Which of the following most closely describes your company’s policy on visiting social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, while at work?

The results:

Prohibited completely: 54%
Permitted for business purposes only: 19%
Permitted for limited personal use: 16%
Permitted for any type of personal use: 10%
Don’t know/no answer: 1%

Not Understood?

It’s no surprise to me that so many companies are still hesitant to venture into the world of social media. After all, these technologies aren’t fully understood by many of today’s executives. But these new communication mediums cannot be ignored! A fundamental shift has occurred in the way we communicate, share ideas and engage one another. In order to be competitive, companies must become educated and willing to explore the benefits of social media.

Lost Productivity?

Many employers are worried that Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other sites divert employee attention away from the task at hand, and that employees spend time on personal communication. Of course they do to an extent. However, these sites can also become extremely effective customer engagement, retention, and sales tools. My opinion is that these sites don’t cause any more employee distraction than cell phones, email, instant messaging, surfing the web, water cooler chats, and the TV in the break room – all of which are allowed in most workplaces.

Losing Control?

Perhaps the issue is that executives are worried about employees sharing confidential information in the social space. If that is the case, blocking these sites at work doesn’t accomplish anything. Reality is, most employees are using these technologies anyway. Whether it is at home on their own time or at work on a cell phone, an ever increasing percentage of people are logging onto social networking sites and sharing all sorts of content (what they like, what they don’t like, what they are pissed off about, what they are happy about, who said what to who, who did what to who, what they are working on, what they are going to do, and on and on). If an employee’s interaction on social networking sites cannot be controlled when they are away from work, why bother trying to control them while they are at work? The best approach is to embrace social media, become educated, and help your employees understand what is and isn’t appropriate use.

Corporations have to understand that the use of social media isn’t something that might happen. It IS happening! Executives can no longer afford to ignore this fundamental shift in the way we communicate. To do so only hurts the company’s opportunity to engage customers and compete in the global economy.

Which side of the fence are you on? Should social media be banned in the workplace, or should companies embrace and promote the use of social media?

This article was originally posted on cityshift.org. Shift is a New Media Conference coming to Greenville, NC on May 27th & 28th, 2010.

Shift Conference is a free event designed to educate businesses and business owners in the use new media for cultural and economic influence. This event will benefit the growing creative economy in Eastern North Carolina. Shift will feature training and resources to take back with you, and will offer a great opportunity to network with other professionals from our region.

For more information, to register, to volunteer, or to become a sponsor, please visit the Shift Conference website at http://www.cityshift.org.

Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter. These social media sites and many others have gained increasing popularity over the past few years. Are you exploring these tools and learning how to effectively utilize them to connect with your customers in new ways? Perhaps you have been reluctant to jump into this space. Newsflash – Social media is not a fad! Just ask one of the more than 400 million users of Facebook, or one of the 75 million plus users on Twitter.

You must go where your customers are

Ten years ago, you would never think about not being listed in the yellow pages if you owned a business. Why? Because that is where people were going to look for you. These days, more and more people are turning to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and others to find you and your company. Gone are the days of thumbing through your local index to find services and local businesses. When is the last time you even remember looking at a phone book? If you are like me, I can’t tell you where to find one in my house – we simply don’t need it. Every service and every product that I want can be found on the Internet, at my convenience, using my laptop or my mobile phone. Wait, will I find your business there? Will I find your competitor there?

When they find you, what will they see?

Don’t think that you aren’t in these social spaces already. Even if you haven’t made an effort to create a Facebook Fan Page, start tweeting, or post a video on YouTube about your products and services, your customers and critics may have. Are they talking about you? If so, what are they saying? If you can’t answer these two questions, I encourage you to stop reading this article right now, and spend the next hour or two combing those sites to find out. You may already have a thriving fan community that your company could tap into. Then again, you might have a PR nightmare on your hands. Not knowing should scare the crap out of you.

