your board.
• Had a family get together or party or wedding?  At any such function there are as many photographers as there are people and each have posted their pics to Facebook, or to a website or Flickr.  Use Pinterest to pin these pictures to one pinboard.  Now you have a fully collaborated space for a full record of that event!
• Pinterest is a great way for brands to create exposure for their industry. A restaurant can have pinboards for functions at their restaurant, recipes and cooking ideas and more.
• Planning a function?  Pin ideas to your board, get others pin ideas to create that perfect style.
• Perhaps you want a makeover (guys or gals).  Pin style ideas for clothes or hair or whatever.  Now review your collection and make your choices.

The ideas are myriad! Get pinning.

You can follow me at www.pinterest.com/ryanhogarth.  You can also watch a short video tutorial here

Already using Pinterest?  Got any other ideas for using it? Let me know in the comments.

Brand pages on Google+ are gaining traction in the USA and elsewhere but South Africa doesn’t seem to have taken to it, yet. Traditional social tracking websites like SocialBakers don’t even list SA stats.

I did some quick, not very scientific, analyses of South African brands on Google+ and it’s pretty sorry.  On the plus side there are  a high number of Brand Pages but they’re all struggling along with little following and engagement.  I couldn’t find a brand page that had more than 271 followers (SA Tourism).

Interestingly the big name brands that are successful on Twitter and Facebook like Woolworths, Huisgenoot, Vodacom and Springleap have very little going on on Google+ with each having less than 100 followers (perhaps the better phrasing is they have been circled by less than 100).

The same goes for individuals that have a high profile on other social networks like Gareth Cliff and DJ Euphonik.

In July last year I wrote a review on Google+ and asked the question: Is the social web big enough for Facebook AND Google+.  The above tells me that,  in South Africa at this time, it is not.

The South African Facebook population is just touching 5 million.  This number represents 91% of online South Africans.  This high penetration rate will continue as more of our people get online (which they most certainly will).  Facebook is by far the king of social networks here. We all know someone that said they have no interest in Facebook and they will never use it.  Now they’re updating statuses with the best of them.  Through shear weight of time and pressure the platform has an unshakable hold.

The question for the average user then is “what will I get from Google+ that I’m not getting on Facebook?”.  The answer right now is nothing.

This is not to say that Google+ is no good.  Quite the contrary, I believe there are fantastic opportunities for individuals and brands to have deeper and more meaningful engagement with innovations like Hangout.  But this is all for naught if noone is there.

However, with the backing of the Google monolith and the importance that Google+ will play in search the platform will grow and become more and more important.  But it’s going to take time and plenty of it. Just yesterday Google announced that searches on Google will include results from your circles on Google+.  No doubt this will become more and more important and may be the trigger to get more people using it.  Chicken or the egg? Will brands bring the consumers or will the consumers bring the brands? From a brand perspective it wouldn’t be a bad idea to be there when the hoards arrive.

Are you on Google+? What would make you sign up or use it more?

As our business lives become  more integrated there is a greater demand to be connected anywhere we are.  In order to do so effectively we must have constant and reliable access to the information most important to us.

We’ve all heard of “cloud computing” but how can you utilise the cloud for seamless access to your data wherever you are and whatever device you are using?  Following are the three most popular services with instructions on how to use to them.  Most of these are free with paid options for greater benefits.  Use one or all of them and never sweat a hard drive crash again!

Google Docs  

More than just storage Google Docs will allow you to create and edit Word documents, Spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations.  You can also share documents with others if you are collaborating.

When you sign up for Google Docs (using your Google account.  If you don’t have one yet, setting it up is easy here) you are given a little over 7 gigabytes of free storage space.  This is shared between your various Google services such as Gmail, Docs & your Picasa web albums.  If you need more space, it’s pretty cheap: 20 gigs for $5 a year up to 1 terabyte for $265 a year.

Once you have a Google Docs account you can access it through you PC, Android device or iPhone.  There is an app for all these platforms.