You cannot afford to do nothing

Regardless of whether you find yourself or your company in either position, thriving community or PR nightmare, what message are you sending by not participating in these conversations? The opportunity here cannot be ignored. Think about this. If you knew that 150 of your best customers (those that love you and spend money with you frequently) were all going to be in one place, ready to hear from you, would you turn down the chance to connect with them? On the other hand, if one of your best customers was suddenly upset with you and decided to share that frustration with the entire world, how can you afford to not engage and attempt to make them happy again?

The time is now

Have you been reluctant to jump into social media? Perhaps you are worried about losing control. Maybe you don’t know enough about social media, or you are even intimidated by it. If you aren’t willing to take on the challenge of educating yourself and experimenting with these rapidly evolving tools, you are effectively planning to lose. The best advice I can give you about social media is to explore. You will never understand something that you aren’t willing to play with, and you can be assured that your competition is already or will soon be doing this. By the way, it’s free! The only thing you have to invest is your time. So go ahead, do some research and start exploring social media today. Either catch up, or you and your business will be left behind.

Sure, the relish squeeze bottle was invented for convenience. After all, no one wants to spend their day chasing little chopped up pieces of pickle around a jar with a knife. I’m sure the pickle companies of the world were hoping to capitalize on the success of the Heinz “EZ squirt” ketchup bottle that debuted a few years earlier. But, they forgot one important thing. Just because it works for one product or company doesn’t mean it will work for your product or company.

Social media can be the same way. Everyone is so eager to jump on the bandwagon and create a Facebook fan page or Twitter account. What they don’t realize is that without proper planning you are doomed to failure. What works for one company may not work for yours. You need to think about what you are trying to accomplish with your venture into social media. What are your goals? What sort of content will you share? How do you plan on engaging your customers? What will you do to attract fans to your page? How will you handle negative comments? It is very important to think about these things before you go public with your social media campaign.

Get your stakeholders involved and be prepared to spend some time planning before you send that first tweet or invite all those folks to your fan page. The old saying, “Poor planning leads to poor performance”, is definitely true when it comes to social media. Your plan should provide a steady, concerted effort to your campaign so you don’t have to try to overcompensate later. You don’t want your social media campaign to turn into a relish explosion!

1. It’s free! That’s right, no startup costs or monthly fees. How many other opportunities can you think of to connect and communicate with your customers that are free? (Note: While fan pages are free to create, you should consider that it will take someone’s time and attention in your organization to properly manage the fan page)
2. Fan pages are publicly visible. This is good because it allows people that aren’t even members of Facebook to view your page. Google can index the page and include it in search results.
3. Fan pages offer stats. You can track metrics such as how many fans you have, age and gender, what country your fans are from, and how many likes, comments and wall posts your fans are contributing. This will help you determine what works and what doesn’t work with the page.
4. Gain access to your fan’s stream. Status updates posted to your fan page will show up your fan’s stream. You may be concerned that you are spamming your fans. Don’t worry, they expect it! They want to see your updates – that’s why they signed up.
5. Give them the opportunity to interact. Having a fan page provides a place for your fans to engage you and each other, building community. This could backfire if you don’t have a plan for dealing with complaints and negative comments, so be sure to think about that ahead of time.
6. You can advertise your fan page. You can spend a little money to have your fan page appear in Facebook ads that are targeted to your selected demographic.

These are a few of the benefits of having a Facebook fan page for your business or organization. What are some other reasons you can think of for having a fan page?

Find New People to Follow

Once or twice a week, you should go on a “find people to follow” mission. You can go about this by searching for keywords and sorting through the thousands of responses to see if anyone looks interesting to you, or you can use one of several tools out there to help you find users who are sharing the type of content you want. Just Tweet It is a directory of twitter users sorted by genre. Once you drill down to a category, you can browse and view users and read their bios to see if you might be interested in following them. Twollow and Twollo are two popular services that will auto-follow users that tweet keywords that you specify. One of my favorite ways to find interesting people is to see who my friends are following. Since you are interested in their tweets, it is likely that they will be following other people that interest you. Don’t forget about Follow Friday! Follow Friday is a weekly event on Twitter. Users from all over the world participate by listing other twitter users they recommend and including the hashtag #FollowFriday or #ff in their tweet. There is good chance you will be interested in who your friends recommend.