To sign up go to: docs.google.com.  Sign in using your Google account details and you’re set.  You can upload all your existing documents on your PC or laptop.  Now that you have your account set up you may also want to download and install Google Cloud Connect by going here. This is a plug for Microsoft Office.  When installed you will have the option to automatically update any changes you make on Google Docs.  You can also upload new documents to Google docs using the plug in.

And don’t forget using your Gmail account means you will never lose another email.

Google Docs is probably the cheapest option in terms of storage costs.

DropBox

Go to www.dropbox.com and download and install in the application.  During the installation process you will be required to register an account.  Just follow the onscreen instructions.  Once installed you will have a folder called “My Dropbox” in the Documents folder on your PC/Laptop.  You can create new folders as you need them.  Any files you put in these folders will be syncronised with your dropbox account online.  Install the app on your Android or iPhone and you are able to immediately access your online documents with your device.  These can be edited and changed.  All changes will be sync’d back to all devices on which you have Dropbox installed.

The free account comes with 2 gigs of free storage.  After that it’s a little pricey at $99 a year for 50 gigs and $199 for 100 gigs.  Larger storage options are available if you need them.

Evernote

I love Evernote. As with Docs and Dropbox there is an app for your PC, Android device and iPhone and even Blackberry.

Where Google Docs and Dropbox are storage for any files but specifically for online collaboration and editing of Office docs, Evernote is about, well, notes.  Anything from your shopping list to elaborate notes with pictures and audio or video.  Evernote does it all.

Evernote is free with limited use.  I’ve found the free account to be more than adequate for my use and I’ve never run out of space.  With a premium account for only $45 a year you get a lot more storage plus additional features like searching your PDF’s, larger uploads and online support.

Go to www.evernote.com.  Download and install the application and then do the same on your mobile devices.

Between these 3 services you should never sweat a computer crash again.

In this age your data is everything.  It is worth the investment in time (and money if you need more storage) to prevent its loss.

Please feel free to email me at Ryan@Hogarth.co.za if you need help to install these services or have other questions.

If you know of other services that work just as well or better, please do let me know in the comments.

He closed the article with this: As you review your marketing plans, consider dropping “social” and assume that everyone is connected. Assume that your “ability to interrupt” is replaced by your “opportunity to participate.” Turn and look back at your entire business and ask yourself: “If I ran my business based on the assumption of transparent participation, what would it look like?” The answer is probably “Your business, five years from now.” So, no time like today to get ready for the future.

This actually simplifies matters so instead of asking “how do we do social media?” the more meaningful question is asked “how do we do business in the modern economy?”.

Its thrilling to see the creative solutions that come to the fore when that question is asked with an understanding of what an always connected, always on world means.  It’s a revitalising experience for a company.  There is a chance to move away from the dreary day to day meandering to the excitement of doing something new, something courageous, something that gets a company participating with its community.

Even a casual study of business since the turn of the century will tell you that it is innovation that is the answer to any slump in business or simply in remaining competitive. Our customers today own the media and they have all the choices and options and they hold the communication channels.

I’m all for dropping the ‘social’ label and making it all about the new thinking for a new marketplace. In upcoming blogs I’ll get into more detail of exactly how this will look.

In 2012 the international trend will be Social Intelligence with an emphasis on knowledge, intelligence about your business, industry and competitors.  This is and always has been the first step in developing a social media programme that is sustainable. Monitoring the social web and knowing what is being said about you, your industry and your competition.

And through this intelligence, real and effective social strategies will evolve.  The greatest effect of this will be seen in the office environment with the introduction of social platforms as part of every day workflow, much like email is used now.

Dell had great foresight in this regard.  Already in 2010 they put 5000 employees through social media university.

2012 will see social begin to dominate as communication platforms for business. We may even see email numbers go down for the first time since 1994.  At 260 billion emails a day, who can stand to get any more?

This will require a re-engineering of communication systems and training at all levels, including the C-suite (more accurately, especially the C-suite).

We will see marketing departments no longer being the sole custodians of social communication.  To be sure they will continue to be key players but for a business to go social every employee in every department must know and make use of it.  Only the most backward and resistant will still block & ban social access in the workplace.

It’s going to be a dynamic world in 2012.