Join In Conversations

You should take any opportunity to interact with other users by answering a question, retweeting things that interest you, and offering assistance if you have the knowledge to help someone with a problem. On several occasions, I have responded to people asking for help with websites. I know that I have built long lasting relationships with these folks because I connected with them when they were in need. Don’t be shy! If you have the answer, share it and you will be rewarded. It is important to remember that you have knowledge that other people need. Twitter is about interacting and building relationships, not marketing or promoting yourself at every opportunity.

Respond to Messages and Thank People

You should think of Twitter as you would any other popular means of communication. If someone sends you a message that elicits a response, take the time to get in touch. This is no different than someone sending you an email or leaving you a voice mail. Also, don’t forget to thank people for answering your questions and retweeting your posts. This goes a long way in building relationships and it leaves folks with a positive feeling about you.

Twitter is growing in popularity on a daily basis; and it is becoming harder to stand out above the crowd. The best policy is to check twitter with at least the same frequency that you would check your email. Remember to constantly seek out new people to follow, be a part of the conversation, and take the time to respond to messages and thank people when appropriate.

I hope that you find some of these tips helpful. What other habits do you recommend for twitter success?

Find New Customers

If you were a real estate agent and you knew that 100 people that wanted to buy a new home were standing in line somewhere in your town, wouldn’t you be there? You bet your ass you would! If those same 100 people were on Twitter looking to move to your town, why wouldn’t you want to connect with them there? Twitter search is a powerful feature. We live in an information NOW world. Imagine someone posting the following tweet: “Got the job! Looking for a home in Greenville NC. I start in two weeks. Yay!” If I was a real estate agent in Greenville NC, this would be gold to me. This user just sent an open invitation for you to contact them. They are in the market for a house and need help from someone who is knowledgeable in the area. Ask yourself this question, how many people on twitter right now are looking for your product or service? Can you afford to ignore them?

Connect With Current Customers

You may be surprised to find out that your customers are already using twitter. They may be talking about your products and services, or sharing the bad (or hopefully good!) experience they had with you. You should be listening and searching for people that are talking about you. Take time to engage these folks. If they share a good experience or a nice comment about you, be sure to thank them for the positive publicity. If the opposite is true, and they are complaining about your service or product, use Twitter as a service recovery tool and see if you can make it right. If you go out of your way to make them happy, chances are that they will also share this positive experience.

Keep an Eye On Your Competition

How many of you have called a competitor and posed as a potential customer to get a quote on a service? Do you visit the websites of your competition, register for their email newsletters and ride by their offices to see what they are up to? If they are on twitter, you should be interested in what they are doing there as well. What they share could be of value to you. They could be sharing insider tips, disclosing who their newest customers are, pitching a new idea, or even talking about how bad their business is doing (let’s hope not – but hey, you never know!). If any of this information would give you an edge over them, you should be listening. Remember this when you jump into the game though – They can see you too!

Get New Ideas and Other Valuable Information

Twitter can be a steady stream of new ideas, content, tips and resources. There are thought leaders and mavericks for your community on twitter already, sharing daily. You never know what you might be missing if you aren’t following them. The old saying used to be, “time is money.”  In today’s world, information is money!

As you can see, there are a variety of business uses for Twitter. If you have never even taken the time to look at Twitter, you will be amazed at the amount of conversation and information you are missing. According to research from eMarketer, Twitter will surpass 18 million users by the end of 2009. How long can you afford to resist this shift in the way we communicate? Join the conversation!

Remember this video? Of course you do! The Evolution of Dance video features Judson Laipply, a motivational speaker and dancer, dancing to music ranging from Elvis Presley to Michael Jackson. This video is the #2 most viewed video of all time with over 131 million views, and the #1 most favorited video of all time on YouTube. The Evolution of Dance is arguably the best example of a viral video.

What Is A Viral Video?

A viral video is a video clip that gains widespread popularity through sharing on social media sites, blogs, in emails, etc. The goal of your viral video strategy should be to create the potential for exponential growth in your message’s exposure and influence. Let’s take a look at some ways that you can prepare your YouTube video to go viral.

Make Your Video Stand Out

As of October 2009, YouTube announced that they receive well over one billion views per day. That’s over 11,574 views per second. You have to do something pretty remarkable to stand out in all the noise. This does not mean, however, that you need to have a professionally recorded or edited video – homemade is just fine! Plan well and shoot until you get it right.

Keep Your Video Short

I know what you are thinking. “But Chris, YouTube will accept a video of up to 10 minutes”. Yes, you are absolutely right, but that doesn’t mean you should try to make the video as long as possible. Try to keep it to between 2 and 3 minutes or less. People don’t have a lot of time, so it’s important to deliver your message, make it entertaining and get your point across in as little time as possible.

Good Titles And Descriptions Are Important

Keep in mind that these elements are used in search. You want people to be able to find you, so make your descriptions and titles accurate and interesting. Remember that many people on YouTube are title surfers, so a good title is probably the best thing you can do for your video. If you aren’t going to invest the time to write a good description and title and to correctly categorize your video, you might as well not post it.

Promote Your Video Everywhere

Realize that it takes time to build an audience. Don’t get discouraged when your first video receives very few or even no comments. You will get more hits and interaction as you post more videos and people find you. You should invest a good amount of time in promoting your video. It definitely won’t go viral if people can’t find it. Include links on your website, mention your video in emails and newsletters, share the link with your Facebook and Twitter friends, and be sure to hype up your video on your company blog.

Do you have any helpful information or tips for taking a YouTube video viral?

More examples of viral videos:

Simply stated, a tweetup is a gathering of Twitter users. Tweetups are often very informal meetings focused on a central topic of interest, such as social media or business networking, and usually include a good amount of social time. This is not always the case, however; some tweetups are strictly social events. It is suggested that you have a Twitter account so you can follow the interesting people that you meet, but an account is not required to attend. Are you trying to figure out what Twitter is, how it works, or how to register for an account? Great! A tweetup is an awesome place for you to start. You will have the opportunity to meet plenty of people from all walks of life that will be glad to answer questions and help you get started. It helps to bring a friend along to the first tweetup you go to if you are nervous or shy, but you will quickly find that the Twitter community is a very friendly and welcoming one.

What do people do at a tweetup?

Talk, meet new people and catch up with old friends, learn about interesting topics, share and discuss ideas and have fun! Tweetups are a great place to share stories and network with new people. You never know who might be in the room – an important local government figure, your next employer, or your next customer. The networking aspect of a tweetup is what I find most exciting.

What should you bring to a tweetup?

Yourself, an open mind, and a way to update your Twitter status if you have an account (laptop or phone). As previously stated, a twitter account is not required to attend; but if you have one, you will want to be able to follow people that you meet at the event. Bringing business cards is also a good idea – makes it easy to share your contact information.

How do you find out about tweetups?

One good place to check is Twitter itself by searching the #tweetup hashtag. Try searching for “your city #tweetup”. There are also a couple of sites you can check for info on local tweetups – http://twtvite.com and http://www.meetup.com are two excellent resources. If you can’t find a tweetup in your city by either of these methods, try asking around. I would suggest finding local twitter users in your area and asking them for information on local tweetups.

The upshot

Tweetups are a fun, safe way to meet with local Twitter users to share ideas, learn new things, and build networks. Tweetups are all about putting a face and a personality with those 140 character status updates – turning digital connections into physical and emotional connections – building relationships.